I came from an industry – manufacturing – that required all job applicants to pass a drug screening before being hired, and then be subject to random drug testing, (although we never did a random test without susceptible cause, as the omnipresent specter of a whiz-quiz combined with the need for a steady paycheck were generally enough to keep them from the ganja), or mandatory testing in the event of an injury or accident. One of my favorite pre-employment drug test stories (we all have them, don’t we?) involved a young man who called late on a Friday evening just as I was locking up for the weekend, wanting to know if we’d gotten the results from his drug screening, and had he passed the test. I asked him “what do you think?” and he answered, “I’m not sure, that’s why I’m calling to find out."
While I’m generally an advocate of respecting people’s privacy and personal liberties, all it took were a few incidences of valves being inadvertently left open causing nasty, very hard to clean up black stuff to spew out on the floor, forklifts crashing into the bright fluorescent yellow roof support poles located smack-dab in the middle of the fork lift aisle, or the wrong pump pumping the wrong stuff out of the wrong tank into the wrong mixer before I decided to shelve my “what you do on your time is your business” philosophy and start drug testing. Amazing how quickly the expensive, hard to clean and potentially dangerous drug-induced brain-farts virtually disappeared.
I’m not in heavy manufacturing any longer – no big mixing tanks, no pumps, no 150-hp motors or 4” ball valves making 2000-gallon batches of noxious goo. I’m now in light manufacturing – pots, pans, little Kitchen-Aide mixers and a consumer-grade food processor, manufacturing stocks, soups, salads, entrees and crème brule. No need for drug testing here.
Wait just a minute! How ironic that an industry where overstressed people are running around cramped quarters on slippery floors at a breakneck pace with BIG SHARP KNIVES IN THEIR HANDS doesn’t require their employees to be drug and alcohol free. Why is this?? How can this be?? Simple – if you drug tested cooks before you hired them, and then actually expected them to stay sober during business hours, you’d have a pretty limited labor pool to draw from, especially in Grand County, CO. (Having said that, we are blessed at The Riverside to not only have a drug-free, sober-during-business-hours chef, but one that out-cooks all of the other four-star hash hawkers on the mountain.) Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case with our previous chef, and it was he who opened my eyes to the proclivity of chefs to indulge in, no, to mostly outright abuse drugs and alcohol. When I told our food supplier that I thought our chef was pretty much stoned all of the time, he said “welcome to the restaurant business.” This explained a lot. Let’s be honest; you probably can’t come up with something like Sautéed Soy-infused Lichens served over a bed of Squid-Ink Pappardelle without a little creative help.
Often times the creative aspect can be skewed a bit when one asks the ganja gods for too much help. For example, our straight chef prepared a beautiful apple custard tart for dessert – light flaky crust, apples artfully arranged on a bed of silken vanilla custard. It was a sight to behold, almost too beautiful to slice and serve. Enter Chef Hookah who, of his own accord and without consulting straight chef, decided the tart needed that little extra something to really make the dish special. That something was beet juice. We had just gotten some beets from our local vegetable purveyor, and Bong Boy felt that the logical thing to do with fresh beets was to dice them, put them in a pot with a little water, and slowly cook them down into a brilliant red, syrupy reduction. This fire engine red reduction was then Jackson Pollock-ed onto a white desert plate, upon which the soft yellow tart would rest – indeed, a feast for the eyes, but not for the palate. The beet juice tasted like – and I mean this literally – dirt. Dirt is not a good taste, and it certainly doesn’t enhance the flavor of apple custard tart. The only dish the flavor of dirt might work well with would be an earthworm flan, which I thought of but didn’t suggest to our Weeded Wonder, for fear that it would end up as one of the evening specials.
We sold all of the tart that evening, and to a diner, they described the taste of the beet reduction as ‘interesting’. Know that when someone uses the term ‘interesting’ to describe something in a restaurant, that’s never, ever meant as an acknowledgement of successful taste bud manipulation.
While many may argue this point, I’ll assert that being stoned to the gills can generally have a negative affect on motor skills, cognitive ability and overall job performance – unless maybe you’re Jerry Garcia. Or you were Jerry Garcia. I should get less of an argument on this point when you consider that the individual has thrown down 10 of my Budweisers along with 6-8 shots of Johnny Walker Red or Hornitos Reposada Tequila during the evening rush, on top of his usual afternoon of reefer madness. Do the terms “thick tongued”, “pie-eyed” or “cow-faced” conjure up any notion of a person you’d want active on your payroll? I ask, would you willingly pay work-comp insurance premiums for this individual while he was hacking up a chicken with a razor sharp Santoku, eyes lolling to the back of his head, drool pooling at the corners of his mouth? I think not – not even would Jerry Garcia write that check.
So Chef Doobie-Doer has moved on, and fortunately, he’s taken his passion for Maui Wowie, tequila shots and Budweiser into someone else’s restaurant. As long as I’m in this business, I know that I’ll have to employ and deal with those whose skills and creativities are fueled by a ‘higher’ calling, and just be thankful that we don’t use forklifts in our kitchen.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Riverside Garlic Salad
This is our signature salad, developed from a recipe handed down to me and my siblings from my father, Alfred J. Paradise. Dad loved to cook, and he passed that passion for good food and entertaining on to all of his children. I also place partial blame on both of my parents for helping to get me into this mess, as they both new how to cook and entertain, and ended up instilling this ‘flaw’ in all of their children. It was rare that a week went by without some sort of get together in the Paradise house involving food and drink with either our large extended family or agglomerations of friends, neighbors or business associates. I grew up around food and fun, and have tried to turn those wonderful childhood memories and experiences into a respectable career here at The Riverside.
Dad was an empirical cook, and rarely did he consult a cookbook or magazine for a recipe. He flew by the seat of his pants, often recreating food from only the gustatory memories of dishes he’d had in restaurants. He took great delight in 'jacking' with people who’d ask for recipes of his original creations. “Oh, there’s no recipe” he’d say, “It’s just a few tablespoons of this or a cup or two of that.” Or he would go to the other extreme, saying things like “boil the potatoes for 17 minutes, then immediately douse them in 52-degree water for six minutes, making sure the water maintains the 52-degree temperature.” He would delight inwardly as his unsuspecting dupes would diligently write down his culinary canard, always to come back at some later point and complain that although they followed the instructions to the letter, they were unable to recreate his recipe.
This is no canard; this recipe should make enough dressing for four large servings of garlic salad. You’ll need a large round-bottom wooden salad bowl, ( http://www.bowlmill.com/cgi-bin/bowlmill/1015U1.html?id=okCdE7oK ) the rougher the texture of the wood, the better, and a hefty wooden spoon.
6 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/2 lemon
½ cup of olive oil
½ cup ice cubes
Press the garlic, or mince extremely fine, and place in the bottom of the salad bowl with the kosher salt and Dijon mustard. With the back of the spoon, make a smooth paste – grind that salt into the garlic. Add the juice of ½ lemon to the paste, and slowly add the olive oil, stirring to a smooth consistency. Add the ice cubes, and stir well, until the ice has started to melt. You don’t have to totally melt the ice at this point – you can pour the mixture into a cup, and use within the hour. The ice does three things – it emulsifies the mixture to help prevent it from separating, helps cut the potency, and obviously cools the dressing. This salad should be served very cold, with cold crisp lettuce, mozzarella and croutons - no store bought croutons; here is our standard Riverside crouton recipe.
