Part VI………………………EASTWARD HO!
On Sunday, March 21st, at 6:15 PM, we closed and locked the doors of The Riverside for the final time. It was a beautiful evening – the kind that I grew to relish, the kind of evening that made all of the pain and struggles inherent of living in Grand County worthwhile. All of my favorite Grand County early evening accoutrements were on display, particularly the emerald blue eastern sky which starkly contrasted the pumpkin-colored alpenglow on the rise of Cottonwood Pass. Many an evening I sat in front of the hotel, regardless of the temperature or the crowd in the restaurant, (“Have you seen our waiter???”) and drank in that ‘has to be seen to be believed’ vista to the east. I guess I always new that our time in Hot Sulphur Springs would be relatively short lived – 5 to 10 years at best – and I took advantage of every opportunity to gaze at the surrounding spectra as if it would be my last. The time for my last gaze had come, albeit a lot sooner than I had either imagined or intended, and I witnessed that natural spectacle for the final time through eyes blurred by tears of both joy and sadness.
We’d succumbed to the forces that were thrashing our dream – the economy, the bank, our ineptitude and our newfound lack of desire due to all of the afore-mentioned. We were leaving good friends and a lifestyle in a vacation setting that most people only dream of realizing. The tears shed on the wings of such failings, such sadness, were expected and require no explanation.
Yet, there were also tears of joy?
Yes, tears of joy indeed, at the immitigable delight of a fresh start, in a new place; another exhilarating go at embracing the unknown. This speaks to why we left our Shawnee, KS comfort zone and did this crazy thing in the first place. We were the new pioneers, giving up the safety and security of our cushy life in the suburbs and packing up our belongings to head west into the unknown. And not unlike the old pioneers, that unknown held the promise of a radically different, and a hopefully better, way of life. We knew there were risks, both in the journey and at the destination, but we looked beyond the rational and forged ahead. We focused on the joy of change and the excitement of the unknown, concentrating on the glory of what could go right as opposed to the agony of what might go wrong.
I don’t wish the feeling of failure and nothingness at the end of the rainbow on anyone, but I can tell you that the feeling you experience at the onset of the quest is an elixir that cannot be reproduced, bottled or sold, not for any price. I also have many regrets about our ‘mid-life’ crisis, our westward digression, but one of them isn’t the indescribable feeling that you experience when you step off the ledge into the unknown.
And here we were, two short years later, stepping off another ledge. I was short of breath; my head swirled, and yes, melded into the burnt orange and azure eastern evening vistas, there were indeed tears of joy.
Back to reality, as our 2003 Suburban was absolutely crammed to the gills with stuff that we didn’t want in the moving van. Most of it was booze-related. Specifically, 50-60 bottles of wine, collectable stuff that I took better care of than my kids. And for good reason, damn it! Add to these a dozen Riedel wine glasses, very carefully packed, and my crystal Riedel phallic wine decanter. You look at this thing wrong and it breaks. No way its going in a moving van – even crated in a 4'x 4' x 6' box with 96-pounds of packing paper. We also had several crates of hard liquor that we took from the bar; stuff Julie and I didn’t drink, but you never knew when you were going to be invited to a ‘bring your own Grasshopper’ party down in Mississippi; If that call came in, I had the juice. Add to this our traveling clothes, last-minute nik-naks, some yard and garden things....and of course, Lucy.
The plan was to pull out of Hot Sulphur whenever we did, and drive as far as we could that evening. I didn’t care what time we left or how far we got; whatever it be, I didn’t want to spend one more night at The Riverside. I even had discussions with myself all day about the ultimate departure, and ‘not looking back’. You’d have to experience what I’d gone through the past eight months, with me living in Mississippi, Julie living in Colorado, the bank giving us the old jail house chi-chi, etc, etc, etc, before you'd understand why I wouldn't want to look back. I loved the place, I had great times and better memories, but I WANTED OUT OF GRAND COUNTY!
