Adios Putos Google Blogspot

Google changed up their blog spot site to the point where this old fart can no longer figure out something as simple as BOLD, paragraph spacing or italitization, and spel chekk feeture is totalie fukked uup. Here is the address for the new site http://livingliferiverside.weebly.com/ To the seven of you who frequent this site, my apologies for the confusion.

A History Lesson......Part III

The Riverside Hotel, Bar and Restaurant is a 13,000 square foot structure, constructed primarily of wood with a hand-laid stone and mortar foundation, situated on the eastern bank of the Colorado River, some 25 miles from its headwaters. One of my biggest attractions in buying the hotel and taking this blind leap from our comfort zone was the opportunity to be stewards and caretakers of not only this historic building, but most importantly of the innumerable yet unaccountable stories and memories ensconced within the walls of this old place; the one hundred and four previous Christmases celebrated, the births of how many Grand County babies, the weddings and wedding nights of hundreds of hopeful brides and grooms and the jubilant hoots and hollers of countless New Years Eve revelers and 4th of July celebrants. How many prayed, toasted and dined at Thanksgiving feasts, how many birthday cake candles were extinguished by the wind from how many beaming faces? How many all but tangible memories of how many lives and how many deaths in the course of the Riverside’s 104-year history lingered in the walls and the halls of this 16 room structure which we gave our all to purchase?

Very early in our ownership, this aspect of being a steward of memories as well as a caretaker of a historic structure became evident to us in a blissfully unexpected event which, to put it mildly, awed and humbled us with the responsibility that we had undertaken.

It was June 29th, 2008, and we had lived full-time at The Riverside for only three days. It was late in the afternoon, and the hotel was almost booked full. We were making last minute preparations for the evening dinner crowd, when I noticed two young men trying to get a very large, full-body wheelchair into our west hotel/restaurant entrance. As the hotel was built a few years before the ADA, it unfortunately wasn’t up to code regarding accessibility. I went to see what could be done about helping them get the wheelchair into the building; it was at this point that I took the time to notice the inhabitant of the chair.

He was an elderly gentleman, probably in his early 80’s, and he looked very much like my father looked shortly before my father died; pale, gaunt and sallow-eyed. He was unable to communicate verbally, barely nodding ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to queries from his grandsons, but he seemed fully cognizant of his surroundings and what his grandsons were saying. He also appeared to be paralyzed from the neck down – no sign of movement from his torso or limbs. I immediately gained respect for these young men, who upon first glance I’d judged as hoodlums from their tattoos, piercings and the goofy, oversized clown-like flat-billed baseball caps sitting irreverently askance upon their shaven skulls. Hoodlums? No, they were in fact the epitome of love, tenderness and human kindness in the way that they cared for their grandfather – and care it took, as getting the chair from one cranny in the old hotel through the next would have tried to patience of most. In followed the boy's grandmother, who told me that today was their wedding anniversary, and she and her husband had spent their wedding night 56 years ago to the day at The Riverside in 1952, and that her husband “didn’t have too much time left, and we wanted to see the place one more time.”

When I realized what was happening, jarring me from my immediate mental preoccupation with people checking in, the details of a big dollar restaurant night ahead and guests barking at the bar for high profit rum and cokes, it literally shook me when I took the time to grasp what was happening here; on the day of their 56th wedding anniversary, most probably the last that they would celebrate, this couple and their grandsons had driven to our out of the way town, from Denver some 90 miles to the southeast over Berthoud Pass, to visit our hotel….simply for the memory of it. I was immediately humbled to the point of embarrassment, now all but worshipful of these people and their quest.

The wife took me upstairs – the husband stayed downstairs as ascending the narrow stairways were impossible, even with the help of the resolute grandsons – and showed me the room, ‘Elizabeth’, where they spent their first night as newlyweds. (The rooms were all given female names vs. numbers by Abner, lending to his lurid assertions that The Riverside operated as a brothel at some stage in it’s past; I believe this to be nothing more than a lurid assertion, knowing Abner as I did.)

The wife paused and bowed at the door for a minute, reverentially, and then slowly walked in the room and looked around. It was a very small room, the width of it barely able to contain the full-sized bed that resided within; one of Abner’s beds that we had yet to replace, comprised of an old thin mattress on exposed springs, very probably the bed upon which they spent their wedding night. She stood quietly for only a few minutes, and without speaking a word, she left the room, passing slowly by me without acknowledging me and went back down the stairs to be with her husband. She gently took his hand and told him that she'd found the room, and it was much as she'd remembered; there was the faintest attempt at a smile from the old lion as he closed his eyes - he looked totally satisfied and complete.

I was dumbfounded, speechless, and choked up to the point of not being able to communicate with this family or any others in the lobby. Julie came to me and asked me what was wrong; I couldn’t form words, as my throat was constricted from the emotional scene that I had just witnessed. In fact, to this day I have a difficult time retelling this story to people without tears welling in my eyes and my throat constricting, as I have burned in my memory the eager face of the man who was trying to relive in that instant one of his life’s great memories.

I saw my father die, at peace, surrounded by his family in his bed at home. At the end he had a look of contentment with what he had done, and resignation with the next, final step in his life journey. This man, this 1952 visitor to our hotel who chose The Riverside to begin his post WWII journey into manhood and fatherhood, after hearing his wife of 56 years whisper into his ear, smiled and looked content, much like my father looked before his passing. I never new for certain, but I would bet that sweet closure wasn’t far behind his last visit to The Riverside.

I knew that we bought a hotel and restaurant, but it was at this point that I finally realized that we bought much more than just a business; we were the stewards of this magnificent building and the memories of thousands of unknown people and their stories. What an awesome responsibility it was to be caretaker to such a magnificent old girl as The Riverside. My thanks to this beautiful couple, whose names I didn’t even have the where-with-all to learn, for awakening me to my task, my newfound raison d’être. Thanks also to the grandsons, whose exemplary effort in locomoting their grandfather and granting him what was most likely a final wish; and for again reminding me that rarely should books be judged by their covers.

A History Lesson......Part II

The new two-story structure that Charlie Free built in 1903 was roughly 25’wide and 75’ in length, and contained a narrow dining room with a kitchen in the back, paralleled by a narrow lobby, or gathering room, separated by a staircase that led upstairs to the owners living area which contained a bedroom adjoining a small sitting room and five small guestrooms. There were no bathrooms at the time of construction due to the fact that there was no running water or indoor plumbing; as was common of the times, there were chamber pots in the bedrooms and a privy out back, certainly unheated – doubtful that Byers’ Rocky Mountain News was read during the course of one doing one’s business. As the hotel was located near The Grand River, as the river was known in 1903, the name being changed to The Colorado River in 1923, an abundance of clean fresh water for cooking, washing and drinking was no more than short walk away. Maps indicate that the rivers’ course has changed since the construction of the building, as today the western edge of the building is but 10 short yards from the riverbank; back in 1903 the distance was more like the length of a football field.

The new two-story structure shared a common wall with the livery stable; however there was no interior congress between the buildings. As travel by horse and buggy was still the principle mode of transportation, the need for a livery stable was still germane, yet, one of the earliest known pictures of the structure shows a pre-Model T jalopy of unknown make in front of the hotel, the hitching post still evident to which a horse and buggy is attached.

In 1913, Charlie Free exited the hospitality business at the expense of a gentleman named Omar Qualls, who hailed from Hot Springs, Arkansas. Mr. Qualls wife was, as they said in those days, ‘in a sickly way’, requiring continual access to healing waters, waters that were native to her Hot Springs, AR, and as luck would have it, also native to their new-found summer get-away in Hot Sulphur Springs, CO. (There is but a little irony here, as I felt that I might possibly die, or at best become deathly ill, if I soaked in the sulphurous brew of those fetid waters.)

Mr. Qualls and family would venture some 1000 miles in the spring of the year, traveling from one hot spring in Arkansas to another in Colorado. They would open and then operate a 5-room hotel and a small café from May through September, then close the place up for the winter and head back to the warmer climes of Arkansas’s Blue Ridge Mountains. That business model worked well for Mr. Qualls for the next 20 years; a business model which I possibly should have adopted, as the down season was critical to our ultimate downfall.