5 slices Farm to Market Sourdough Bread http://www.farmtomarketbread.com/
¼ cup olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons garlic salt
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil and butter to near smoking. Add the garlic salt and cayenne pepper, and then add the bread, (which you’ve cut into ½” cubes). Keep tossing the croutons until they’re coated with the oil/butter/salt mixture and toasted to a crunch.
Toss the lettuce with the croutons and the shredded mozzarella (use whatever type of lettuce you like - we use a mixture of romaine, fresh spinach when available, and mixed spring greens. This salad is also excellent with good old hand-shredded iceberg lettuce - that's all we had growing up as poor white children in Johnson County, KS).
Add the dressing a little at a time, and keep tossing until all of the mixture is coated. SERVE COLD on chilled plates, and top with fresh cracked pepper.
Dad was an empirical cook, and rarely did he consult a cookbook or magazine for a recipe. He flew by the seat of his pants, often recreating food from only the gustatory memories of dishes he’d had in restaurants. He took great delight in 'jacking' with people who’d ask for recipes of his original creations. “Oh, there’s no recipe” he’d say, “It’s just a few tablespoons of this or a cup or two of that.” Or he would go to the other extreme, saying things like “boil the potatoes for 17 minutes, then immediately douse them in 52-degree water for six minutes, making sure the water maintains the 52-degree temperature.” He would delight inwardly as his unsuspecting dupes would diligently write down his culinary canard, always to come back at some later point and complain that although they followed the instructions to the letter, they were unable to recreate his recipe.
This is no canard; this recipe should make enough dressing for four large servings of garlic salad. You’ll need a large round-bottom wooden salad bowl, ( http://www.bowlmill.com/cgi-bin/bowlmill/1015U1.html?id=okCdE7oK ) the rougher the texture of the wood, the better, and a hefty wooden spoon.
6 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/2 lemon
½ cup of olive oil
½ cup ice cubes
Press the garlic, or mince extremely fine, and place in the bottom of the salad bowl with the kosher salt and Dijon mustard. With the back of the spoon, make a smooth paste – grind that salt into the garlic. Add the juice of ½ lemon to the paste, and slowly add the olive oil, stirring to a smooth consistency. Add the ice cubes, and stir well, until the ice has started to melt. You don’t have to totally melt the ice at this point – you can pour the mixture into a cup, and use within the hour. The ice does three things – it emulsifies the mixture to help prevent it from separating, helps cut the potency, and obviously cools the dressing. This salad should be served very cold, with cold crisp lettuce, mozzarella and croutons - no store bought croutons; here is our standard Riverside crouton recipe.
5 slices Farm to Market Sourdough Bread http://www.farmtomarketbread.com/
¼ cup olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons garlic salt
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil and butter to near smoking. Add the garlic salt and cayenne pepper, and then add the bread, (which you’ve cut into ½” cubes). Keep tossing the croutons until they’re coated with the oil/butter/salt mixture and toasted to a crunch.
Toss the lettuce with the croutons and the shredded mozzarella (use whatever type of lettuce you like - we use a mixture of romaine, fresh spinach when available, and mixed spring greens. This salad is also excellent with good old hand-shredded iceberg lettuce - that's all we had growing up as poor white children in Johnson County, KS).
Add the dressing a little at a time, and keep tossing until all of the mixture is coated. SERVE COLD on chilled plates, and top with fresh cracked pepper.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Bastards in our Restaurant
Oh my, did I just say that!!??
I suppose I did, and I’m not ashamed to say that I have good reason for spewing that epithet, which tonight, comes from the bottom of my soul. I’ve learned a lot these past 18 months of living life Riverside, but first and foremost, I’ve learned that owning, running, working in and paying for a restaurant is not for the faint of heart. I’ve already got my eye on a second career – no, not life coach – restaurant consultant. I can make millions, and save my collective consulters billions. I’ll charge a flat rate of $1000 per hour; granted, that’s a pretty heady fee, but all it’ll take is one hour, and one thousand of your dollars, to personally save you millions by giving you 100+ solid gold reasons why, as a novice in the industry, (as was I) you’d be a screaming idiot to invest your time, money, blood, sweat and tears in a restaurant.
Before I go off half-cocked, I have to say that the opportunity exists for the experienced restaurateur to make a fine living, and if your skin is thick enough, you can also get some major job satisfaction out of seeing most of your customers swoon with desire as they sup your soup and swill your sauvignon, while you ignore the petty complaints from the bastards who have no clue of what’s involved in serving a well-presented, hot plate of good food in a timely manner. I also have to admit that it can be a bit of an ego booster when the dining experience is a positive one in that people tend to treat you like a rock star – maybe a second rate rock star, but a rock star nonetheless - as they all but applaud as you walk by their table . Thanks to our talented chef and dedicated staff, I can say that the urge to applaud our efforts is, in fact, way more often the case than not. I can even break it down further and say that 90% of our diners go out of their way to say things like “best meal I’ve ever had”, “can’t believe there’s a restaurant like this in such an out of the way place”, “ better than any meal I’ve had in Denver”, etc. Of the remaining 10%, 8% are simply satisfied, not willing to gush forth with professions of gustatory euphoria, but neither were they unhappy with their dining experience. It is that final 2% that has earned the distinction of being politely referred to as “bastards”.
I’m not saying for a second that we don’t occasionally screw things up. Orders get mixed up, wait times can be excessive on busy weekend nights, some dishes just don’t click with some people – we’re only human, which automatically makes us less than perfect. When these slip-ups happen, we go out of our way to make it as right as we can. I’ve never charged anyone for food that they felt wasn’t up to par. I’ve ‘comp-ed’ many a dessert or appetizer when the food wasn’t delivered in a timely fashion – timely being defined by the customer, not by us. And pretty much in all of these aforementioned incidents of dining room malfeasance, the customers couldn’t be nicer and more understanding. They seem to get the “we’re dealing with human beings here” thing.
Now I’ll go off half-cocked. I can literally count on one hand the incidents that we’ve had with diners who fall into the “bastards” category. These are people that are either so demanding, so small, so particular, or probably so generally unhappy with life and with themselves that nothing they encounter in this world satisfies them. We didn’t get them their meal fast enough, their water often enough, their bread hot enough or their food tasty enough – no matter that all of the aforementioned were delivered in the same fashion to the 50 other extremely satisfied diners that same evening. My guess is that these 2% bastards get pissed of at the grocery store, the gas station, the post office, the drivers license bureau (wait a minute….I’ve gotten pissed off at the drivers license bureau), and every other place or situation where they have to rely on or interact with human beings who are required to give them service.
So we’ve established the fact that there are those amongst us for whom no level of service is acceptable; they simply can’t be satisfied. I should accept this and move on down the road when I encounter one of these bastards. But unfortunately, my innate desire to please is scorched to the core when I’m unable to make everyone happy. I’ve never been moved to write a diatribe such as this based upon the 98% of the people that I do satisfy – it’s the 2% that I don’t (can’t) that eats at my craw and moves me to blogemote (a new verb!).