6:15 PM, the door was locked, hugs and tears to all assembled at our farewell. We climbed in the Suburban, backed out of the alley, and headed east on Grand Street. I hadn’t driven thirty feet, and in spite of what I promised myself I wouldn’t do, I looked back, into the drivers-side rear view mirror. It was a spectacular vision, as the magnificent white façade of that grand old girl was bathed in the luminescent orange glow of the setting sun. It was my favorite Grand County evening vision; it was alpenglow on The Riverside. I didn't take my eyes off of the place for the half-mile up Grand Street that I could still see her. In my last view of the place, she looked as beautiful as I’d ever seen her look. It was a 240-volt jolt reminding me of why I shucked it all to move west, move here. The tears flowed, unabated.
The rearview mirror view dissipated. We hit Highway 40, and headed east. The tears abated.
Eastward Ho!
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Losing Life Riverside
Part V…………………….A Fluid Farewell (continued)
I’d made 8, 10, 12 trips – I’d lost count - back and forth in my Sisyphean effort to keep the water from flooding our bathroom, but to no immediate avail. The water just kept coming, but from where? During bucket-running trip number X, I noticed the sound of running water as I ran past the laundry room. Instantly it registered to me, as I’d heard that sound before; the upstairs toilet in bathroom #2 was running, as occasionally the flapper valve in that toilet would stick. Not often, but occasionally. But the previous occasions of stuck flapper valves had always involved actual humans being upstairs, actually flushing the toilet. No one had been upstairs for an hour.
I dumped the bucket and ran upstairs to fix the toilet. "Holy Shit!" The bathroom door was locked. “You’ve got to be kidding me! The freaking bathroom door is locked!”
This would be the bathroom on the left, bathroom #2, for which we have no key. It wouldn’t be the bathroom on the right, bathroom #1, for which we have a key.
“All right” I said to myself, “Take a deep breath and gather your thoughts. Let’s see. Five of us have been in the house for the past hour, and none of us have gone upstairs. I’m certain of this, as we were all downstairs together, and all within earshot as the water started rising in our bathroom toilet; water from which I now know is from this running toilet. So within the last 10 minutes, this toilet flushed, the flapper valve got stuck, and now the door is locked.”
I didn’t have too much more time to stand around and talk to myself and examine the implications of obvious physical activity without the presence of physical beings. I ran downstairs and told my neighbor what was up, his wife stepping in to vacuum the water, while he took over the bucket-running duties. Darin still stood quietly in the office, with a mad grin on his face and a glazed look in his eyes.
Three or four times during our ownership this bathroom door had been inadvertently locked by guests. You’d think that I would have gotten a new lock with an actual key, but noooo, I’d found a cheaper way around this problem, as I was able to pry the door molding ajar with a putty knife then use a small saw to jimmy the lock. I would have run to get that prying tool and small saw, but I knew it a wasted effort as they were probably packed in a 36”x24”x24” box with 24 pounds of packing paper, labeled “BATHROOM #2 JIMMY TOOLS”. The box was certainly well hidden in the moving van; in fact, all of my tools, and anything that even resembled a tool, was in a box in the van.
At this point, I was literally running around pell-mell downstairs, resembling something like a wild-eyed, sweaty, fleshy pinball, as I ran from this room to that, looking for something, anything, that I could use to get in that bathroom. I’d run by the large silverware tray four or five times - the silverware tray that contained 150 knives, any of which would have worked beautifully for both the molding pry and the lock jimmy process – before it hit me like a big “W”. I grabbed a knife – a simple dinner knife – ran upstairs and within a matter of seconds, pried open the molding, jimmied the lock and silenced the toilet.
The water stopped rising. The bucket brigade ended. Darin was still smiling.
The ghost had to be laughing hysterically, proud as a peacock of his final Seinfeldian prank. If there are multiple Riverside ghosts, I’m certain there was back-slapping, high-fiving and exploding fists as well. While humored, I’ll hope that they were also heartbroken at our impending departure – we were not only good stewards of their domain, but even better foibles for their ghostly folly.
To be concluded................
I’d made 8, 10, 12 trips – I’d lost count - back and forth in my Sisyphean effort to keep the water from flooding our bathroom, but to no immediate avail. The water just kept coming, but from where? During bucket-running trip number X, I noticed the sound of running water as I ran past the laundry room. Instantly it registered to me, as I’d heard that sound before; the upstairs toilet in bathroom #2 was running, as occasionally the flapper valve in that toilet would stick. Not often, but occasionally. But the previous occasions of stuck flapper valves had always involved actual humans being upstairs, actually flushing the toilet. No one had been upstairs for an hour.