Sometime in the 1920’s, the original structure of the livery stable was transformed into additional housing for both hotel guests and staff, and running water and indoor bathroom facilities were added. The remodeled upstairs consisted of seven guest rooms and one bathroom – a toilet with a tub; the guest rooms were also equipped with sinks with running water – these impossible to buy parts-for accoutrements are still in existence in the current structure. The downstairs consisted of eight rooms, two used for storage, two for staff, two overflow guest rooms, and two ‘utility’ rooms, used during the next few years as a barber shop and next a doctors office from 1935 - 1945. These rooms would ultimately serve as Abner’s office and living quarters, and finally, after being gutted to the dirt and rebuilt, our living quarters. Also, as the two structures were adjoined, so were the dissimilar roof lines - the livery stable had a turreted façade that denoted it as a stable as steeple denotes a church or a dome a Capitol – and replaced with a straight common ridge across the front of the structure.

Sometime in the 1930’s, an additional shotgun arm running the north/south length of the hotel was constructed, in parallel consort with the 1903 two-story structure. The purpose for this addition was to not only add four additional upstairs guest rooms, but to also double the width of the restaurant on the first floor.

The fourth and final addition, the single story River Room restaurant, was built onto the western side, or river side, of the hotel in 1970. It is the only part of the building that has foundation and structural problems. The slope of the room towards the river from a rapidly sinking foundation was so bad that a marble placed on most of the tables in the restaurant would have begun running westward and down once freed from the fingers. None of the windows in the room, and the walls were all but windows so that dining patrons might enjoy the view, could have closed flush on a bet, the building was now so out of square. Apparently they just don’t build things like they used to.

In 1968 construction began on the Eisenhower tunnel, located approximately 50 miles south of Hot Sulphur Springs on I-70, just up the mountain from Dillon, CO to the west and Georgetown, CO to the east. The tunnel construction was expected to bring an influx of workers into the area and they would need places to eat and sleep, and of utmost importance, places to drink, party and spend away their hard earned cash on the weekends. The Perry Family, owners of the Riverside at that time, like many other purveyors of food, booze and rest in Grand County, were quick to cash in on the tunnel labor, thus the final addition to the building in 1970. The tunnel construction, expected to last but three years, ran into numerous delays, including the discovery of a fault line (which apparently had a tendency to skew the efforts of the workers boring through the side of the mountain) and the deaths of six of the workers, wasn’t fully completed until 11 years later in 1979. Shortly after the tunnel was completed, and the workers depleted, The Riverside shut its doors until its 1986 resurrection at the hands of Mr. Abner Renta.

The records on all of this constructing, plumbing and general building cobbling no longer exist, if in fact building permits or any sort of official documentation detailing construction was required; all of this building possibly occurred before it dawned on the public trust that it had the legal wherewithal to filch it’s patronage for any act or attempt at commerce from which they might profit.

The dates of additions and changes to the structure are but educated guesses based upon pictures that hung in our lobby that showed the progression of the buildings architecture, starting with what we believed to be the first 1903 picture, which shows the six window, two-story clapboard structure with a large “HOTEL” and “CAFÉ” painted on the front, adjoined with the turreted building which housed the livery stable. Picture #2 was from approximately 1910 with the livery façade still evident, but the two buildings made to look as one with the use of a faux brick, tar-paper façade. The next picture was taken in the 1920’s, and the turreted roof lines of the livery stable now absent, making it look for the first time in its 20 year existence as one building. Finally, the fourth picture, taken in the 1930’s, shows the hotel with the edition of the West wing, the 15’ widening that ran the length of the hotel, adding four rooms upstairs, and doubling the downstairs dining room and kitchen.

One of the things I loved about these pictures was the fun in dating them by the type of transportation that was parked in front of the hotel. In the 1903 picture there were horses and a hitching post; in 1910, horse-drawn carriages along with a few 1910 Model T Fords. The 1920s-era picture showed no signs of hitching posts, with equine power being replaced by a fancy sedan of unknown make and model. Finally, the 1930’s brought us a regal awning spanning the front of the hotel, offering afternoon shade to a sporty, 1932 Ford Coupe. These pictures were all taken in the summer, as traversing Berthoud Pass in a 1932 Ford Coupe during the winter would have been impossible; much as it can be today, even in a 2003 4WD Chevy Suburban.

It was often while viewing these pictures that our guests would have their feeling of awakening to the history that engulfed them as the stood in the lobby of The Riverside – you could figuratively see the light go on in their head, as their eyes would widen and a smile would break the plane of their face, as many would finally get it with an “Oh wow! I’m standing here, right now, in this place that looked like that 100 years ago.” To many it served as a pleasant little lagniappe in addition to the food and room for which they were about to pay. It is a feeling you don’t often get elsewhere as we live our daily lives in the cities and suburbs of America, and it was certainly one of the feelings that brought us and our dreams to live in Grand County, in that magnificent building.

To Be Continued......

A History Lesson

Note: The next few postings will be excerpts from what will be an attempt at corralling many of the blog stories, and a few major stories written but not included in the blog, into a book. Your opinions and suggestions are welcome.

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The building that now stands at 509 Grand Avenue, Hot Sulphur Springs, CO, whose construction date is officially noted as 1903, is comprised of four sections; two original structures and two later additions, which have been morphed into the seamless white façade of its current iteration. The original section of the building was a livery stable, constructed sometime in the1860’s, after the official founding of the town of Hot Sulphur Springs, which for the record occurred in 1860. William Byers, who was the founder, publisher and editor of the Rocky Mountain News, a Denver-based newspaper that ceased publication in 2008, the year we moved to Colorado, journeyed to Hot Sulphur and was enamored by the idea of turning the town and the healing waters of the natural sulphurous hot spring pool into a tourist Mecca, much on the order of New York’s Saratoga Springs, which Byers had visited some years earlier. Byers bought the springs from the Ute Indians, whose people had been frequenting the area for the previous thousand years, as they considered the springs to be sacred grounds, for a reported sum of $100.

While Byers vision never fully bore fruit on the level of Saratoga Springs, or other Colorado natural hot springs such as Glenwood Springs or Pagosa Springs, the little town of Hot Sulphur continued to grow, mostly due to it being the governmental seat for the county of Grand; and this in and of itself is a pretty good story.

Grand Lake, CO, some 25 miles NE of Hot Sulphur Springs as the crow flies, was founded in 1881 to support the influx of miners who descended on the area with the 1875 discovery of gold, lead, silver and copper in the surrounding mountains of the Never Summer and Indian Peak ranges of the Rocky Mountains. Those majestic peaks that now draw sightseers from all over the world were initially magnets for prospectors and independent men of commerce, the draw of the ore strong enough to pull the hardiest of men into this mostly inhabitable and most certainly inhospitable stretch of real estate. It would follow that anyone who would give up the comforts of late 19th Century city life for the brutal conditions inherent in this 9000’ elevated, isolated ice box would be greedy to a fault and tough beyond reason. This lethal combination of character traits, these traits inherent in all who would be the fashioners of our Western frontier, would make for a violent, bloody start to the birth of Grand County.

Colorado was admitted to the Union as a state in 1876; shortly thereafter, counties were drawn and county seats were established, the County of Grand and the County Seat of Grand Lake, that growing, bustling mining town in the extreme northeast corner of the county, being established in 1881. This didn’t sit well with many of the residents of Hot Sulphur Springs, a town twenty years senior to Grand Lake, situated in the middle of the county, not in the upper northeastern reaches as was Grand Lake. It’s certain that many contentious exchanges, unrecorded in the history books, went back and forth between the political powers of the two towns before the fateful day of July 4th, 1883, when the lone County Councilman from Hot Sulphur, (one of four Grand County Councilmen, the other three from Grand Lake) accompanied by the Sheriff and deputy of Grand County and three other masked residents of Hot Sulphur rode to Grand Lake with serious mischief on their minds, loaded guns on their hips.

As the July 4th County Council meeting adjourned, with the Hot Sulphur Councilman noticeably absent, the three Grand Lake Council members strode out onto the warm Main Street, and were summarily gunned down in the broad daylight as they exited the County Courthouse. One was able to fire back at the masked assailants, but at the end of the day, all three Grand Lake Council members were dead, along with the County Clerk. The Hot Sulphur Councilman was the unfortunate member of the marauding party who took the bullet from the Grand Lake bunch, dying several days later from an infection. The Sheriff from Hot Sulphur, called to investigate the killing in which he had participated, masked, committed suicide two weeks after the shooting. His deputy, also one of the masked murderers from Hot Sulphur, fled the county after the shootings and was later found dead on the Colorado/Utah border, identified only by the size of his feet, said to be unusually and notably large.