Maybe I should rethink the restaurant consultant thing. Instead, I say to you prospective restaurateurs, you can make a good living in the restaurant business, and you can also derive an immense amount of personal satisfaction from your job if you simply dedicate yourself to pleasing your customers and attending to their well being.
Just don’t let the bastards grind you down!
I suppose I did, and I’m not ashamed to say that I have good reason for spewing that epithet, which tonight, comes from the bottom of my soul. I’ve learned a lot these past 18 months of living life Riverside, but first and foremost, I’ve learned that owning, running, working in and paying for a restaurant is not for the faint of heart. I’ve already got my eye on a second career – no, not life coach – restaurant consultant. I can make millions, and save my collective consulters billions. I’ll charge a flat rate of $1000 per hour; granted, that’s a pretty heady fee, but all it’ll take is one hour, and one thousand of your dollars, to personally save you millions by giving you 100+ solid gold reasons why, as a novice in the industry, (as was I) you’d be a screaming idiot to invest your time, money, blood, sweat and tears in a restaurant.
Before I go off half-cocked, I have to say that the opportunity exists for the experienced restaurateur to make a fine living, and if your skin is thick enough, you can also get some major job satisfaction out of seeing most of your customers swoon with desire as they sup your soup and swill your sauvignon, while you ignore the petty complaints from the bastards who have no clue of what’s involved in serving a well-presented, hot plate of good food in a timely manner. I also have to admit that it can be a bit of an ego booster when the dining experience is a positive one in that people tend to treat you like a rock star – maybe a second rate rock star, but a rock star nonetheless - as they all but applaud as you walk by their table . Thanks to our talented chef and dedicated staff, I can say that the urge to applaud our efforts is, in fact, way more often the case than not. I can even break it down further and say that 90% of our diners go out of their way to say things like “best meal I’ve ever had”, “can’t believe there’s a restaurant like this in such an out of the way place”, “ better than any meal I’ve had in Denver”, etc. Of the remaining 10%, 8% are simply satisfied, not willing to gush forth with professions of gustatory euphoria, but neither were they unhappy with their dining experience. It is that final 2% that has earned the distinction of being politely referred to as “bastards”.
I’m not saying for a second that we don’t occasionally screw things up. Orders get mixed up, wait times can be excessive on busy weekend nights, some dishes just don’t click with some people – we’re only human, which automatically makes us less than perfect. When these slip-ups happen, we go out of our way to make it as right as we can. I’ve never charged anyone for food that they felt wasn’t up to par. I’ve ‘comp-ed’ many a dessert or appetizer when the food wasn’t delivered in a timely fashion – timely being defined by the customer, not by us. And pretty much in all of these aforementioned incidents of dining room malfeasance, the customers couldn’t be nicer and more understanding. They seem to get the “we’re dealing with human beings here” thing.
Now I’ll go off half-cocked. I can literally count on one hand the incidents that we’ve had with diners who fall into the “bastards” category. These are people that are either so demanding, so small, so particular, or probably so generally unhappy with life and with themselves that nothing they encounter in this world satisfies them. We didn’t get them their meal fast enough, their water often enough, their bread hot enough or their food tasty enough – no matter that all of the aforementioned were delivered in the same fashion to the 50 other extremely satisfied diners that same evening. My guess is that these 2% bastards get pissed of at the grocery store, the gas station, the post office, the drivers license bureau (wait a minute….I’ve gotten pissed off at the drivers license bureau), and every other place or situation where they have to rely on or interact with human beings who are required to give them service.
So we’ve established the fact that there are those amongst us for whom no level of service is acceptable; they simply can’t be satisfied. I should accept this and move on down the road when I encounter one of these bastards. But unfortunately, my innate desire to please is scorched to the core when I’m unable to make everyone happy. I’ve never been moved to write a diatribe such as this based upon the 98% of the people that I do satisfy – it’s the 2% that I don’t (can’t) that eats at my craw and moves me to blogemote (a new verb!).
Maybe I should rethink the restaurant consultant thing. Instead, I say to you prospective restaurateurs, you can make a good living in the restaurant business, and you can also derive an immense amount of personal satisfaction from your job if you simply dedicate yourself to pleasing your customers and attending to their well being.
Just don’t let the bastards grind you down!
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
A Grand County 'Festivus for the Rest of Us!'
It was Saturday afternoon, June 6th, 2009, and I was walking Lucy along the south river road, where we would eventually turn west and begin the slow 2000’ ascent up the Parshall Divide. It is a fabulous walk, one that takes you on mild switchbacks past open- range cattle fields, up through heavy pine forests, and eventually onto an open plain, blanketed in the summer with golden lupine, yellow daisies, bluebells and fire-orange Devil’s paintbrush, that overlooks Byers Canyon and the Colorado River. The climb sucks your breath away, and then the view at the top renders you speechless. I love living here.
New to me this day on a walk that I take quite regularly was an inordinate amount of people fishing the Colorado. They weren’t the usual genteel, split-cane rod, Orvis wader-clad crowd that flick and peck at this section of river. They were, well, a little rough; rougher than I’d ever seen fishing the Colorado. I felt for a moment that I was back in Missouri; down on an Ozark tributary, watching locals angle for mud feeders with a large rod, a larger reel and a treble hook full of stink bait. I walked past one of these anglers, and was impressed by his fighting a fish that he had hooked downstream. Further downstream, I witnessed another fisherman who was hard at landing what appeared to be a huge fish that he’d hooked upstream. “Wow”, I thought, I see fly fisherman by the hundreds who do nothing but dab their dry flies at this water, never to fight, never to land.
Lucy’s reticence to progress on our walk, and her insistence at sniffing the riverbank Black Sage, allowed me the opportunity to watch both of these anglers land their respective catches. Except neither had hooked a trout, rather, they’d hooked each others weighted night crawler rigs, and were now cursing each other back and forth, engaged in a heated piscatorial pissing contest. I then noticed that upstream fisherman “A” had a serious pile of empty Rainer beer cans at his feet; downstream fisherman “B” had a 1.75 Liter bottle, (in Grand County, it’s referred to as an ‘Afternoon-er’) of Seagram’s 7 resting at the base of his folding chair. My mind suddenly clicked onto the realization that June 6th & 7th was in fact “Free Fishing Weekend” in Colorado, i.e. ‘No Fishing License necessary Weekend!’; a weekend that apparently tends to bring out a different, less genteel crowd.
This got me to thinking; the week following ‘Free Fishin’ Days’ is Hot Sulphur Springs Days – which is just a bit of a redneck fest. Hot Sulphur Springs Days is followed the next weekend by Kremmling Days - Kremmling being the next major town west of Hot Sulphur. Kremmling is lovingly referred to by many in Grand County as ‘Krem-tucky’; not sure why, except that it might have something to do with the shooting, hunting, drinking and cross-pollination habits of some of the towns constituents.
Another “oh, by the way” funny little thing about our neighborhood involves a stretch of State land between Hot Sulphur and Kremmling; the largest State maintained shooting range in the State of Colorado – a veritable Candy Land for gun-toting, trigger happy Coloradans. This thing stretches on for a full quarter-mile – plenty of parking spots for the Ford F-150’s, and endless racks for the hanging of torso targets, paper enemies just waiting to be obliterated by Coloradoans armed with the firepower necessary to make continual hay upon these faceless phantoms. These are my neighbors; and like the view from atop the Parshall Divide, I love them too.
