Sunday, August 25, 2013
Reflections on our Denver Area Stay
As we approach the last two weeks of our long layover in the
greater Denver area (scheduled to hitch up and head East on Sunday, Sept 8), I
have several observations:
1.
Colorado is a beautiful area IF you get into the
mountains looming just to the West of Denver; but quite ordinary once you reach
the flats (plains) that stretch all the way from Denver east to Kansas and
beyond and the urban sprawl of a large city such as Denver itself. Truthfully, unlike past visits to Sara and
Drew, we have not yet even driven into Downtown Denver; closest we got was a
hospital run on the east edge of downtown when baby Jonah arrived on the 4th
of July; and the downtown areas, parts of it at least, are quite attractive;
but the surrounding suburbs, with a few exceptions, are not memorable.
2.
The
exceptions, in my view are Golden, where we, as of August 20, began our second stay in a lovely,
if expensive, RV Park named Dakota Ridge; Boulder to a certain extent, though
it’s busier and more grid-locked traffic-wise than I’d imagined before visiting
there; and Louisville, a suburb of Boulder,where Sara and Drew and, now, Jonah,
live, a typical small-town USA setting, if decidedly re-invented as an upscale
“yuppie” hangout with sidewalk café’s, street fairs, famers markets, etc. Fort Collins, in northern Colorado, close
to Loveland, where we stayed from late July through mid-August, is another very nice town; a college
town (Colorado State) with a very lively
and revitalized “old town”.
3.
Speaking of which, several places, Golden, Loveland, Louisville,
Boulder for example, have regular Weekend/Farmer markets during the
summer; Boulder’s is biggest but
interesting, Loveland and Louisville are smaller and just about right; Golden’s
is on a paved/concrete slab with little shade but a decent setting otherwise on
the banks of Clear Creek, which runs right through town. We’ve enjoyed various weekend outings to
all. However, none can compare to the
ambiance, and food choices, at Eugene’s own Saturday and Farmers’ Markets. We’ll ignore, for the moment, the little
matter of human excrement recently creating problems in the downtown park
blocks (we keep up with local news through the RG online edition).
4.
The Denver area has lots of Summer Afternoon
thunderstorms. During our first couple weeks in Golden in July, it seems like
we had almost nightly rumblings up in the sky, which would often start out
bright blue in the AM, but with thunderclouds inevitably building and darkening
and eventually developing into cracking and booming thunderstorms, some with
torrential rain showers. During our (so
far) 7 weeks in Colorado, as a matter of fact, we have been in a cracking
thunderstorm in the Golden RV Park, one particularly loud crack of lightning
striking the park clubhouse and taking out the WiFi system for a couple days
(the horrible sacrifices we have to make sometimes having no immediate internet
connection).
Then, a few weeks later, in early
August, we were up in Loveland, north of the Denver area and found ourselves
surrounded by very dark and ominous looking skies, finding out soon enough that
the whole area was under what they call a “tornado watch” that soon enough
developed into a “tornado warning”, I guess a little bit more serious situation
than a mere “watch”. Anyhow, the most
severe storm system seemed to be just to the north and east of us ( “Dorothy, I
think we’re almost in KANSAS!”); and we, probably because we didn’t know any
better OR the nearest semblance of a “tornado shelter” would have been a
rickety wood laundry facility in the RV park, stubbornly held tight in our
little apartment on wheels (the 5th wheel trailer) until the worst of the storm passed on to,
well, the plains of Eastern Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska.
Then just yesterday as I write
this, on a trip down to Colorado and Pikes Peak (more on that later), we
observed as we motored through a cute little town called Manitou Springs set in
a cute little river canyon, that the town was under a “flash flood” warning due
to violent thunderstorms developing in the area. We motored on through in Sara’s Outback (the
“State Car of Colorado” according to our daughter… and here I always considered
it the National Car of Eugene!), me at the wheel wondering if Subarus made good
boats, then headed up the freeway toward Denver
70 miles away. There we found
some of the violent storm systems, jagged bolts of lightning flashing down on
the dark, clouded horizon ahead of us, hail piled several inches thick along
the freeway from a storm that had just passed a bit before we got there,
hydroplaning on standing water at 60 mph as we approached the Southern Denver
suburb of Littleton; and all in all a not very relaxing cruise home. We discovered later that a flash flood
actually had roared through the little town of Manitou Springs after we’d
headed home, nearly overflowing the banks of the little creek/river flowing through
town.
And today, back in our RV park in
Golden, we have more rumblings overhead, but so far our sacred WiFi remains
intact (ie no direct lightning strikes). Such fun!
5.
Despite being in frequent contact with Daughter,
Grandson and Son-in-Law during our (now) 7 week stay in Colorado, and being on
“grandparent call” most days, we have, on a few occasions, headed up into the mountains to enjoy the
spectacular natural splendor of the Rockies.
Early on, Elaine and I drove up to Vail and spent the day there riding
the ski area gondolas up high on the now snow-free ski slopes for stunning
mountain vistas and high altitude dining (10,000+ feet in elevation) at the top
of one gondola run. Then a few weeks
later, Sara, Jonah and Elaine and I took a two night trip to Aspen, which
included climbing 12,000 foot high Independence Pass enroute, and, of course,
more spectacular Rocky Mountain Splendor.