Shortly after this murderous brouhaha, the County Seat was moved to Hot Sulphur, where it has resided, unchallenged, since that violent Fourth of July in 1883.

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Now firmly ensconced as the County Seat of Grand, Hot Sulphur Springs was also roughly the half way point between Chicago, IL and San Francisco for the Union Pacific railroad, and in early 1900 the railroad made the town its major mid-way stopping point for resting the crew and refueling the trains with coal and water; Hot Sulphur was simply referred to as ‘Coal Town’ by the railroad workers and most others who knew of its existence.

The influx of railroad workers and hot springs visitors spurred about the need for food and lodging, and in 1903, The Riverside Hotel & Café was officially opened for business by Mr. Charlie Free. Charles F. Free was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1873, and shortly after birth he immigrated to Canada with his parents. In 1890, at the tender age of 17 years, he left the family in Canada and headed south, finding his way to Denver and then the mountains beyond, working primarily as a cowhand on one of the many ranches that inhabited the lush summer grazing valleys of Middle Park. He then found work for a short while at the grocery store in Hot Sulphur Springs before signing on as a teamster, freighting goods, supplies and the occasional passenger down the Blue River Valley, thru Georgetown, on to Denver and back. That simply had to be grueling work, as driving that route back and forth today in good weather on paved roads in fancy cars can wear one to a nub.

In 1900, Charlie Free gave up the teamstering business, found a bride in Hot Sulphur and settled down for a few years, working on a ranch outside of town. One assumes he worked hard and made little, wondering how he had the wherewithal to buy the old livery stable and build the aforementioned attachment that became The Riverside in 1903 – possibly more to this story, but only one’s speculation will provide the supposed details. Charlie owned the hotel for 10 years before selling it and striking out again as a rancher, which he did until he finally hung up his spurs in 1943, at the age of 53. Apparently Charlie found the frigid outdoors, the stubborn livestock and the aroma of hay and horse manure easier to deal with than cranky hotel guests, picky diners and drunken bar customers; there were many times during my tenure as owner and proprietor of The Riverside when I could understand Charlie’s desire to be on the back of a horse instead of straddling a dishwasher or corralling a bloated, clogged toilet bowl.

In one of life’s continuing string of ‘fact is stranger than fiction’-isms, Charlie’s last known employment was that of a founder and the first president of the Middle Park Bank, located in Granby, CO, later to become Grand County Bank; Charlie Free, builder of the building we bought, founding the bank where we received our loan to buy his Riverside, ergo, Charlie founding the bank that foreclosed upon us and eventually took back his Riverside.

After living a long and successful life in Grand County, CO, Charles Free died in 1955, the year before my wife’s and my birth, and is buried next to his wife in the cemetery on the hill east of town, lying in eternal peaceful repose as he watches over the town of Hot Sulphur Springs, the magnificent Colorado River and his iconic Riverside Hotel.

To Be Continued......

The Riverside Dirty Ribeye

Without question, our signature dish at The River Room was our Dirty Ribeye, a 12-ounce cut of choice steak from the rib section of the cow, which we would purchase in 15 pound Cry-O-Vac hunks and hand cut. We’d buy these slabs of beef for about $125 each and sell the resultant 20 steaks for $500, served with a starch, a vegetable and a salad; with that sort of mark-up, you’d think that any idiot would be able to make a living in the restaurant business – obviously except for this idiot.

This manner of preparation, i.e. ‘dirty’, came from Dhoubi, our stoner chef from Kansas City, who got the recipe from our favorite restaurant in Kansas City, Il Trullo, which sadly is no longer in business. Il Trullo shut down shortly after we moved to the mountains, and I swear its demise was due in large part to the loss of our revenue, as I’d dropped bucket loads of money there both with business dinners and personal meals.

One advantage to the Dirty Ribeye was that we could make a steak taste exceptional without using a wood-fired grill – good for us, as the kitchen in The Riverside didn’t have a wood fired grill, only a flat top griddle upon which a steak could be cooked. Another nice feature of the recipe involved the ability to ‘dirty’ the steak - which gave the steak its superior flavor - early in the day and finish it quickly to order during the dinner rush, this becoming a necessity as our cooking staff dwindled to one during the last six months of our operation.

Also included is our recipe for a poor man’s Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale, officially known at The Riverside as Balsamico a Basso Costo delle Montagne, which we drizzled on the steak; it is essential to the dish.

Serves Four, providing you buy four steaks

- 1” Thick, nicely marbled Ribeye steaks – choice for certain, prime if you can find them

- About one dozen Hardwood chunks – mesquite, hickory, apple, cherry, pecan – roughly the size of a kid’s fist

- A cast iron skillet

In a charcol chimney, get the wood to blazing, then dump it in your grill. Let it simmer down for a minute or two, until the flames are mostly gone and you’re left with glowing, red-hot chunks of wood. Throw the meat directly on the glowing embers, no more than 90 seconds per side. That’s it! Take them off and set them aside. They’ll have some ash, some burn marks, maybe even a little grit on the exterior – no worries, as that also is digestable. Most importantly, what they’ll also have is a seared, smoky char infused into the buttery fat which is inherent in the cut. (You can do this step early in the day – cool them covered in the fridge.)

When you’re ready to eat, make sure your cast iron skillet is hot; not white hot like you were blackening redfish, but pretty damn hot. Finish the steaks in the skillet to your likeness, no more than two minutes per side, which shouldn’t result in a temperature any more than medium rare. If you like your steak cooked beyond medium rare, I would suggest you skip the first three steps of this recipe, as I see your journey to Belly Blissville involving a trip to a Golden Corral.

Slice the steaks on the bias into ½” thick strips, fan out on your plate and drizzle generously with the balsamic. We rested the steaks over a small mound of arugula; the smoky meat, the sweet tang of the balsamic and the peppery arugula resulting in an exceptional marriage of flavors, as if it were always meant to be.

Balsamico a Basso Costo delle Montagne

One 16-oz bottle of inexpensive balsamic vinegar
2 – teaspoons corn starch
2 – tablespoons corn syrup

Empty the balsamic into a sauce pan, wisk in the corn starch, and simmer until reduced by half. Stir in the corn syrup, let cool and pour into one of those plastic, pointy-tipped condiment dispensers that chefs use to make drizzles and spiky swizzles on plates. They sell them in the kitchen gadget section at the Walmart for a buck.

This stuff can also be used in salads, over fresh tomatoes when making Caprese, and anywhere else you use a good balsamic – possibly even over Little Debbie Bars or Cheez-Its with excellent results.

Better yet, if you can afford pricy, aged Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale, dispense with the aforementioned culinary skullduggery and enjoy the real thing, imagining while you enjoy this feast… that you are dining Riverside.

Paradise Pizza Tomatoes

Alfred Joseph Paradise was born 89 years ago today, March 11th, in Hannibal, MO; he died on March 19th, 2004, eight days after his 81st birthday.

Al Paradise was many things, mostly good, as his talents were numerous and his foibles few. An engineer, a mathematician, a mechanical innovator, an artist, a calligrapher, a carpenter, a plumber and a smart ass and wiseacre of epic proportions; most of these were good things at which he made money or which he donated his talents for the benefit of others. But Al’s greatest skill was no more than a hobby, at which he excelled supremely and made not a raw nickel – damn, but the man could cook.

He was the ultimate example of an empirical cook, and a ‘foodie’ long before the term was ever coined. Cookbooks, recipes and measuring cups and spoons were for amateurs; flying by the seat of his pants was pretty much how old AJ rolled in the kitchen. His only formal training in the culinary arts occurred at a flat-top hash house in Ames, Iowa, a 4x8 slab of heated steel where eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, hamburgers, onions and anything else edible that can be fried on a hot griddle. This training had my dad making us hamburgers like no other any suburban Johnson County, KS kid was eating in the 1960’s.

Another skill that he picked up from the griddle in Ames was his unrivaled mastery of hash-browned potatoes. No matter how many times I watched him or how many times he told me his secrets – “boil the potatoes under a full strong boil for eleven and a half minutes” – I could never duplicate the perfectly golden, cracker crisp outside and the fluffy white inside; mine are always overdone on the outside and underdone on the inside.