Being the natural born entrepreneur and marketer that I am, my thoughts run to developing a big, week-long start of the summer Grand County Festival, involving free fishing, the two city historical celebrations, alcohol and guns. Let’s be honest with ourselves, Grand Countians! Hot Sulphur Springs and Kremmling Days are nice, and usually well attended by the locals, but if you want to make a big splash, and draw not only people from Grand County and the Front Range, but people from all over the US, nay I say, from all over the world, you combine all that Grand County has to offer, throw in the booze and Beretta factor, and you’ve got the potential for a genuine Redneck Woodstock.
Just imagine it! Right now at Hot Sulphur Days we have a couple of crafts booths, a Hot Sulphur Chamber of Commerce booth, and some local churches selling hot dogs, kettle corn and kiddies face painting. Nice, but where is the maximum benefit for the city and the county in a deal like that? In my vision of what could be for the ‘Fish, Shoot & Swill Fest’ in Grand County, picture Mr. Jack Daniels himself, puttin’ on a big old soiree right next to the Remington Shotgun booth, across the way from the Seagrams tent, around the corner from the Ruger .44 Magnum exhibit, which happens to be next to the Bacardi & Coke Pavilion – light on the Coke, please.
Face painting? Nice, but we’ll go that one better with the Hustler Body Painting Contest. Kiddie carnival rides? Sure, we’ve got those, but how about muddin’ over the Parshall Divide in a monster Dodge Ram 4x4 while you’re blasting away at off-season Trophy Elk with an AA-12? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zlWplfLQ2E
Doubt we could get the current Prez to acknowledge and give tele-prompter time to this confab, but I’m thinking “W” might be available to show and sign a few autographs. We might even get old Slick Willie in to judge at the Hustler Body Painting booth – I bet he’d waive his usual $50k fee, and he’d leave the Mrs. at home to boot; might be a little bit of a risk bringing her around all those cowboys with AA-12’s anyway.
So I’m working on this, and I’m open to ideas. It means big food, beverage and lodging revenues for all of the merchants in Hot Sulphur Springs – not to mention a long term financial boon to all of the vendors who would be able to build a lifelong customer base right here in the heart of guns and guzzle country. Local Taxidermists could get fat as well. The county would get enough extra revenue from the festival weeks’ DUI convictions that they could afford to pay their fair share of the Hot Sulphur water bill. Only downside I can see is that we might have to budget for bringing in some extra EMT’s from neighboring counties; might also need some Haz-Mat people to help clean the hot springs pools –that’s but a small price to pay for having “Fish, Shoot & Swill” becoming a part of our national lexicon.
New to me this day on a walk that I take quite regularly was an inordinate amount of people fishing the Colorado. They weren’t the usual genteel, split-cane rod, Orvis wader-clad crowd that flick and peck at this section of river. They were, well, a little rough; rougher than I’d ever seen fishing the Colorado. I felt for a moment that I was back in Missouri; down on an Ozark tributary, watching locals angle for mud feeders with a large rod, a larger reel and a treble hook full of stink bait. I walked past one of these anglers, and was impressed by his fighting a fish that he had hooked downstream. Further downstream, I witnessed another fisherman who was hard at landing what appeared to be a huge fish that he’d hooked upstream. “Wow”, I thought, I see fly fisherman by the hundreds who do nothing but dab their dry flies at this water, never to fight, never to land.
Lucy’s reticence to progress on our walk, and her insistence at sniffing the riverbank Black Sage, allowed me the opportunity to watch both of these anglers land their respective catches. Except neither had hooked a trout, rather, they’d hooked each others weighted night crawler rigs, and were now cursing each other back and forth, engaged in a heated piscatorial pissing contest. I then noticed that upstream fisherman “A” had a serious pile of empty Rainer beer cans at his feet; downstream fisherman “B” had a 1.75 Liter bottle, (in Grand County, it’s referred to as an ‘Afternoon-er’) of Seagram’s 7 resting at the base of his folding chair. My mind suddenly clicked onto the realization that June 6th & 7th was in fact “Free Fishing Weekend” in Colorado, i.e. ‘No Fishing License necessary Weekend!’; a weekend that apparently tends to bring out a different, less genteel crowd.
This got me to thinking; the week following ‘Free Fishin’ Days’ is Hot Sulphur Springs Days – which is just a bit of a redneck fest. Hot Sulphur Springs Days is followed the next weekend by Kremmling Days - Kremmling being the next major town west of Hot Sulphur. Kremmling is lovingly referred to by many in Grand County as ‘Krem-tucky’; not sure why, except that it might have something to do with the shooting, hunting, drinking and cross-pollination habits of some of the towns constituents.
Another “oh, by the way” funny little thing about our neighborhood involves a stretch of State land between Hot Sulphur and Kremmling; the largest State maintained shooting range in the State of Colorado – a veritable Candy Land for gun-toting, trigger happy Coloradans. This thing stretches on for a full quarter-mile – plenty of parking spots for the Ford F-150’s, and endless racks for the hanging of torso targets, paper enemies just waiting to be obliterated by Coloradoans armed with the firepower necessary to make continual hay upon these faceless phantoms. These are my neighbors; and like the view from atop the Parshall Divide, I love them too.
Being the natural born entrepreneur and marketer that I am, my thoughts run to developing a big, week-long start of the summer Grand County Festival, involving free fishing, the two city historical celebrations, alcohol and guns. Let’s be honest with ourselves, Grand Countians! Hot Sulphur Springs and Kremmling Days are nice, and usually well attended by the locals, but if you want to make a big splash, and draw not only people from Grand County and the Front Range, but people from all over the US, nay I say, from all over the world, you combine all that Grand County has to offer, throw in the booze and Beretta factor, and you’ve got the potential for a genuine Redneck Woodstock.
Just imagine it! Right now at Hot Sulphur Days we have a couple of crafts booths, a Hot Sulphur Chamber of Commerce booth, and some local churches selling hot dogs, kettle corn and kiddies face painting. Nice, but where is the maximum benefit for the city and the county in a deal like that? In my vision of what could be for the ‘Fish, Shoot & Swill Fest’ in Grand County, picture Mr. Jack Daniels himself, puttin’ on a big old soiree right next to the Remington Shotgun booth, across the way from the Seagrams tent, around the corner from the Ruger .44 Magnum exhibit, which happens to be next to the Bacardi & Coke Pavilion – light on the Coke, please.
Face painting? Nice, but we’ll go that one better with the Hustler Body Painting Contest. Kiddie carnival rides? Sure, we’ve got those, but how about muddin’ over the Parshall Divide in a monster Dodge Ram 4x4 while you’re blasting away at off-season Trophy Elk with an AA-12? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zlWplfLQ2E
Doubt we could get the current Prez to acknowledge and give tele-prompter time to this confab, but I’m thinking “W” might be available to show and sign a few autographs. We might even get old Slick Willie in to judge at the Hustler Body Painting booth – I bet he’d waive his usual $50k fee, and he’d leave the Mrs. at home to boot; might be a little bit of a risk bringing her around all those cowboys with AA-12’s anyway.