As a special treat, while in Aspen, I
discovered that the town had erected a sanctuary along a beautiful little creek
that ran through town for its late celebrated citizen (one of many celebrity
types who have since called Aspen home I believe), John Henry Deutschendorf,
aka John Denver. John also happens, or
rather happened, to be a Second cousin (on my mother’s side, she and John’s Dad
were first cousins). So, although I’d
never met this “cuz” personally, though I’d been to one of his concerts in
Eugene long ago, it was particularly interesting and moving to see this natural
sanctuary dedicated to Mr. Denver. On
the same theme, I “google-mapped” John’s palatial home in the Aspen foothills
during our stay, and on the last day in town we set on up into the hills to
view it. Irony was we got turned back a
half mile from the 8,000 square foot house (John was in the 1% at the top of my
extended family wealth-wise, probably a sole member of that family club) by a
gated entrance guard house. In
“googling” further later, I discovered that John Denver himself, my OWN CUZ for
crying out loud, had been instrumental in establishing the “gated community” as
one of its early residents; not because he was a snobbish celebrity necessarily
(well maybe that had something to do with it), but, as the “google” story went,
more because he wanted to protect the privacy of his neighbors; and his home
had become a tourist magnet. So his very
own blood kin got turned back that day without a fight… oh well!
Then just a few days ago, last
Thursday (Aug22), Sara, Jonah, Elaine and I drove down to Colorado Springs,
home of the Air Force Academy and close
neighbor to the flash flood mecca,
Manitou Springs, and Pikes Peak, a 14,100 foot high massive, stone crag with a
road winding right up to the summit.
Naturally we headed right up Pikes Peak, me at the wheel with
increasingly clammy hands gripping the steering wheel as we ascended through
timber line to the open rocky cliffs, with most of the switch-backing road not having any guardrails. I do not do heights very well, especially
ones with steep cliffs dropping off from the road and no guard-rails; but I
plugged along, while hugging the middle stripe of the road whenever possible;
until little Jonah, at about 13,000 plus feet and a mere 1 ½ miles from the
summit (on a 19 mile summit road), started to mildly complain about the
rarefied air. So, with Elaine first
suggesting it, and Sara agreeing it was best, I gratefully and carefully turned the vehicle around and
we headed back down just short of the summit.
Despite not “summiting”, the views at 13,000, the highest I’ve ever been
when not smoking good… I mean not flying in an airplane… were spectacular.
And so were the views, spectacular
that is, down at a more modest 6,000 feet back in Colorado Springs when we
drove into a city park called Garden of the Gods. This park had stunning red rock formations
interspersed with craggy granite spires, on top of one, we discovered, stood a
couple big horn sheep lording over their domain.
6.
Other
treats/oddities, etc.
LPGA Solheim Cup a week ago – for those not tuned into Ladies’
Professional Golf, this is a biennial team competition between USA and Europe,
switching venues between Europe and the USA each time. This time it was held in Parker, Colorado,
just south of Denver, and Drew, our son-in-law, was assistant tournament
director (he works for the LPGA). Being
in charge of a tournament like this is a tremendous undertaking involving over
a year of prep work to get crowd control, vendors, player accommodations,
course set-up, all prepared prior to the big event. Suffice to say that in the week leading up to
the tournament and during the tournament itself we rarely saw Drew, he was so
busy. But we benefitted from his
association by being special guests of the LPGA, which got us privileges like
standing right next to the first tee while the players teed off each day. It was really quite an exciting moment, or
rather moments, to be there within mere yards of top current professionals as
well as living legends in the sport. On
the last day, Sunday a week ago, there was Nancy Lopez, one of the greatest US
women golfers of all time, now retired, standing at the front of the first tee
bleachers leading cheers for the USA.
The European supporters were smaller in number, but no less
enthusiastic; and the fact that the USA got their butts whipped in the team
competition did little to detract from the overall atmosphere in my view.
Denver area has signs all over about watching for wildlife crossing the
roads, some right in the urban areas. We
have seen relatively few wildlife actually, considering how much open space and
mountains we have driven through, but have had a few interesting sightings
nevertheless:
A. A Coyote strolling down a paved sidewalk in a city park in one of the
Denver suburbs
B. Buffalo in a field along the freeway (and they weren’t beefers being
raised for slaughter) on one of our trips up into the Rockies.
C. The aforementioned Big Horn
Sheep lording over their Rock Fortress down in Valley of the Gods in Colorado
Springs.
D. Four big Muley Bucks trying to work their way onto one of the putting
greens during the Solheim Cup. A
player’s caddy shooed them away from the green.
E. And finally, a small herd of
Antelope moving across the grassy hills adjacent to the golf course where the
tournament was held.
BUT the biggest treat of all, hands down, has been the privilege of
spending the first two months of his life with our precious grandson,
Jonah. He is truly a delight, and we
will miss the little guy when we leave here in two weeks. Okay, we’ll miss his Mom and Dad some too;
but Jonah has been a special treat.
That’s
about all for now. For those of you who
don’t already know, and/or who haven’t already been “friended”, I was convinced
(cajoled? nagged?)
by
several co-workers who shall remain nameless, but whose initials are FL, DH,
and TMH, before I left EWEB to open a
Facebook account once I sailed off into retirement. It took me awhile to get around to it; but,
with Sara’s help, I am now on Facebook in case anybody wants to check in that
way. I can be found by searching for Pat (not Patrick) Ventura from
Eugene. I plan to put regular posts out
there on Facebook as we travel Eastward in a couple weeks, aiming for Maine by
mid-September, but will also keep a log on a computer word document as well for
non-Facebookers and will gladly share what any of you would like or can
tolerate.
Ate’ logo
Pat 8/25/13
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