As I grew in my ability to cook on but a whisker of a gourmet level, I’d have my parents over for dinner and always be on edge as to the quiet, subtle and occasionally constructive criticisms that would sometimes come from the old man. Once I attempted fried polenta with a red sauce as a side dish – “Fried Polenta with porcini ragout” I announced with a flourish. Unimpressed, he offered “I don’t know what you just called it, but it looks like fried corn meal mush to me. I used to make that for you when you were kids…..remember?” Hmmmph.

One of AJP’s most famous concoctions, and one which we would occasionally serve at The Riverside, was unofficially referred to as Paradise Pizza Tomatoes. The downside to serving it as our vegetable side dish in the restaurant was its appearance – spooned onto a plate it looked like one of those casseroles that you wouldn’t even think about trying as you’d peruse the various offerings at a church pot luck dinner. But the adventurous diner was tastefully rewarded with the first bite, as steaming hot out of the oven Paradise Pizza Tomatoes more than make up for in taste what they lack in aesthetics.

Serves 6 – 8 – best prepared in a round 9” baking dish
2 – 28 oz. cans of tomatoes, drained
½ stick unsalted butter
3 – Tbsp olive oil
1 – large yellow onion, small dice
4 – large cloves of garlic, chopped very fine
2 – Tbsp dried basil
2 – Tsp dried thyme
2 – Tsp fennel seeds ground in a mortar and pestle (this is key – don’t omit!)
8 – or so grinds of fresh pepper and a pinch or two of salt
½ - sleeve of saltine crackers (approx 25)
2 – cups shredded mozzarella cheese

- Thoroughly drain the tomatoes, place them in the baking dish and chop roughly. There will be juice in the dish after you chop – don’t drain that.
- Melt the butter in a sauté pan; add the olive oil and heat.
- Add the onions and sauté for about 5 minutes until translucent.
- Add the garlic, basil, thyme, fennel seed, pepper and salt and sauté for a few minutes, and then add this mixture to the tomatoes. Stir in well.
- Take ½ of the saltines and rough crush with your hands and ½ of the shredded mozzarella and add to tomatoes, stirring in well.
- Evenly distribute the other half of the cheese over the top of the mixture, then crush the remaining crackers and distribute them over the layer of cheese.
- Bake uncovered at 350F for about 45 minutes, or until the mixture is bubbly and the cheese and crackers are nicely browned.

Barbara Muehlebach Paradise

With the heaviest of hearts, and tears in my eyes, I write of the passing of my beautiful mother, Barbara Muehlebach Paradise. All of us hold our mothers in the highest of esteem, so it would be pedantic to argue mine vs. yours, but with absoluteness, Barbara was on the highest level of motherhood and wifeliness that one could attain; certainly on every par with you and yours.

Barbara was born in St. Louis, MO in 1920, the second child, and first and only daughter of William and Willa Muehlebach and a loving sister to her four brothers William Jr., Lawrence, Charles and George. Barbara doted on her brothers like her loving mother, and carried that ability to love to her spouse, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and all whom she knew and befriended throughout her 92 years; the list is beyond the scope of the written word.

My Mother did not know hatred, contempt or ill-will. Sarcasm was not only above her, it was beyond her. Barbara had a sense of humor that was neatly countered by her ability to suffer the fools that her husband Alfred and his progeny would lampoon; she the better than all of us, earning her a fast track to eternal glory, whilst the rest of us hope, wait and pray for a pass from the Almighty. Thank God that she’s there to help smooth the way for us.

My mother lived a long life, essentially dying healthy of body; sadly her mind didn’t keep up with the heart and the lungs. It was intensely painful for all of us who loved her to watch the degeneration of that beautiful mind, while her strong body and stout will proffered on, hanging and fighting for the opportunity to remain vital.

Peace my dear Mother. Your fight is over. You won. I can only hope that I inherit but a smattering of your strength, your resoluteness and your righteousness.

I will miss you and your loving touch the rest of my days. I pray that I will be worthy of seeing you again.

Your loving son,

Richard William

Mountains.......Adios Puto Montañas

Monday, August 12th, 2008 was as spectacular a day in the mountains as one could ever hope to witness – 75 windless degrees, zero humidity and a blue sky for which there exists no proper adjective to describe its beauty; it was also my 52nd birthday. As it was a Monday, the hotel was closed and the day was mine to enjoy; barely two months into our new life and I was already desperate to get away from the hotel and that garbage dump of a town whenever the opportunity presented itself.

The plan involved Julie and I driving to Steamboat Springs for the day, some 70 miles west of Hot Sulphur on Highway 40, for the purpose of eating a relaxing lunch in someone else’s restaurant and me buying my birthday gift, which was to be a pair of waders and felt-soled wading boots – the tools necessary for me to take up the sport of fly fishing, of which I could literally participate out of my back door. ( I lived on the banks of the Colorado River on a stretch of gold medal trout water, water that people came from all over the United States to angle, and I loved to fish, yet I donned those waders and boots and stood in that water and fished…..once.)

The drive west of Hot Sulphur on Highway 40 to Steamboat Springs is relatively flat, as you drive along a fairly neutral route that is the Colorado River basin and Middle Park – a high plateau surrounded by a ring of higher mountains. When you find yourself about 15 miles east of Steamboat, you start to climb what is the northwest flank of the Middle Park ring, the apex of that summit before you head down into Steamboat Springs being Rabbit Ears Pass; so named for a prominent rock formation that resembles a pair of jack rabbit ears. Rabbit Ears Pass differs from Berthoud Pass in that the switchback curves on the way up seem to be much less hairpinnish than Berthoud, and the downside traverse is one long, steep hill, two lanes climbing and a single lane descending, and except for the first 2 miles after the summit, it is void of curves for the most part. Were you able to sled down that hill, it would be the longest, gnarliest sled ride you could’ve ever as a kid imagined. I had taken this route one other time during my first adult visit to the Rockies in the summer of 1993; being a novice to mountain driving and down shifting at the time, the descent had my brakes smoking by the time we were a third of the way to the bottom of that run.

On the upward ascent of Rabbit Ears, we were stuck behind a service truck of some type – a big white thing with tanks, pumps, a compressor, pipes, valves, gauges and four wheels on dual rear axles; it was about the size of a UPS delivery van, a pretty stout piece of metal in motion, and no question the kind of truck you wouldn’t pick a fight with. As I was in absolutely no hurry, the thought never occurred to me to attempt to pass the truck. We finally reached the summit, and like all mountain passes on Colorado highways, it is announced by signage, and started our downward decent into Steamboat Springs. We hadn’t gone but maybe two miles down the two big S-curves on the descent, when I started smelling major brake overheating from what I assumed to be the aforementioned truck which we were following. I knew it wasn’t me, as I’d been downshifting instead of using my brake to slow the car, but I was surprised that any native, especially a native that drove a truck for a living, wouldn’t be downshifting as well.

On we went with the smell getting worse by the yard, and when we hit the long, steep, three-lane straightaway, smoke is now visible from the truck’s rear wheels. I’m starting to get a little nervous, but not too nervous, as the truck is still in front of me – I’m nervous for the people in front of the truck. Then it hits me, that I am about to watch something that I’ve always wanted to see but have never had the opportunity, that being witness to an out-of-control, brakeless truck driving into the “runaway truck” ramp. You’ve seen these if you’ve ever driven on mountainous highways with steep grades; they’re long stretches, maybe 500 yards, of pea gravel or sand that will bring the truck to a slow and safe halt, should the brakes be overheated and non-functional, as were the brakes on the truck before me. The ramps are announced well in advance, two or three times, so that if you’re having a brake issue, you’ve got plenty of time to plan your exit.

Whoosh!
I watched in disbelief as the truck sped right past the runaway ramp, brakes smoking now like a house afire. I figured that possibly this was no native, and it was in fact the first time he’d ever driven on a mountain in his life. Finally he seems to slow enough to where he begins to pull over on an area of shoulder, of which there was little on this road –I quickly take the opportunity to pass him. Continuing down, and preceding me in my lane in this order, was a gasoline tanker truck, a large cattle trailer being pulled by a large, tri-axled pick-up truck, a dairy tanker truck, and one more gasoline tanker – four big, slow, flasher blinking trucks in low gear, heading downward at maybe 20 miles per hour. Like a dumb ass, I decided to pass the gasoline tanker that preceded me, as there was no oncoming traffic…..at that particular time.