So I’m working on this, and I’m open to ideas. It means big food, beverage and lodging revenues for all of the merchants in Hot Sulphur Springs – not to mention a long term financial boon to all of the vendors who would be able to build a lifelong customer base right here in the heart of guns and guzzle country. Local Taxidermists could get fat as well. The county would get enough extra revenue from the festival weeks’ DUI convictions that they could afford to pay their fair share of the Hot Sulphur water bill. Only downside I can see is that we might have to budget for bringing in some extra EMT’s from neighboring counties; might also need some Haz-Mat people to help clean the hot springs pools –that’s but a small price to pay for having “Fish, Shoot & Swill” becoming a part of our national lexicon.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Texas Charley Dies Again
While Memorial Day weekend is the official start of summer in the rest of the United States, Grand County waits until the second weekend of June to kick off the season. The two prominent reasons for this two week delay have to do with the fact that most Grand County schools aren’t out until that second week in June, and most importantly, more often than not it’s still snowing on Memorial Day in Grand County – the snow and sub-freezing temperatures making for very small opening day crowds at the swimming pool.
The second weekend in June is also home to “Hot Sulphur Days”, a three-day festival to celebrate the town, its history and its citizens, current and past. These town festivals are common to small town America in the summer, and Hot Sulphur’s line-up of festival activities reads like most other towns of its size – kiddy carnival rides, Friday night street dance, pie-baking contest, craft fair, softball games, pancake breakfast, Saturday night fireworks, etc. Unique to Hot Sulphur Days, and one of the weekends highlights, held at High Noon on Saturday a few short yards from our hotel at the intersection of Grand and Aspen, is the re-enactment of the Texas Charley Shootout.
It is difficult to get to the real story behind Texas Charley, as I’ve read several accounts of the incident, all differing on some major details. What seems to be a common thread in the story is that 19-year old Texas Charley – Charles Wilson – came to the Hot Sulphur/Grand Lake area in 1880, most directly from Colorado Springs. It’s not known if he actually was from Texas, but most probably got the name from the large, white sombrero that he wore. He also carried a large knife with a deer-foot handle, and two Colt .45 revolvers with gold name plates, inscribed “CW”. His prowess with those revolvers was quick to become the stuff of legend in Grand County, invoking fear in the local residents, as Charley loved to play the role of bully and bad guy. In December of 1884, Charley got into a gun fight with a local, W.L. Veatch, with Veatch getting shot in the shoulder. A warrant was sworn for the arrest of Texas Charley, and when he was served with the papers, he tore them up and headed for the courthouse, located in a log cabin just across the street and up the hill from where The Riverside is now located, where he intended to confront the local law, bragging that there wasn’t a man in this town big enough to put him behind bars.
The locals had by this time had enough of Charley, and as the citizens of Skidmore, MO did some 100 years later to Kenneth Rex McElroy, they quickly and quietly banded together in The Springs Hotel, and anonymously hidden behind the safety of the hotel’s room windows, doors and roof facades, gunned Charley down as he walked across the street on his way to the courthouse. The stories vary from Charley being shot by a single bullet, to the extreme of 15 guns blazing and hitting him multiple times. After an inquest into the shooting, the jury’s verdict read “we believe the killing was justifiable as C. W. Wilson was a very bad man.”
The annual re-enactment of the Texas Charley shootout that you’ll see at this years’ Hot Sulphur Days follows the single shot theory, probably more for the fact that they can’t find 15 re-enactors with 15 guns shooting 15 blanks than for the actual historical bent. It is a sight to see if for no other reason, (actually, specifically for this reason) it is amateur drama played out and hammed up at its best. You might see one or two of the participants decked out in period regalia – most of the others simply wear cowboy hats along with their Harley shirts and camouflage pants ( a clothing ensemble otherwise known in Grand County as ‘puttin’ on the sartorial dog’.) Most of the actors have a difficult time keeping a straight face – the crowd doesn’t even try. After Charley is 'shot', his body is put on a pallet, and he now becomes the focal point in the Hot Sulphur Days parade, as he is required to lie lifeless (save the occasional wink and wave to friends and family) as he is carried along the parade route.
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, Hot Sulphur Days and all of the fun and festivities could, to the erudite and overly educated visiting city dweller, be considered low rent, small town hokum. It also goes without saying that this low rent, small town hokum is another reason why we gave up the grind and moved to a town like Hot Sulphur Springs.
I invite all of the aforementioned city dwellers to visit Hot Sulphur Springs during its annual celebration – I guarantee a good time, and the experience will, at the very least, make you way more eruditer.
The second weekend in June is also home to “Hot Sulphur Days”, a three-day festival to celebrate the town, its history and its citizens, current and past. These town festivals are common to small town America in the summer, and Hot Sulphur’s line-up of festival activities reads like most other towns of its size – kiddy carnival rides, Friday night street dance, pie-baking contest, craft fair, softball games, pancake breakfast, Saturday night fireworks, etc. Unique to Hot Sulphur Days, and one of the weekends highlights, held at High Noon on Saturday a few short yards from our hotel at the intersection of Grand and Aspen, is the re-enactment of the Texas Charley Shootout.
It is difficult to get to the real story behind Texas Charley, as I’ve read several accounts of the incident, all differing on some major details. What seems to be a common thread in the story is that 19-year old Texas Charley – Charles Wilson – came to the Hot Sulphur/Grand Lake area in 1880, most directly from Colorado Springs. It’s not known if he actually was from Texas, but most probably got the name from the large, white sombrero that he wore. He also carried a large knife with a deer-foot handle, and two Colt .45 revolvers with gold name plates, inscribed “CW”. His prowess with those revolvers was quick to become the stuff of legend in Grand County, invoking fear in the local residents, as Charley loved to play the role of bully and bad guy. In December of 1884, Charley got into a gun fight with a local, W.L. Veatch, with Veatch getting shot in the shoulder. A warrant was sworn for the arrest of Texas Charley, and when he was served with the papers, he tore them up and headed for the courthouse, located in a log cabin just across the street and up the hill from where The Riverside is now located, where he intended to confront the local law, bragging that there wasn’t a man in this town big enough to put him behind bars.
The locals had by this time had enough of Charley, and as the citizens of Skidmore, MO did some 100 years later to Kenneth Rex McElroy, they quickly and quietly banded together in The Springs Hotel, and anonymously hidden behind the safety of the hotel’s room windows, doors and roof facades, gunned Charley down as he walked across the street on his way to the courthouse. The stories vary from Charley being shot by a single bullet, to the extreme of 15 guns blazing and hitting him multiple times. After an inquest into the shooting, the jury’s verdict read “we believe the killing was justifiable as C. W. Wilson was a very bad man.”
The annual re-enactment of the Texas Charley shootout that you’ll see at this years’ Hot Sulphur Days follows the single shot theory, probably more for the fact that they can’t find 15 re-enactors with 15 guns shooting 15 blanks than for the actual historical bent. It is a sight to see if for no other reason, (actually, specifically for this reason) it is amateur drama played out and hammed up at its best. You might see one or two of the participants decked out in period regalia – most of the others simply wear cowboy hats along with their Harley shirts and camouflage pants ( a clothing ensemble otherwise known in Grand County as ‘puttin’ on the sartorial dog’.) Most of the actors have a difficult time keeping a straight face – the crowd doesn’t even try. After Charley is 'shot', his body is put on a pallet, and he now becomes the focal point in the Hot Sulphur Days parade, as he is required to lie lifeless (save the occasional wink and wave to friends and family) as he is carried along the parade route.
