On the Road 001

An intermittent vegetative state has descended, resulting in a dearth of fecundity in the blog department. Several restful but uneventful days in Virginia morphed into a hectic departure in advance of impending weather. A marathon 16-hour drive ended in Topeka, KS, where I had the serendipitous fortune to dine in a sports bar at the exact moment the Kansas State Jayhawk basketball team (main campus in Topeka) was shellacking the University of Kansas for the first time since John Quincy Adams ascended to the presidency.

I was hugged by a bearded man of indeterminate but intense olfactory bouquet, and had my Dos Equis toppled by a band of jubilant celebrants, who promptly bought me 3 refills, a noble gesture my already drive-mottled brain scarcely required. But apparently being the first solid cup of cheer visited on this eastern Kansas outpost in decades, I was determined to accept the revelry in good spirit.

After a short night I arrived in Silverthorne, CO at the end of a second butt-blistering 10 hour day. Snowpacked streets that will not see asphalt before spring and snowbanks that dwarf me are the order of the winter here, and the altitude, 11,000+ ft., conspires to keep the pack hard and crunchy with little slush. I suffer from a marked sensitivity when thrust skyward toward the stratosphere, and felt wobbly for several days, said condition certainly aided by generous sampling of the many craft beers that proliferate in the Rocky Mountain west.

There appear to be but two classes of citizen here: vacationers who come to drink and ski and drink some more, and “seasonals” who come to snowboard non-stop, but cursed with having to serve the vacationers in some capacity. Like virtually all service personnel in vacation spots around the globe, they distain those who provide their sustenance, and they are on balance justified. Why so many vacationers forget to pack their manners, common sense, and good will is a conundrum that has mystified sociologists throughout history. Why travel a thousand miles only to grouse that the local wine stocked in your neighborhood 7-11 is not available at your destination?

A single day on the slopes of Copper Mountain reinforced the wavering conviction that there is some juice left in the bottle. Mountains devoid of powder, bumps, wind, crowds, and snowcats are my decided preference, and I was fortunate to find all said conditions present on a bright February Tuesday morning.

My planned departure north was inconvenienced by a two foot dump on local mountain communities (Denver, 50 miles to the east got zero) and I-70 at the Eisenhower Tunnel was closed for nearly 24 hours due to avalanche potential. But one day later I scurried up I-25 to I-90 west in blowing snow, and arrived in Bozeman, MT before nightfall, a mere 11 hour drive-in-the-park.

Bozeman, nearly surrounded by mountains, is beautiful year round, but the lack of altitude, a paltry 5,000+ feet, yields a continual cycle of freeze-thaw, crunch and slush. Yet the crisp, dry western air is deceptively accommodating, tempting the naïve to venture out in light attire, only to find within several moments the still wet hair from the recent shower is frozen solid and the ears feel like rodents have been gnawing thereupon.

I have long felt the American west is one of the few remaining bastions of the cowboy spirit, of rugged individualism where folks are afforded the opportunity to rise and fall, succeed and fail, soar and plummet, individually reaping the rewards or misery of their actions, while much of the remainder of the planet seems intent on wealth distribution, blame allocation (always to others; never to self), and political correctness.

But with each visit I see the culture of independence slipping away. Colorado has led the way, with Boulder (where I once lived and now commonly referred to as “the Peoples Republic of…”) in the vanguard. It and other western climbs are increasingly populated by east- and west-coasters who have ruined their respective ends of the country and relocate to escape, only to participate enthusiastically in the ruination of their newfound home. Surely there should be some small patch of earth reserved for the dwindling few who wish to exist within the village without being absorbed by it.

Might not we aspire to a world where Brittney, Roger, and Paris (she, not it) grab fewer headlines and where schoolteachers, firefighters, and volunteer mentors gain a bit more visibility?

the adventure continues…