No sooner do I pull in the oncoming lane to pass the rolling 6000-gallon container of fire and brimstone than I catch a glimpse in my rear view mirror of a big, white truck with tanks, pumps, a compressor, pipes, valves, gauges and four wheels on dual rear axles screaming down on me at a rate of speed that was possibly double that of mine. There is no room now to pull in front of the gasoline tanker, as he was pretty solidly on the tail of the cattle truck; my only option is to hit my accelerator and drive as fast as I can to get to the next break between traffic, hopefully between the cattle truck and the dairy truck, but probably all the way in front of the gasoline tanker that was leading the parade. This would have all gone smoothly except that there were cars coming up the hill, in the passing lane, straight at me, and they couldn’t get into their free lane, as both of the uphill lanes were occupied.

I’ll reset the situation for you; perhaps you’ve seen something like I am about to describe in a movie starring Sylvester Stallone or Bruce Willis. I’m in the wrong lane, driving down a 7% grade at 80 MPH, cars coming straight at me, a 10,000 pound out of control machine shop traveling 90 MPH about to smash into my rear, on the left a guardrail that would give way and offer a 1000-foot drop into the valley, and on my right side - to buffer my inevitable crash into the side of the mountain were I not to opt for flying off of the left side - were two gasoline tankers, a milk truck and a trailer full of cattle. Oh, and both my wife and I are screaming at the top of our lungs for the Hand of The Lord to deliver us from what we were certain was to be our very unwanted and very untimely 15 minutes of fame.

There is obviously no longer suspense to the story, as the fact that you are reading my version of this occurrence tells you that we survived – and it indeed required the Hand of The Lord. But for real, there was more than a moment in that 10 second span that seemed to last an eternity, that I felt with absolute certainty that not only was I a goner, but I was more than likely going to be taking additional innocent humans and a few head of cattle with me.

I pulled in front of the first gasoline tanker, just missing the oncoming traffic by 25 yards as he was able to get in his right lane, and the smoking white behemoth flew by me, barely missing my rear left flank, and quickly disappeared from view as it screamed on down the mountain. I was flabbergasted that we didn’t find a gnarled mass of truck and machinery at the bottom of the hill; there was no evidence that the white truck did anything beyond cruising down that hill and eventually coming to a safe stop somewhere, off the road and out of sight. My guess is that the truck driver’s eventual stop involved a bathroom and a change of uniform.

Having a near death experience can sure take the starch out of a pleasurable day. I was in a surreal fog for the duration of our trip, going through the motions of eating lunch and buying waders, unable to think of anything else other than my morning pas de deux with the Grim Reaper.

Never again did I, or will I, ever drive over Rabbit Ears Pass or visit Steamboat Springs, the memory of that nearest of misses on my 52nd birthday still so real, so raw and so jarring. I can also say with certainty that never of my own accord, ( I would have to be handcuffed and in the back of a squad car) will I drive over Berthoud Pass, through the Fraser River Valley, and westward to that fetid, rancid little burg that is Hot Sulphur Springs.

For a fact, I hate those mountains.

Mountains.......Part IV

On three occasions would the mountains and the weather literally threaten my continued existence on this planet. The first aforementioned trek that had me hauling the U-Haul up a snowy Loveland Pass en route to our date with destiny at The Riverside was simple child’s play compared to three that would follow. These three trips were so bad that it is hard to pick the worst – perhaps the last of the three was the least deadly, only because it occurred during the day, although the snow was heaviest and the visibility probably the worst of the three occasions. Also, by the time of the third blizzard drive over the pass, I was something of a seasoned veteran; instead of peeing my pants and crying out to God for mercy, I was resigned to just say “the hell with it”, and forge onward. I was also in serious financial straits at that time, and my demise at the hands of a Berthoud Pass blizzard would have at least put my kids in good financial stead for the long term, the very least I could do for them having blown their inheritance on a fetid money pit in an out-of-the-way shithole of a town.

It was the last week of February in 2008, and we’d owned the hotel for two months. We still lived in Kansas City and were relying on the talents of three early 20-somethings to manage our life investment from 600 miles away. I had a business reason to be in Denver, a trade show, and needed to transport a show booth and samples along with a business associate. Had the trade show been in Indy, Chicago or Orlando, we would have loaded the booth and whatever else on a Yellow Freight truck, and boarded Southwest Airlines to get to our show; but Denver afforded me the unique opportunity to save some freight costs, airline costs and….oh, as luck would have it I could also haul some more nick-nacks and furnishings to our new purchase in the Rockies, just a few short miles beyond Denver.

We loaded up another gish darn 9x12 U-Haul and planned on pulling out of KC at 7:00 AM – a drive that would normally put us in Hot Sulphur around 5:00 PM MST, but pulling the trailer would add another two hours, assuming there were no issues with weather, and none were predicted. The ‘we’ that was making this journey was of course me, my business associate John, and for the purpose of adding a little color to the venture, I brought along Crazy Mike, our terribly unreliable and always overpaid painter and handyman. Crazy Mike had early on exclaimed an interest in not only de-wallpapering and painting The Riverside for us, he had also expressed intentions of signing on permanently in Colorado as the live-in handyman, jack-of-all-trades kind of a guy that every 103-year old hotel, bar and restaurant relies upon to keep the operation running smoothly. Remember the Newhart Show ? – Crazy Mike was Larry, Daryl and Daryl all rolled into one, only singularly he probably smelled worse than the three of them combined.

30 miles west of Kansas City, at 8:30 AM, we made an unscheduled stop at a U-Haul dealer in Lawrence, KS and unloaded the trailer, a trailer that had been crammed so full of this, that and the other that there wasn’t sufficient room left in the loaded trailer for a small fart. The wheel bearings on the trailer were bad, and every time we got our speed beyond 45 MPH, the trailer shook like a bartender at a martini competition. Also, we’d apparently loaded the trailer badly – too much weight here, not enough there.

At 10:30, we were re-loaded into a new trailer, our weight properly distributed, and off we went onward to the western wilds of Kansas. Good, clear, dry roads had us making relatively good time, our speed averaging 65 MPH, a marvel to me after having previously pulled a trailer over icy roads at 50 MPH, feeling then like I was cheating death with every foot forward. We arrived in Denver just after rush hour, and all seemed in line for an 8:00 PM arrival at The Riverside.

No sooner had we started the climb up I-70, just barely in the foothills and still in the western city limits of Denver, than the un-forecasted snow started – heavy and wet, but not accumulating, as the temperature was only in the upper 30’s. Up and up we went, the snow increasing in intensity, the temperature dropping in linear opposite tandem; the snow was now accumulating at a rapid rate, along with my stress level. The stress was compounded by the constant chatter of Crazy Mike in the back seat, all but childlike, asking, wishing, hoping and then pleading with me to pull over so he could pee. (Perhaps his decision to have that third Mountain Dew was not a prudent one.) Right before the town of Idaho Springs, about 30 miles west of Denver, the first sign of civilization after your initial up-down and all around roller coaster ride on I-70 into the mountains, there is a short tunnel – and right before the tunnel is the only shoulder, maybe a 50-yard stretch of shoulder, that a car could pull off for a guy to take a pee. There aren’t trees, or a little ditch that you could hunker down in for some privacy; just enough space for a car to pull over and Crazy Mike to get out and pee against the face of the adjoining mountain, cars whizzing by all the while, snow blinding the eyes of any who would wish to peruse – this is what occurred…..and mercifully, the whining stopped.

Unlike my first U-Haul haul through the mountains, I’d decided on taking Berthoud Pass, which was some 30 miles shorter than the Loveland Pass route, and I’d decided after my previous bitch of a journey up icy Highway 9 to Hot Sulphur, that Berthoud’s snaky twists and turns couldn’t be any worse. We struggled to get to Empire, the turnoff from I-70 onto Highway 40, the snow now blinding and building on the road at a rate that is unimaginable to flatlanders…certainly this flatlander. As we started the ascent onto the snaking Berthoud Pass road, snow coming at a rate of maybe 2’/hour, I passed a State highway employee standing at the gate that closes the pass….we were to be the last car allowed over the pass. Damn our luck.

