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Road Trip II - Rocky Mountain High Posting Date: Jun 15 2008 12:10AM In 1992, I took a road trip to celebrate graduating from university. Nothing much happened, and it was sixteen years ago, so naturally, I thought reconstructing the events of the trip through a series of internet columns would be a good idea. Turns out it takes five columns to tell the story. That’s how incredible the events of the trip were. This is the second column. All the events described here are true … I think. Only the names have been changed to protect people who are now good friends of powerful lawyers.
I had been dreaming of Denver for weeks. After all, the city bills itself as being a “mile high.” That’s freaking up there. I imagined driving along I-70 West and coming over the crest of a hill to a chorus of angels. I imagined seeing the snow-capped Rockies soar out of the ground carrying the majestic city of Denver up, up, up into the ice-white clouds. I imagined being struck speechless by the magnificence of the world’s most beautiful urban setting.
In actual fact, Denver bites.
First of all, this “mile high” stuff is a load of crap. They started measuring in New Jersey. You can’t see Jersey from Denver, so who cares? Why not start measuring from the Dead Sea just to make things sound really impressive? Denver could be the “Mile and One-Eighth High City.” It is impossible to stand in Denver, look around and conclude that you are a mile high.
The second problem with Denver is that it’s dull. Everyone in the city dresses like they can’t wait to leave and the downtown McDonald’s closes at 7:00 pm. Missouri was more majestic than Denver, so my travelling companion and I pointed my mother’s Toyota Corolla west and went up into the mountains.
We soon stopped at a small shell of a mining village called Georgetown. Georgetown is the opposite of Denver. Georgetown has character, mountains, late night dining possibilities and altitude. This small mountain valley town featured a handful of newish condos, but not enough to blight the charm of the Nineteenth Century-eque shops and steam engine loop railroad. We climbed real mountains, drank out of real mountain streams and identified spots that make you say, “If I had a million dollars and a building permit, I would put a house right here.”
Breakfast in Georgetown was as big as the mountain air. Ensconced in a pine-panelled short-order restaurant, I ordered a plate of “mountain cakes.” The “small stack” was $1.99. The “tall stack” was $2.49. I chose the tall stack. I was hungry. I was a man. I had fifty cents burning a hole in my pocket.
The cakes – all three of them – arrived on a pack mule. They came crashing down on a thankfully sturdy table and soaked up seven gallons of maple syrup. If Denver really wanted to live up to its nickname, it would have been built on top of my breakfast. I ate one mountain cake (which nearly killed me), then cut up the remaining two to make it look like I had made more progress than I had. In Georgetown, for the first time in my life, I was humbled by food.
There are two roads out of Georgetown. One is I-70. The other is a dirt road that hairpins sharply skyward into what appears to be a solid blanket of coniferous forest. We did not take I-70.
The twisting track beneath us levelled off near something called Clear Lake which is exactly as advertised. I was so impressed, I dipped my hands in its crystal waters and took a drink. I felt totally Grizzly Adams.
We did not linger, however, as the Continental Divide was calling to us. We launched mom’s trusty Corolla toward the crown of our continent with a single-mindedness that would not waver … unless we happened across an outlet mall, which is what they have in Dillon Lake, Colorado, an otherwise breathtakingly beautiful spot with sharp, skyward mountains; a startling blue lake; and perfect sand beaches. We hit the brakes and I bought a Nike jacket with one arm shorter than the other, which is what being in the Rockies is all about.
Pushing westward to Vail, we were anticipating something awesome. I mean, if Dillon Lake, which no one has ever heard of, is awesome, then Vail must be off the charts. Strange thing about Vail though ... it doesn’t have streets. The whole town is a linked series of parking lots. You can get from one end of Vail to the other without ever leaving someone’s driveway. We found being in Vail a little like trespassing, so we left almost instantly, driving into the sunset.
After a while, an odd feeling came over me, a feeling apparently without cause or precedent. I did not figure out until much later what happened. Somewhere not far behind us was the Continental Divide. My blood had changed directions and was now flowing west.
Next Time: The Rocks of Utah |