I dumped the bucket and ran upstairs to fix the toilet. "Holy Shit!" The bathroom door was locked. “You’ve got to be kidding me! The freaking bathroom door is locked!”
This would be the bathroom on the left, bathroom #2, for which we have no key. It wouldn’t be the bathroom on the right, bathroom #1, for which we have a key.
“All right” I said to myself, “Take a deep breath and gather your thoughts. Let’s see. Five of us have been in the house for the past hour, and none of us have gone upstairs. I’m certain of this, as we were all downstairs together, and all within earshot as the water started rising in our bathroom toilet; water from which I now know is from this running toilet. So within the last 10 minutes, this toilet flushed, the flapper valve got stuck, and now the door is locked.”
I didn’t have too much more time to stand around and talk to myself and examine the implications of obvious physical activity without the presence of physical beings. I ran downstairs and told my neighbor what was up, his wife stepping in to vacuum the water, while he took over the bucket-running duties. Darin still stood quietly in the office, with a mad grin on his face and a glazed look in his eyes.
Three or four times during our ownership this bathroom door had been inadvertently locked by guests. You’d think that I would have gotten a new lock with an actual key, but noooo, I’d found a cheaper way around this problem, as I was able to pry the door molding ajar with a putty knife then use a small saw to jimmy the lock. I would have run to get that prying tool and small saw, but I knew it a wasted effort as they were probably packed in a 36”x24”x24” box with 24 pounds of packing paper, labeled “BATHROOM #2 JIMMY TOOLS”. The box was certainly well hidden in the moving van; in fact, all of my tools, and anything that even resembled a tool, was in a box in the van.
At this point, I was literally running around pell-mell downstairs, resembling something like a wild-eyed, sweaty, fleshy pinball, as I ran from this room to that, looking for something, anything, that I could use to get in that bathroom. I’d run by the large silverware tray four or five times - the silverware tray that contained 150 knives, any of which would have worked beautifully for both the molding pry and the lock jimmy process – before it hit me like a big “W”. I grabbed a knife – a simple dinner knife – ran upstairs and within a matter of seconds, pried open the molding, jimmied the lock and silenced the toilet.
The water stopped rising. The bucket brigade ended. Darin was still smiling.
The ghost had to be laughing hysterically, proud as a peacock of his final Seinfeldian prank. If there are multiple Riverside ghosts, I’m certain there was back-slapping, high-fiving and exploding fists as well. While humored, I’ll hope that they were also heartbroken at our impending departure – we were not only good stewards of their domain, but even better foibles for their ghostly folly.
To be concluded................
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Losing Life Riverside
Part IV...............A Fluid Farewell
On March 21st, at 6:15 PM, we closed the doors, gave a local caretaker the keys, tearfully hugged our close friends’ goodbye, and drove out of Hot Sulphur Springs, away from the Riverside Hotel. The flood of emotions that came with that action were literally metaphorically a flood - a massive, violent, lifting, rumbling jumble of both destruction and cleansing; washing away the old and clearing a way for our ultimate rebirth. A flood is the perfect metaphor for what occurred, as we stood back, helpless, and watched a force much greater than us sweep over and destroy our dream, and despite our protestations and earnest but futile efforts, take that dream and leave us with little more than the reckoning of what comes next. What hopefully comes after a flood, provided it didn’t kill you, is rebirth, reorganization and the realization that you got smacked hard, but you’re still alive and, Thank God Almighty, you’re able to smack back.
What destructive force took us under? The list is as long as a Grand County winter and it would be small of me to blame first and foremost anyone but myself for my bad business acumen. Couple that with a horrible economy in an out-of-the-way place whose sole existence and economy is based upon discretionary income – the first type of income that goes south in a bad economy. Add to this volatile mix the local financial institution, the supposed backbone of this beautiful, rugged but financially strapped area, run by a bunch of wealthy ranchers that combined a lethal mixture of financial naiveté, avarice and a moral compass that would make you pray for Somali pirates as your business partners. The final F-up would be our poor choice of location – a small, out-of-the-way town whose only raison d’être is to draw a select group of clientele to a hot springs complex that ranks at the bottom of all hot springs complexes in the State/Country/World. We’re catering to a very small, very select group, going to the (arguably) worst of all possible very small, very select places. No knock on those that love the place, as we did, but honestly, it’s a very select group; and a depressed economy can be a financially fatal time to cater to a select group. Oh well, I’d been lucky in life up to this point; odds dictated that there eventually had to be a bump in that road.