Berthoud Pass, from initial climb to final descent, is 14 miles with 5 switchbacks up and 5 down: I got to know them like I know the back of my hand, and hate them with an ever increasing intensity.

If you're so inclined, cut and paste the following link, watch it, and imagine making this drive at night, at the tail end of a 10 hour drive across Kansas & Colorado, in a white-out blizzard, pulling a loaded U-Haul with a whimpering, foul-smelling painter in your back seat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5UXyNm914I&feature=fvsr

This particular evening, I drove up the mountain in a blinding storm, never exceeding 10 MPH. I was sturdy, resolute and complete in the knowledge that there was no going back – we were locked in, and I had to get us out. When we hit the top of the pass, 11,000 feet at the top of the mountain in a windswept blizzard, both John’s and my need to rid ourselves of Mountain Dew kicked in, and our stop-off pee at the apex was fulfilling mostly in the notion that it might be our last, and I wouldn’t have to worry about rescue personnel finding us dead with soiled britches.

Down the mountain I went, the U-Haul trailer pressing on my back like a 2000-pound zit. I was in 1st gear the entire time, traveling no more than 5 MPH, yet every second of the journey I felt that my car legs were about to fall from under me; and this says nothing of the visibility issue, as I was struggling to hang on to the car and the trailer, but to go where, as I couldn’t see but one foot beyond the front of the car.

I’ll be honest and tell you that I prayed fiercely during that 14 mile, hour-long trek over the mountain. I questioned myself, asking ‘what in the world have you done to put yourself in harm’s way like this…you’re out of your element to the point that you’re jeopardizing your life.’ God answered my prayers and got me down that mountain, only to put me in the center of Middle Park, where the snow raged, the wind blew a gale, and visibility ceased to exist on any human level. I still had 35 long miles to go before I would hopefully be able to climb out of this rolling coffin.

Most highways these days have slits cut into the pavement at the edge of the shoulder; if you should doze while driving and start to veer off the road, the tires hit the slits and make a loud

BDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

noise that zaps you back awake and into your proper travel lane. In Colorado, those slits have nothing to do with waking you up – they’re there to keep you from driving off the road in a white-out blizzard, which no question I would have done innumerable times that evening without the slits. After 16 of the longest hours of my life, we pulled up to the front of The Riverside at 10:00 PM MST. I waited in the SUV for a bit, absolutely spent, while Crazy Mike, ever being Johnny-on-the-spot when it came to mechanical and maintenance issues, went into the hotel to get a crowbar, which he would ultimately use to pry my rigid, ashen fingers from the steering wheel.

To Be Concluded…………

Mountains.....Part III

Despair and darkness know no bounds, but they seem to have found a welcome home deep within the walls of Middle Park, Grand County, Colorado.

The driver of the van, this seeker of seclusion that came upon a place in the mountains that would possibly forever hide him and his tribulations, was a 62-year old resident of the beautiful city of Denver, some 90 miles ESE of his chosen final resting place. It is possible that the individual believed that a massive snowfall was just around the corner, and not necessarily a bold gamble as December 9th was the day that he came to Grand County and the Trough Road, and the resultant drifts of expected snow and a dozen other subsequent winter snowfalls would make his road off limits until springtime, some 5 - 6 months away – even to a diligent BLM officer.

But his gamble turned out not to pay off, as unusually dry conditions made for a relatively snow free December in Grand County, and his plan for a temporary asylum for his crime, like the winter snow, never materialized.

In the white Chevy Van lay the bodies of a 62-year old father and his 9-year old autistic son, the son murdered by a single gunshot wound to the head, wrapped in a blanket, laying in peaceful repose in the back of the van on the floor. The father sat in the front seat, slumped over sideways with his head in the passenger seat; a head that also contained a single, fatal gunshot wound. Both bodies were frozen solid, and well preserved.

Was it a money issue? Was the father in a state of despair over his son’s disability? Could it have been a custody issue? Two articles appeared in the Denver Post, neither of which made mention of anything other than the fact that a murder-suicide had occurred, as if this sort of thing, much like a traffic fatality, happens with regularity.

What sort of tragedy drives a person to this? Can you possibly imagine any situation that would be so dire, so without hope or resolution, that driving to a desolate place in the mountains and committing such an act would play out as your best possible alternative?

As the initial shock of this find began to wear off of the BLM officer – remember, these individuals are trained to deal with the occasional poacher or unlicensed angler – he realized that much more was at play than the murder-suicide. There was a wallet on the driver’ side floor of the van, open and empty of money, credit cards and all of whatever else it had previously contained. The glove box lay open, the contents of which had obviously been gone through to the point of looking as if a small tornado had found its way into the car. But the BLM officer’s final glance at the crime scene revealed an act of violence that at first was beyond his reason or comprehension.

The shooter’s left arm was hanging limp over the edge of the passenger seat, the left hand frozen in space a few inches above the floor of the van. The thumb and index finger had been severed from the hand, cleanly; the hacksaw that had been used for the operation resting askew on the floor against the passenger door. The missing thumb and finger were not in obvious view, nor was the gun that those digits had held so dearly.

It didn’t take the experts long to piece together a scenario of what they believed had occurred. Sometime between the 9th of December, the day the father and son drove to the mountains from Denver, and December 17th, the day that the bodies were discovered by the BLM officer, someone had come across the van and the bodies and stolen whatever valuables had been in the van, including the murder weapon, which had been intertwined in the hand of the shooter, particularly his thumb and his forefinger; the fingers frozen to the point that a hacksaw was necessary to free the gun from this natural encumbrance.

It also didn’t take the experts long before they had a track on the perpetrators of this heinously unnatural act, which is understandable, as anyone who would be desperate enough to saw a gun from a frozen hand, let alone steal money from a corpse, having taken desperation to a heretofore unseen level, would be certain to quickly make use of their ill-gotten gains. A male and female, both known meth-heads from Craig, CO, were tracked through their use of the deceased’s credit cards to a hotel in Snoqualmie, WA, approximately 25 miles ESE of Seattle - more mountains and wilderness in which they could seek shelter from normalcy - and 1220 miles from the scene of their crime.

The first question one begs to ask is what were two people from Craig, CO, a good 100 hard miles to the northeast of Kremmling, doing in a remote area of the wilderness in the winter where they would have had, apparently for them, the good fortune to stumble across this meth head’s gold mine of a find – a corpse with credit cards and a gun? A litany of questions further ensue, but the next most obvious is what drove these people to commit this unthinkable act – their dire need for money for their dire need for drugs? Imagine their desperation, a force so profound that it was able to overwhelm any sort of basic emotion towards the obvious human tragedy that they had uncovered, emotions that would have the coldest of hearts closing the door, stepping back to mournfully ponder the misfortune of this man and boy and then calling the authorities.

Many might consider my parallel between this desperate act of violence and mountain living to be intellectually lazy and based upon no quantifiable facts or cogent reasoning; that would be a fair charge, as my parallel is based upon personal bias and little more than limited observations and a gut feeling. However, I’ll offer the supposition that perhaps not all Coloradans cherish the mountains; rather, there are many more of my ilk who cower under the constant threat and intimidation of these peaks that eternally hulk over their every move.

A little known fact… but, Denver, as beautiful a city as you will find because of the snow-capped Rockies that hold this city in their hands, leads the United States in alcoholism; Colorado Springs, another city with its back up against the Rockies, is third. How can this disease, whose most prominent root cause is generally argued to be depression and despair, be running rampant in a city typically known for its beauty, healthy living and as a gateway to fun and frolic? I’ll argue that those mountains have more of a negative effect on the human psyche than one might imagine – and I know, because I’ve lived it, and they whammed me good.

After the couples capture and extradition to Grand County, they await trial on the charges of identity theft, theft, criminal trespass, possession of burglary tools, tampering with physical evidence, criminal possession of a financial device, violation of bail bonds, criminal mischief, abuse of a corpse, and telecommunication crime; they’re now sitting uncomfortably sober 500 yards south of The Riverside Hotel in the Grand County Jail, nestled at the base of Mt. Bross, he hulking over them and the rest of Hot Sulphur Springs, brooding, sullen…..but clearly in charge of their moods, if not also their deeds.