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, Hot Sulphur Days and all of the fun and festivities could, to the erudite and overly educated visiting city dweller, be considered low rent, small town hokum. It also goes without saying that this low rent, small town hokum is another reason why we gave up the grind and moved to a town like Hot Sulphur Springs.
I invite all of the aforementioned city dwellers to visit Hot Sulphur Springs during its annual celebration – I guarantee a good time, and the experience will, at the very least, make you way more eruditer.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Life Coaching 101
I come from Kansas; a slow, languid little piece of “fly-over” country. We’re a bit behind the socio-ecological curve, and for the most part, prefer it to be that way. When I moved to Colorado, the State that houses the city of Boulder, without knowing it I immediately upgraded to a place that was ahead of that curve. For example, in Kansas, going to the bathroom and emitting our bodily waste was a daily part of our existence; how passé. I learned that in some parts of Colorado, defecation is considered "ungreen", and an affront to the environment; those that are sensitive to our Mother, Earth, hold it in, out of respect for the planet. Perhaps that is why most of them are so full of shit. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Anyway, I’ve stumbled on to some things in Colorado that were heretofore unknown to this Midwestern farm boy; an example, the condition “gluten intolerance”. I was familiar with gluten, but couldn’t have told you much about it, including the notion that there are those that are intolerant of the stuff. The first night our restaurant was open, one of our first customers, (damn sure not Wally Reynolds), said that they were gluten intolerant. I asked, “What does that mean??” - Basically, no grains or grain products of any type – wheat, barley, rye, oats, no pasta. How do you survive in this world without being able to eat bread and pasta? Does this also mean no beer?? I was dumbfounded by this notion. (This isn’t to infer that being gluten intolerant isn’t a serious condition, or that those that are gluten intolerant are abnormal; my wonderment at this condition was more a function of me being ignorant, as I’d never been in the restaurant industry, and was also new to the State that includes Boulder.) So I am now tolerant of the gluten intolerant, however, it makes for tough menu planning when we’re doing a “Chef’s tasting” dinner.
Another new one to me, one that I didn’t run across living on the desolate plains of Shawnee, KS, was that there actually existed the paid profession of “Life Coach”. A Life Coach??? Isn’t that the role of a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a boss, a teacher or a friend? I soon learned that there are those who possibly had no parents, no spouses, no siblings, no bosses, no teachers or no friends to coach them, and by God, these individuals need to be coached; and there’s a market for that.
We entertained for dinner a group of ten people who had signed up with a Certified Life Coach for a mountain weekend of life coaching. They paid $1000 for the two-day experience. This fact alone tells me that they indeed do need some sort of coaching; maybe financial responsibility coaching, maybe common sense coaching, maybe even “yes, we’re certain you’ve lost your mind, but there’s still hope for you” coaching. When this group entered our establishment, I thought about having the “life coach” arrested. Taking money from these people for needing to be life coached was no different than a professional pickpocket hosting a “cash only” vacation to Las Vegas for a bunch of blind billionaires who’d also lost their sense of touch. A more obviously dysfunctional group I’d never seen. (I’m not intending to be mean, supercilious or insensitive – I’m just reporting the facts.) Again, that probably explains why these individuals felt they needed coaching. My guess is if you think you need a life coach, you probably do.
I explained that we’d be having a set small course menu, including a small salad, a gluten-laden ravioli appetizer, a fish dish, and Smoked Chicken Penne Pasta with Vodka Cream Sauce. Immediately, half of the group fidgeted noticeably and murmured amongst themselves. One in the group stood up and said “we don’t drink, and we don’t want vodka in our sauce”. I assured them that the vodka is cooked off in the preparation and there is no alcoholic content in the final sauce. Their collective bodily shaking and continual looking back and forth at each other for support told me that the vodka was still an issue – I reassured them that they’d have no vodka in their sauce, cooked-off or otherwise.
The group sat for dinner, and to describe them as an eclectic mix would shame any other group that would want to be described as an eclectic mix. (Talk about your celebrating diversity, and dammit, I’m all about celebrating diversity. Fishing, golf, drinking martinis, listening to music, and celebrating diversity – that’s me in a nutshell; and not necessarily in that order!) We had women who you’d see working at the Clinique counter at Nordstrom, and we had women who were the antithesis of who you’d see working at the Clinique counter at Nordstrom. There was a young, shy, heavily tattooed Goth girl that weighed maybe 80 pounds, and another who would have been a third, maybe even a second round, NFL draft pick for linebacker. You’d have made the Goth girl jump through the roof if you said “boo” to her – the lady linebacker would have thrown you through the roof if you said “boo” to her. It made for some interesting table waiting.
At one point, as Darin and I were delivering one of the courses, one of the guests loudly made a point to the rest of the table, saying “if all males were castrated at birth, there would be no violence in the world”. I wanted to chime in with my opinion that unsolicited castration might be considered a violent act, but I thought better of it and kept to my ‘seen but not heard’ table waiting. I also surreptitiously took the yet-to-be used knife from her place setting. Darin quickly excused himself and crept back into the kitchen, where I’m certain he slipped into his custom-made Kevlar codpiece. I got so nervous when waiting on her that I almost dropped the vodka-free chicken pasta down her back; however, had I actually made that mistake, the hair on her back fortunately would have kept her from noticing my spill and sending her on a frantic search for her missing table knife, with which she would have attempted a retaliatory castration.
Dinner ended with little fanfare, and the group huddled together and moved out into the night. I will give the life coach credit, as she seemed to have all of her charges in sync, functioning as a group, supporting each other, murmuring together, mutually avoiding eye contact with strangers, etc. The way they banded together and moved out of the hotel reminded me a little of the minimalist animation used in the South Park TV show. In fact, now that I think about it, I’ve seen this group and their foibles in the South Park TV show.
So, one more thing I can chalk up on my Colorado life experience board – there are people that feel the need to be coached, and there are those who, for a not-so nominal fee, will coach them. My guess is that if this particular life coach were to read this blog, she would gladly, and at no charge, coach me as to how I can take my opinion of her chosen profession and shove it up my you know what. Not a problem, as we don’t use our you-know-what’s in Colorado for you know what.
Anyway, I’ve stumbled on to some things in Colorado that were heretofore unknown to this Midwestern farm boy; an example, the condition “gluten intolerance”. I was familiar with gluten, but couldn’t have told you much about it, including the notion that there are those that are intolerant of the stuff. The first night our restaurant was open, one of our first customers, (damn sure not Wally Reynolds), said that they were gluten intolerant. I asked, “What does that mean??” - Basically, no grains or grain products of any type – wheat, barley, rye, oats, no pasta. How do you survive in this world without being able to eat bread and pasta? Does this also mean no beer?? I was dumbfounded by this notion. (This isn’t to infer that being gluten intolerant isn’t a serious condition, or that those that are gluten intolerant are abnormal; my wonderment at this condition was more a function of me being ignorant, as I’d never been in the restaurant industry, and was also new to the State that includes Boulder.) So I am now tolerant of the gluten intolerant, however, it makes for tough menu planning when we’re doing a “Chef’s tasting” dinner.