The packers were supposed to show up on Thursday, March 18th, and the moving van on the 19th to load us up and take us to our new world. But Colorado had a parting gift for us – a blizzard the morning of the 18th that shut down I-70, Berthoud Pass and most of Grand County; to this point, the largest snowfall of the year in this snow/water starved environ. Unfortunately the ski slopes closed the weekend before – no question, timing is everything. The blizzard put the move back two days, with the packers now scheduled to arrive on Saturday, March 20th, and the moving van on Sunday the 21st.
When I awoke early on the morning of the 20th – the first day of spring – the temperature in Hot Sulphur Springs was a robust 18 degrees……below zero. While there were innumerable things I would miss about living in Grand County, CO, the blissful memory of greeting spring with 18 degrees below zero would be tossed quickly into the recycle bin. As the packers had to have doors open to move in and out of the building, the temperature for most of the morning – in the hotel – was below zero. Recycle bin that memory as well.
I learned something interesting about the relocation industry that day, especially those involved in corporate relocations – the kind where the company picks up the total tab. I would have assumed the cost of the move was based upon mileage and cubic feet of truck space; in fact, it is based upon gross weight. This would explain why a packer would use a 24”x12”x12” box, loaded with 3-4 pounds of packing paper, to carefully and thoroughly wrap a box of paper clips, a roll of scotch tape, a small stapler and a pencil holder from the top of our office desk. In total, the carton and its contents weighed 7 pounds – the actual contents (things I would have thrown away vs. packing) weighed less than a pound. We had large moving boxes – 36”x24”x24” – containing two 8- ounce lamp shades, secured by reams of packing paper, total weight approaching 15 pounds. Oh, and they also charge per box and per 1000 sheets of packing paper. They were nice people, but what a racket!
Sunday arrives, along with the moving van, and the 10AM thermometer reads 30F; that’s a 50 degree swing from the previous morning. It took the movers until about 4:00 PM to load all of our furniture, appliances, a 1300-pound gun safe (cha-ching!) and 123 boxes of various weights, shapes and sizes. As the movers emptied a room, we cleaned behind them, as our intent was to leave the place spotless for future sales showings, then get out of town before dark. At 3:00 PM, I did the final upstairs walkthrough. We’d left all of the furnishings in the rooms, so there wasn’t the empty feel that our downstairs living quarters would offer. A sad, slow walkthrough, room by room, filled me with a thousand memories – things like “I’ve made this damn bed a thousand times” and “I’ve scrubbed this damn toilet a thousand times.” I said my final goodbye – aloud, in case I wasn’t alone - knowing that I’d made that bed and cleaned that toilet for the last time.
I joined Julie downstairs, watching as she made her final pass with the vacuum. Speaking of doing something 1000 times, Julie knew every square inch of that floor from the handle of our Riccar, and I know for certain that her vacuuming memories would soon be joining a few of mine in the recycling bin. We were joined by a few remaining friends as we wrapped things up, preparing to leave the Riverside forever, as the owners. I needed to make a final pit stop in our bathroom before heading out, and I headed back to our living quarters for what I thought would be the last time.
Business completed, I gave one final flush, and watched in horror as the water in the bowl began to rise. Oh my, how could this be? After all, it was business #1, not the number of business that typically clogs a toilet. I quickly shut the water off, and headed to the tool room to retrieve the plunger. Needless to say, I’d done this more than a few times in this plumber’s nightmare of a house.
Plunge. Plunge. Plunge………nothing. Damn!
One other time during our ownership did the plumbing main back up – I’ve chronicled this New Year’s Day nightmare in a previous blog. But that clog was the result of full hotel rooms for 3 straight days, which equates to pretty extensive number two-ing. We’d had no guests in the hotel for the last two weeks; I couldn’t imagine how – and why now, why today – we could have a clogged main sewer line.