To be continued……..

Mountains.......Part II

As one approaches the Rocky Mountains from the east, most will revel in their beauty, while I saw only the epitome of intimidation; daunting, overwhelming, imposing, massive - name your favorite adjective for something large that you fear, the Rockies were for me all of them combined, heaped one upon the other.

Living in the heart of the Rockies, in a space known as Middle Park, we were surrounded by these beasts. There was no getting to where we had to go, either home or away from home, without trekking up, over and down. (The term “park” as in North Park, Middle Park and South Park, refers to the relatively level, relatively flat area that encompasses the center of these mountainous areas, basins for the North Platte, Colorado and South Platte rivers. When seen from above on a topographical map, looking down on the Rockies in Colorado you can see three distinct ‘rings’ of peaks, the middle of each containing an expanse of land some 4000- 6000 feet lesser in elevation. Don’t consider it a valley, which is the sloping land between peaks – in Colorado, that vast expanse of river basin, each of the three 1000 square miles in area, is a park.) At the risk of being trite when referring to these mountains as a ‘fortress’, it is a truly apt description, and beyond the usual reference to their stony edified, castle-like appearance, as once beyond these granite peaks, safely ensconced within the walls of the park, you feel as if you are held prisoner, isolated from the rest of civilization. The often brutal weather compounds this feeling of forced remoteness, as the highway gates slam shut when the pass closes, literally locking you into this elevated hoosegow.

The mountains have a tendency to overwhelm you with both their precipitous height and their vast scope, constantly lording over you, eternally making you feel small and insignificant. As they flex their mighty muscles when blasting you with snow and wind, or while hurling vicious javelins of lighting at you, seemingly emanating not from the clouds but directly from their jagged peaks, they whip you into submission, while grinding you and your psyche down to that of a whimpering puppy. If you live there long enough, you will ultimately end up prostrate before them, submissive, broken, as you recognize that they are your lord, your master, and you learn that under no circumstance will they ever be inclined to show you mercy.

I actually began to view the mountains as animate objects, and not animate in the sense of the old cartoons where you would have things like jolly smokestacks, belching smoke and singing songs; rather, they were mean-spirited hulking masses, waiting to pounce, an enormous arm coming out of nowhere to smite you. Animate in having an intellect, certainly smarter than you, and animate in having a mood, always foul, and a heart, always cold.

As my time living in the mountains increased, I started to observe among my fellow mountain dwellers that my feelings towards the Rockies were not unique. The more I got to know the locals, most of whom had dealt with these peaks for far longer than I, I began to notice a common personality trait in them; a complex, many faceted trait that was composed of fear, mistrust, forlornness and demoralization. I had never imagined that we would move somewhere that was inhabited by a more unfriendly collection of people, a people that kept their thoughts and their words to themselves, as if they were all up there hiding from someone or something; the truth be known, probably most were. My guess is that they weren’t bad people at heart; they had just been oppressed by their environment to the point of resigned submission, and that submission manifested itself in their perpetually dark moods and sullen interactions.

The omnipresent darkness and despair that pervades the mountain dwellers psyche can also lead to some despicable acts of violence and desperation, the following of which is a classic example that would seem shocking were it to happen in sunny California, sultry Mississippi, or any imaginable green-lawned suburban expanse; but in the mountains, the shock was minimal, the reality predictable.

In early December of 2011, a Colorado Bureau of Land Management officer made a grisly discovery in southwestern Grand County, 20 miles SSW of the town of Kremmeling, off of County Road 102 – barely a spit of a road spun off from the infamous Trough Road. I’ve made mention of this road before as being not more than a narrow, winding path, devoid of guard rails yet flush with opportunities to dive your car over the edge, down hundreds of feet to the icy waters of the Colorado River, which the Trough Road parrots in their mutually serpentine westward journey. In my one time traveling the Trough Road, there were two features that scared me into never taking it again, the obvious one being the heretofore mentioned unguarded hairpin turns and the dizzying precipices, but the other, a frightening aspect that was a bit more subtle - the feeling of isolation and desolation, while not something you can point to and quantify, was overwhelming to me. I was cognizant of the fact that if something bad did happen (bad as in losing control on the icy road and toppling over the side of the cliff) it would be an eternity before someone happened upon us, and certainly not prior to the mountain lions or coyotes having their way with our corpses.

How long had the silent, mostly hidden early-model Chevy Van that the BLM officer happened upon been there? The vehicle was off the Trough Road, down a little gravel finger that lead nowhere, partially obscured in a cut of pinyon trees and sage brush. It would have been extremely rare that someone other than a BLM officer would have any reason to be on that road, especially in the dead of winter. Unlike my Trough Road fear of rounding a corner and free falling into river and woods below, this van had been driven to its current location, as there was no evidence of damage, and the van was quietly resting upright on all four wheels.

The BLM officer would quickly discover that he was not the first person to stumble upon the van, remote as it was.

To be continued……..

Mountains

As you head west on I-70, when you reach the 371-mile marker at town of Genoa, CO, you get your first full view of Pike’s Peak, (one of fifty-three 14,000’+ mountains in the state), although it is yet still some 100 miles southwest as the crow flies; when the sky is clear, the smog is absent and the light is right, it is a view that ignites and rejuvenates the weary westbound traveler. I can only imagine the emotion that first view of the snow-capped peak inspired in Zebulon Pike and his crew, the sky then devoid of any 21st century visual encumbrances, and they not having had the luxury of traversing the prior 500 miles of flatness at 80 MPH in an IPod-playing, greenhouse gas-spewing Chevy Suburban.

To Zebulon Pike and to countless others, those mountains, those imposing peaks, were a welcoming sight, but to me, they were an imposing sentinel; a massive opponent that I would inevitably have to dual, yet, I knew before the battle that there was no chance for victory – the only hope my meager survival on the heartless terms of this enormous oppressor, this never-ending wave of one granite Goliath after another.

The city of Denver sits in a slight depression, a bowl, after the steady but gentle rise of the land which starts at Hays, KS, elevation 2000 ft., and ends 3240 feet later at the eastern edge of Denver. It then dips a bit, just a bit due to the valley created by the Platte River, and then ascends at a rapid rate into the foothills of The Rockies. Natives to Denver likely have a very different view of the mountains than do I; they view them as old friends, always there to have a little fun with on the weekends. To me, they were my challenge, a big Brutus that always had to be dealt with; a little like having to walk home past the house with the mean dog, having no safe alternative route – sometimes the beast was inside and no threat to you, yet you were always praying and looking over your shoulder in passing, mostly it was outside on a chain, barking ferociously and scaring the hell out of you but still only a perceived threat, and then that occasional time when the demon was roaming free, to chase and terrorize and yes, to possibly lay your ass to waste.

I grew to hate those mountains.

My first 10-12 encounters with the mountains were relatively friendly, i.e. there were no issues with the weather. We’d been to Hot Sulphur Springs on seven occasions and once to Glenwood Springs between Christmas and New Years, and not once did we encounter winter weather on the trip; not once! So I was totally dumb to the reality of a Rocky Mountain blizzard experienced behind the wheel of a car on I-70. As luck would naturally have it, I got my first taste of snow and ice on that initial trek to Hot Sulphur as the soon to be owners of the Riverside….pulling a loaded 9x12 U-Haul trailer.

If you’ve never pulled a loaded trailer, you’ve missed a chance to savor the taste of one of life’s real shit sandwiches. As your car groans and strains with the slightest acceleration, you are certain that at any moment your transmission will hemorrhage and vomit itself in the middle of the road. No matter how fast you’re traveling, there is a pervasive feeling that the trailer is milliseconds away from swaying itself to the left, then right, then left, eventually breaking free from the tow ball and somersaulting into the other lane of oncoming traffic. And all the while you’re driving, the thought of this thing attached to the back of your car is more than you can bear, as every sudden noise or unusual movement causes your asshole to pucker up near the bottom of your throat, your arms and shoulders get rigid as a Mormon, your jaw tightens like eighty-eight Stienway strings and your two hands clench the steering wheel in a death grip that turns your knuckles whiter than the blinding snow. To the novice, it is an experience that rivals very few for its propensity to thoroughly and most absolutely suck.