Another new one to me, one that I didn’t run across living on the desolate plains of Shawnee, KS, was that there actually existed the paid profession of “Life Coach”. A Life Coach??? Isn’t that the role of a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a boss, a teacher or a friend? I soon learned that there are those who possibly had no parents, no spouses, no siblings, no bosses, no teachers or no friends to coach them, and by God, these individuals need to be coached; and there’s a market for that.
We entertained for dinner a group of ten people who had signed up with a Certified Life Coach for a mountain weekend of life coaching. They paid $1000 for the two-day experience. This fact alone tells me that they indeed do need some sort of coaching; maybe financial responsibility coaching, maybe common sense coaching, maybe even “yes, we’re certain you’ve lost your mind, but there’s still hope for you” coaching. When this group entered our establishment, I thought about having the “life coach” arrested. Taking money from these people for needing to be life coached was no different than a professional pickpocket hosting a “cash only” vacation to Las Vegas for a bunch of blind billionaires who’d also lost their sense of touch. A more obviously dysfunctional group I’d never seen. (I’m not intending to be mean, supercilious or insensitive – I’m just reporting the facts.) Again, that probably explains why these individuals felt they needed coaching. My guess is if you think you need a life coach, you probably do.
I explained that we’d be having a set small course menu, including a small salad, a gluten-laden ravioli appetizer, a fish dish, and Smoked Chicken Penne Pasta with Vodka Cream Sauce. Immediately, half of the group fidgeted noticeably and murmured amongst themselves. One in the group stood up and said “we don’t drink, and we don’t want vodka in our sauce”. I assured them that the vodka is cooked off in the preparation and there is no alcoholic content in the final sauce. Their collective bodily shaking and continual looking back and forth at each other for support told me that the vodka was still an issue – I reassured them that they’d have no vodka in their sauce, cooked-off or otherwise.
The group sat for dinner, and to describe them as an eclectic mix would shame any other group that would want to be described as an eclectic mix. (Talk about your celebrating diversity, and dammit, I’m all about celebrating diversity. Fishing, golf, drinking martinis, listening to music, and celebrating diversity – that’s me in a nutshell; and not necessarily in that order!) We had women who you’d see working at the Clinique counter at Nordstrom, and we had women who were the antithesis of who you’d see working at the Clinique counter at Nordstrom. There was a young, shy, heavily tattooed Goth girl that weighed maybe 80 pounds, and another who would have been a third, maybe even a second round, NFL draft pick for linebacker. You’d have made the Goth girl jump through the roof if you said “boo” to her – the lady linebacker would have thrown you through the roof if you said “boo” to her. It made for some interesting table waiting.
At one point, as Darin and I were delivering one of the courses, one of the guests loudly made a point to the rest of the table, saying “if all males were castrated at birth, there would be no violence in the world”. I wanted to chime in with my opinion that unsolicited castration might be considered a violent act, but I thought better of it and kept to my ‘seen but not heard’ table waiting. I also surreptitiously took the yet-to-be used knife from her place setting. Darin quickly excused himself and crept back into the kitchen, where I’m certain he slipped into his custom-made Kevlar codpiece. I got so nervous when waiting on her that I almost dropped the vodka-free chicken pasta down her back; however, had I actually made that mistake, the hair on her back fortunately would have kept her from noticing my spill and sending her on a frantic search for her missing table knife, with which she would have attempted a retaliatory castration.
Dinner ended with little fanfare, and the group huddled together and moved out into the night. I will give the life coach credit, as she seemed to have all of her charges in sync, functioning as a group, supporting each other, murmuring together, mutually avoiding eye contact with strangers, etc. The way they banded together and moved out of the hotel reminded me a little of the minimalist animation used in the South Park TV show. In fact, now that I think about it, I’ve seen this group and their foibles in the South Park TV show.
So, one more thing I can chalk up on my Colorado life experience board – there are people that feel the need to be coached, and there are those who, for a not-so nominal fee, will coach them. My guess is that if this particular life coach were to read this blog, she would gladly, and at no charge, coach me as to how I can take my opinion of her chosen profession and shove it up my you know what. Not a problem, as we don’t use our you-know-what’s in Colorado for you know what.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
What I did on my vacation....
The plan was to shut down the hotel and restaurant after an Easter Sunday Brunch until Memorial Day weekend for a few weeks of vacation and a few more weeks of backbreaking labor spent redoing the kitchen, spring cleaning and a general reorganization of things before the big summer season. Our two-week vacation involved driving back to KC to spend some time with family and friends, then a few days fishing and relaxing at The Lake of the Ozarks, then back to KC for a second week of visiting and sprucing things up around the unsold house before heading back to Hot Sulphur. Everything went smoothly and as planned, until we got in the car to leave.
Thursday, April 16, greeted us with the biggest single day snowfall of the winter. This being our first winter in Hot Sulphur, we’d never experienced a snow like this – any synonym for “pounded” that you can think of would aptly describe the inundation of snowflakes that occurred. I would estimate we received two feet of snow in a little less than an hour. Two days prior to this, Julie spent the day in the backyard raking, arranging rocks around a soon-to-be wildflower mound, i.e. readying the outside for spring; she received a nasty sunburn on her back in the process. 48 hours later, we are bundled up to the gills in our LL Bean parkas, walking the dog along the river in a snowfall so thick and so heavy, we literally couldn’t see 10 feet in front of us. It was beautiful and spectacular, but quickly reminded us that all is never as it seems in the mountains of Colorado. We’d been lulled into a false sense that the winter was behind us – foolish flatlanders we were still. This blast of December in April also made us all the more excited about leaving it behind to head for the comparatively tropical respite that awaited us in KC.
The Friday morning of our departure dawned clear in Hot Sulphur, the snow having dumped it’s last on us for this winter. (Long time Grand Countians are now laughing at my Midwestern naiveté. They know we’re liable to get snowed on in the middle of the summer. In fact, in 2008 it snowed above 9000’ every month of the year, July and August included.) We headed east and not long out of town you could see the dark clouds that awaited us ahead. Twelve short miles from home, on the eastern edge of Granby, the snow started. By the time we got to Winter Park, 20 miles further east of Granby and 2000’ higher in elevation, that pounded by snow thing was happening again. On to Berthoud Pass – a stretch of road that can be daunting on a clear summer day to those not acclimatized to mountain driving. Try maneuvering it in a blizzard so profound that my windshield wipers couldn’t wipe the falling snow away quickly enough for me to see. Near the top of the pass, elevation 11,000’ and also the Continental Divide, the snow was a foot deep on the roads, and the only way I could see where I was going was to stick my head out the window and look for the guardrails. Once at the top of the pass, the downward decent on the eastern slope of the divide saw an instant decrease in the snowfall; still coming down beyond anything that we’re used to in Kansas City, but decreased enough that I could see through the windshield. 20 miles later we’re on I-70, heading east, still snowing hard, and now you’ve got semi-trucks to deal with. You know, 80,000 pounds of screaming steel, most often piloted by drivers whose IQ’s barely approach the number of wheels on their rigs. The west-bound lane of I-70 was already shut down by two of these cowboys who’d jackknifed their trucks after finding out that when you drive a big truck real fast on snow and ice, and then slam on the brakes, your ability to stop in a timely fashion is greatly diminished. Who’d be expected to know such a thing?!