I checked another downstairs toilet, and sure enough, the main was backed up. I shut the water off to all of the toilets, and stood looking at the throne in our bathroom, wondering just what in the hell I was going to do about this. And as if a switch had been turned on, the water in our stool began to slowly rise. Holy crap! I’d shut the water supply off. What could be causing this? In a matter of seconds, the water began flowing over the brim of the bowl, onto the just cleaned and disinfected tile floor. My neighbor came running when he heard my screams, and quickly surveying the situation, he ran to the tool room to grab the wet vac. He began vacuuming the water out of the bowl – it took less than 10 seconds to fill the 5-gallon vacuum canister. I grabbed the 40+ pound bucket and moved outside as quickly as I could, dumping it into the street in front of the hotel. I won’t get graphic here, but suffice to say, the water wasn’t fresh and clear. Back and forth I went, filling the vac and dumping the water into the street, all the while the water continuing to slowly rise.
(An important aside to this part of the story; Darin, the local mortician who had seriously considered purchasing The Riverside, was standing in the empty office, watching quietly as I ran back and forth, gently carrying, so as not to spill it on the cleaned floors, the 40 pound buckets full of flotsam and jetsam before dumping them into the street. I've never seen the face of a man who’s just learned that he’s been given a death sentence commutation, but I was pretty certain that was the look I was seeing on Darin's face.)
Where in the hell was the water coming from?
To Be Continued....................
On March 21st, at 6:15 PM, we closed the doors, gave a local caretaker the keys, tearfully hugged our close friends’ goodbye, and drove out of Hot Sulphur Springs, away from the Riverside Hotel. The flood of emotions that came with that action were literally metaphorically a flood - a massive, violent, lifting, rumbling jumble of both destruction and cleansing; washing away the old and clearing a way for our ultimate rebirth. A flood is the perfect metaphor for what occurred, as we stood back, helpless, and watched a force much greater than us sweep over and destroy our dream, and despite our protestations and earnest but futile efforts, take that dream and leave us with little more than the reckoning of what comes next. What hopefully comes after a flood, provided it didn’t kill you, is rebirth, reorganization and the realization that you got smacked hard, but you’re still alive and, Thank God Almighty, you’re able to smack back.
What destructive force took us under? The list is as long as a Grand County winter and it would be small of me to blame first and foremost anyone but myself for my bad business acumen. Couple that with a horrible economy in an out-of-the-way place whose sole existence and economy is based upon discretionary income – the first type of income that goes south in a bad economy. Add to this volatile mix the local financial institution, the supposed backbone of this beautiful, rugged but financially strapped area, run by a bunch of wealthy ranchers that combined a lethal mixture of financial naiveté, avarice and a moral compass that would make you pray for Somali pirates as your business partners. The final F-up would be our poor choice of location – a small, out-of-the-way town whose only raison d’être is to draw a select group of clientele to a hot springs complex that ranks at the bottom of all hot springs complexes in the State/Country/World. We’re catering to a very small, very select group, going to the (arguably) worst of all possible very small, very select places. No knock on those that love the place, as we did, but honestly, it’s a very select group; and a depressed economy can be a financially fatal time to cater to a select group. Oh well, I’d been lucky in life up to this point; odds dictated that there eventually had to be a bump in that road.
The packers were supposed to show up on Thursday, March 18th, and the moving van on the 19th to load us up and take us to our new world. But Colorado had a parting gift for us – a blizzard the morning of the 18th that shut down I-70, Berthoud Pass and most of Grand County; to this point, the largest snowfall of the year in this snow/water starved environ. Unfortunately the ski slopes closed the weekend before – no question, timing is everything. The blizzard put the move back two days, with the packers now scheduled to arrive on Saturday, March 20th, and the moving van on Sunday the 21st.
When I awoke early on the morning of the 20th – the first day of spring – the temperature in Hot Sulphur Springs was a robust 18 degrees……below zero. While there were innumerable things I would miss about living in Grand County, CO, the blissful memory of greeting spring with 18 degrees below zero would be tossed quickly into the recycle bin. As the packers had to have doors open to move in and out of the building, the temperature for most of the morning – in the hotel – was below zero. Recycle bin that memory as well.