That first haul, December 26th, pulling out of KC at 3:00 PM, we encountered snow when we hit Topeka at around 4:30, some 60 miles west of KC; very light snow but enough to scare the bejeezus out of me – and it was getting dark. I felt as if I was working miracles maintaining a speed of 55 MPH and not losing complete control of the car or my bowels. The snow really started to pick up around Salina and it was now totally dark; the swirling flakes in the headlight beams making visibility extremely difficult. It was also at this time that Julie complained that she was freezing, huddled in the heated passenger seat wrapped in a blanket, her teeth chattering like a pair of dime-store castanets. With the heater blasting it was probably 80F in the car – I was so hot I’d stripped down to my Garanimals. ‘Great!’ I thought, ‘she has a raging fever.’ We made it to the halfway point, Hays, KS, at 9:00 PM, Julie sick as a dog and me as physically and mentally exhausted as I could remember ever being; I was in dire need of both a martini and a diaper change, confused as to what need to first satisfy.

The next morning dawned clear and crisp, the prior evenings snow universally glazed and frozen to the surface of I-70 from Hays to the immediate outskirts of Denver; I think I remember saying “Oh Yippee!”

Even in a bright sun with unlimited visibility, the drive was harrowing; the combination of the car and attached trailer gliding over the glazed surface felt a little like roller skating on an ice rink – there wasn’t one second, regardless of your speed, when you didn’t feel like you were going to lose control. Seven long hours later we arrived in Denver. At this point most of the roads were clear and free of ice, with the only issue being spray from the roads and the constant need for keeping the windows clean, hoping I had enough windshield juice to finish the trip – I had no intention of stopping and maneuvering highway ramps and side streets with the trailer.

Through Denver and the traffic, I started the climb up into the foothills, which all who have made this trek know strains your car’s drive train as you climb upwards at 5% – 7% grades. Pulling that loaded trailer up those hills had my Suburban’s engine and transmission screaming at me, and then cursing. Onward and upward I went, but not very quickly.

I’d been debating with myself for the last eight hours about my ultimate route over the Continental Divide – would it be Berthoud Pass, that Python of a roadway that climbed to 11,000 feet before snaking back down into Winter Park and on another 35 miles to Hot Sulphur? Or would I go the longer route over Loveland Pass on I-70, a slow, steady steep straight up, followed by a log flume ride straight down through the Eisenhower Tunnel to Dillon and the Blue River Valley, then north on the flat but crooked, narrow and windswept Highway 9; for whatever reason I opted for the straighter, longer route on I-70 over Loveland Pass.

No sooner did I pass the Highway 40 turnoff for Berthoud Pass and headed for Loveland Pass, than it began to snow hard; I suppose you’d describe the weather conditions as ‘blizzard-like’. It was a very wet, heavy snow; the kind that accumulates faster on your windshields than your wipers can manage. I wanted to pull over and cry, but we were so close to our destination; this was for certain a classic example of “always darkest before the dawn.” The Coloradans who shared the road with me flew by as if nothing was out of the ordinary, seeing a look of terror on my face and probably saying, “poor bastard…not only is he from Kansas…he’s pulling a damned U-Haul.” If they only knew our ultimate destination and eventual purpose, they’d know that pulling a U-Haul over Loveland Pass in a blizzard would be the easiest and most enjoyable part of our 2-year journey.

To Be Continued……….

Abner Renta............Mortis

The deal was done and now there was no going back. Never in the history of people exchanging money for things, things large like houses, things small like Little Debbie Nutty Bars and things in-between like a full pallet of Little Debbie Nutty Bars, has there been a more immediate and intensely rueful case of buyer’s remorse than with our purchase of The Riverside Hotel, Bar & Restaurant from Mr. Abner Renta.

The ink on the deal hadn’t even thought about beginning to dry before we began discovering a treasure trove of ‘caveat emptors’, so many of so many varying degrees that if I didn’t already know the translation of caveat emptor, I would have thought for certain that it was Latin for "given any opportunity, Abner Renta will screw you".

Walking upstairs shortly after signing the deal, I discovered (all of this new since the quasi-mechanical inspection of the previous August – my last visit before the sale) a broken window pane in the John Lennon room, kind-of fixed in the most half-assed duct tape sort of fashion, with sub-zero air rushing in, two rooms with non-functional heaters, one room with a sink so stopped up that a stick of dynamite wouldn’t free it’s flow, the previously mentioned missing antique dressers, chairs and other pieces that gave the place but a little charm, and the coup de grace, a 10-gallon aluminum stockpot sitting in a back hallway, half full of water that had leaked from a massive gash in the roof, next to a wall so warped and misshapen by the leaking water that it bowed a good foot out of square at it’s center point.

I know for a fact that this was the exact hour that my body decided for me that, in spite of my previous good health and clean living, I would need consistent doses of blood pressure medicine to remain in good health from this point forward in my life, even as I rotted away in prison after having bludgeoned Abner to death with enthusiastic joy and a total lack of remorse.

Downstairs I went to the kitchen, my blood simmering at a steady temperature of 211oF; it wasn’t long before my temperature rose that significant extra degree. All of the commercial-sized pots, pans, serving trays and dishes were gone, left in their stead were a few small 10” frying pans, beat to absolute shit and in such an awful state that you would be embarrassed to offer them in a garage sale; a picker wouldn’t bother pulling them out of a trash can. In pre-sale discussions, I was promised by Abner and my realtor, who supposedly supervised Abner’s pre-sale packing of “a few personal effects”, that all of the commercial equipment would stay in the kitchen as a part of the sale. And then there was the commercial icemaker – silent, room temperature and totally barren of ice. This discovery made the cork officially pop.

I stormed out of the kitchen to the lobby, where Abner still sat in comfortable repose, still eating shrimp, still throwing the shrimp shells on the floor.

“Abner, where in the hell is all of the kitchen equipment… the pots, the pans? And what’s up with the ice maker? It’s not working?!?!”

“Oh” he said, quietly and coolly, not looking at me but casually examining his fingernails as if he’d just finished a manicure…”you noticed that, did you?”

It was at this precise point that a demon which had previously been unknown to exist in me, locked deep into the recesses of my inner most psyche, exploded out of my soul, through my mouth and into the lobby of The Riverside, making the famous chest-monster scene in ALIEN seem tedious.

I unleashed every sort of obscenity and invective that I could summon; the air in the room was searing and oppressive from my heated tirade as a continual stream of spittle flew from my rabid mouth, creating a fine mist that suspended in the atmosphere, all but afraid to find purchase on the floor below. This display was witnessed by my wife, my in-laws, the realtor and worst of all… my children, their eyes wide as pie pans as they had never heard me say anything harsher than the occasional ‘damn’, and only once a ‘shit’.

In response to this epic, Vesuvian explosion, Abner sat calmly, watching me in a fashion as wan and detached from reality as if he were watching a PBS special on fog. No doubt this wasn’t the first time that someone had dressed him down in such a manner. And really, what did he care? He had $690,000 nestled in his bank account, albeit for only a short while, and I held the keys to a 103-year old haunted, wooden, broken-down turd, permanently parked in the middle of a frozen, out-of-the-way hell hole.

His lack of a reaction only made me hotter, and it was at this point that my two brother-in-laws stepped in, both knowing that I was seconds away from diving at this lying, thieving pencil necked bastard and strangling him until his blood-shot bulging eyes popped from his sockets and rolled across the room; me laughing maniacally, gleefull as his face turned the color of Grape Fanta. They picked him up out of the chair, each grabbing an upper arm, and dragged him kicking and screaming across the floor of the lobby, through the front door of The Riverside, and literally threw him into the street.

Who would have imagined that this scene, this forceful ejection of Abner Renta from the pig in a poke that he had sold us, witnessed but one short hour after our purchase, would be my most joyful memory of Colorado, Hot Sulphur Springs and our ownership of The Riverside Hotel, Bar & Restaurant?

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The large brown gasped in the cool evening air, choking, retching, silently screaming for air….all new reactions never before experienced in his prior province. In spite of his confused state, he was aware that he had just taken a step that would forever doom him; he now wished for a swift, sudden and peaceful end to this suffering. But the pain and the suffering endured for what seemed an eternity, so long that he began to accept this state of agony as the dominant part of his new existence.

And then as swiftly and unexpectedly as he had crossed over this final threshold, the pain subsided and then vanished completely.

At long last, he found his final peace.