I learned something interesting about the relocation industry that day, especially those involved in corporate relocations – the kind where the company picks up the total tab. I would have assumed the cost of the move was based upon mileage and cubic feet of truck space; in fact, it is based upon gross weight. This would explain why a packer would use a 24”x12”x12” box, loaded with 3-4 pounds of packing paper, to carefully and thoroughly wrap a box of paper clips, a roll of scotch tape, a small stapler and a pencil holder from the top of our office desk. In total, the carton and its contents weighed 7 pounds – the actual contents (things I would have thrown away vs. packing) weighed less than a pound. We had large moving boxes – 36”x24”x24” – containing two 8- ounce lamp shades, secured by reams of packing paper, total weight approaching 15 pounds. Oh, and they also charge per box and per 1000 sheets of packing paper. They were nice people, but what a racket!
Sunday arrives, along with the moving van, and the 10AM thermometer reads 30F; that’s a 50 degree swing from the previous morning. It took the movers until about 4:00 PM to load all of our furniture, appliances, a 1300-pound gun safe (cha-ching!) and 123 boxes of various weights, shapes and sizes. As the movers emptied a room, we cleaned behind them, as our intent was to leave the place spotless for future sales showings, then get out of town before dark. At 3:00 PM, I did the final upstairs walkthrough. We’d left all of the furnishings in the rooms, so there wasn’t the empty feel that our downstairs living quarters would offer. A sad, slow walkthrough, room by room, filled me with a thousand memories – things like “I’ve made this damn bed a thousand times” and “I’ve scrubbed this damn toilet a thousand times.” I said my final goodbye – aloud, in case I wasn’t alone - knowing that I’d made that bed and cleaned that toilet for the last time.
I joined Julie downstairs, watching as she made her final pass with the vacuum. Speaking of doing something 1000 times, Julie knew every square inch of that floor from the handle of our Riccar, and I know for certain that her vacuuming memories would soon be joining a few of mine in the recycling bin. We were joined by a few remaining friends as we wrapped things up, preparing to leave the Riverside forever, as the owners. I needed to make a final pit stop in our bathroom before heading out, and I headed back to our living quarters for what I thought would be the last time.
Business completed, I gave one final flush, and watched in horror as the water in the bowl began to rise. Oh my, how could this be? After all, it was business #1, not the number of business that typically clogs a toilet. I quickly shut the water off, and headed to the tool room to retrieve the plunger. Needless to say, I’d done this more than a few times in this plumber’s nightmare of a house.
Plunge. Plunge. Plunge………nothing. Damn!
One other time during our ownership did the plumbing main back up – I’ve chronicled this New Year’s Day nightmare in a previous blog. But that clog was the result of full hotel rooms for 3 straight days, which equates to pretty extensive number two-ing. We’d had no guests in the hotel for the last two weeks; I couldn’t imagine how – and why now, why today – we could have a clogged main sewer line.
I checked another downstairs toilet, and sure enough, the main was backed up. I shut the water off to all of the toilets, and stood looking at the throne in our bathroom, wondering just what in the hell I was going to do about this. And as if a switch had been turned on, the water in our stool began to slowly rise. Holy crap! I’d shut the water supply off. What could be causing this? In a matter of seconds, the water began flowing over the brim of the bowl, onto the just cleaned and disinfected tile floor. My neighbor came running when he heard my screams, and quickly surveying the situation, he ran to the tool room to grab the wet vac. He began vacuuming the water out of the bowl – it took less than 10 seconds to fill the 5-gallon vacuum canister. I grabbed the 40+ pound bucket and moved outside as quickly as I could, dumping it into the street in front of the hotel. I won’t get graphic here, but suffice to say, the water wasn’t fresh and clear. Back and forth I went, filling the vac and dumping the water into the street, all the while the water continuing to slowly rise.
(An important aside to this part of the story; Darin, the local mortician who had seriously considered purchasing The Riverside, was standing in the empty office, watching quietly as I ran back and forth, gently carrying, so as not to spill it on the cleaned floors, the 40 pound buckets full of flotsam and jetsam before dumping them into the street. I've never seen the face of a man who’s just learned that he’s been given a death sentence commutation, but I was pretty certain that was the look I was seeing on Darin's face.)
Where in the hell was the water coming from?
To Be Continued....................
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