We stopped briefly in Denver, where it was snowing slushballs – falling globs of slush the size of golf balls that sounded, when they hit your car, as if a group of 20 gloved pugilists were working on your vehicle like they would a taunting sweat bag. Again, we can smile at this because we are in the process of leaving it behind for a few weeks. As we head further east, the slush turns to rain and fog; hard rain and heavy fog, all the way to Salina, KS. Somewhere along the way, maybe between Colby and Hays, KS, we hear a noise beneath the car that sounds as if we’ve run over a rock, and it has hit the bottom center of the car. Nothing seems amiss, and on we drive. When the rain stopped and the wipers finally went off, I began to hear a noise that sounded a little like white noise that you would hear if the radio were on, but not tuned to a station. Not being able to discover the source, I again went back to the matter at hand, i.e. eating up ground in an easterly direction.
I’ll make this brief, because it isn’t interesting and I can’t make it funny. The bad rock under the car noise and undetectable “white noise” noise was a failed transfer case in the four-wheel drive transmission – those are $1400 at your local auto repair shop. It was a long first day of vacation.
Day two finds us at our unsold home in KC. In mid-March, I received a “feedback” email from a realtor who showed the house, which simply said “sump pump is broken, basement is flooded.” It being a buyer’s market and all, his clients decided to pass on our house and look for one without a flooded basement. I’m cool with that. (We find out that the pilot light in the heater has gone off, and there is no heat in the house. This causes the water in the pipes to freeze, and the pipes to burst, including the exhaust line on the sump pump. When the weather warms, and it begins to rain, the sump pump is doing its intended thing, pumping water away from our foundation; except the water isn’t being pumped outside, it’s being pumped right through that ruptured pipe back into our basement – “sump pump is broken, basement is flooded”.) In having the situation remedied from 700 miles away, the repairman tells me that we also have several copper pipes that have burst, and they will need to be repaired before the water can be turned back on. I decide to tackle this myself when I’m back on vacation, and begin to do just that upon our Saturday arrival.
Two hours and seven trips to the Home Depot later, I’ve got a new sump pump and four new pieces of copper pipe installed. It is time for the moment of truth that all amateur plumbers dread – time to turn on the water and check for leaks. I turn on the main valve, and quickly head for the repaired breaks; all looks good, no leaks. But I hear running water coming from upstairs; lots of water like the sound that a big, pretty waterfall makes. I quickly turn the main off and run upstairs, and am quick to detect the source of the waterfall sound, as water is pouring out of a recessed can-light fixture in the kitchen, out of the center of the ceiling in the family room, and down a wall in the dining room. It splatters as it hits the bare hardwood floor, and the sound of the splatter resonates throughout the empty house. I’m thinking maybe there are more broken pipes than I’ve accounted for. On the bright side, I’m in Kansas City, and I am actually able to get a plumber to 1) answer his phone and 2) show up as promised – sober to boot! Six large holes cut in our ceiling and a $600 plumbing bill later, and we have running water again. However, we still have six large holes cut in our ceilings and walls; another not so appealing feature in a buyer’s real estate market.
The final indignity occurred Monday morning, April 26th. It stormed and rained heavily Sunday night/Monday morning, this on top of already saturated ground. Remember that new sump pump I installed? I commented to Julie at the time, “never has one of my home repair projects gone so smoothly.” I hooked it up right, measured everything right the first time, plugged it in and tested it – Bingo, it worked like a champ; I saved $250 in plumbing labor. However, a real plumber – the ones that charge $250 to hook these babies up - would have known to make sure the float switch was unobstructed. Float switch, unobstructed? What the hell is that all about? It’s about the little ball that, when the pit is full of water, floats to the top of the sump pit and turns the pump on; if the ball isn’t able to float free and unobstructed, the pump won’t turn on and the basement will flood - again, only this time worse than before. All of the new padding that had been installed from the first flood had to be ripped up and replaced, not to mention the cost of drying the basement out with big blowers and dehumidifiers. Thank God for insurance, but damn those high deductibles.
So, as vacations go, this one wouldn’t rate high on the list of providing quality rest and relaxation; starting out with the ultimate ride piloting the white knuckle express down
Mt. Snowdeath, and finishing with an infrastructural nightmare that made us long for our 106-year old Colorado money pit. Between our places in Hot Sulphur and Kansas City, I’d better be getting some big-ass Christmas hams from plumbers this year, as I certainly don’t expect to be getting any from blog-reading semi-drivers; not that there are any.
Thursday, April 16, greeted us with the biggest single day snowfall of the winter. This being our first winter in Hot Sulphur, we’d never experienced a snow like this – any synonym for “pounded” that you can think of would aptly describe the inundation of snowflakes that occurred. I would estimate we received two feet of snow in a little less than an hour. Two days prior to this, Julie spent the day in the backyard raking, arranging rocks around a soon-to-be wildflower mound, i.e. readying the outside for spring; she received a nasty sunburn on her back in the process. 48 hours later, we are bundled up to the gills in our LL Bean parkas, walking the dog along the river in a snowfall so thick and so heavy, we literally couldn’t see 10 feet in front of us. It was beautiful and spectacular, but quickly reminded us that all is never as it seems in the mountains of Colorado. We’d been lulled into a false sense that the winter was behind us – foolish flatlanders we were still. This blast of December in April also made us all the more excited about leaving it behind to head for the comparatively tropical respite that awaited us in KC.
The Friday morning of our departure dawned clear in Hot Sulphur, the snow having dumped it’s last on us for this winter. (Long time Grand Countians are now laughing at my Midwestern naiveté. They know we’re liable to get snowed on in the middle of the summer. In fact, in 2008 it snowed above 9000’ every month of the year, July and August included.) We headed east and not long out of town you could see the dark clouds that awaited us ahead. Twelve short miles from home, on the eastern edge of Granby, the snow started. By the time we got to Winter Park, 20 miles further east of Granby and 2000’ higher in elevation, that pounded by snow thing was happening again. On to Berthoud Pass – a stretch of road that can be daunting on a clear summer day to those not acclimatized to mountain driving. Try maneuvering it in a blizzard so profound that my windshield wipers couldn’t wipe the falling snow away quickly enough for me to see. Near the top of the pass, elevation 11,000’ and also the Continental Divide, the snow was a foot deep on the roads, and the only way I could see where I was going was to stick my head out the window and look for the guardrails. Once at the top of the pass, the downward decent on the eastern slope of the divide saw an instant decrease in the snowfall; still coming down beyond anything that we’re used to in Kansas City, but decreased enough that I could see through the windshield. 20 miles later we’re on I-70, heading east, still snowing hard, and now you’ve got semi-trucks to deal with. You know, 80,000 pounds of screaming steel, most often piloted by drivers whose IQ’s barely approach the number of wheels on their rigs. The west-bound lane of I-70 was already shut down by two of these cowboys who’d jackknifed their trucks after finding out that when you drive a big truck real fast on snow and ice, and then slam on the brakes, your ability to stop in a timely fashion is greatly diminished. Who’d be expected to know such a thing?!
We stopped briefly in Denver, where it was snowing slushballs – falling globs of slush the size of golf balls that sounded, when they hit your car, as if a group of 20 gloved pugilists were working on your vehicle like they would a taunting sweat bag. Again, we can smile at this because we are in the process of leaving it behind for a few weeks. As we head further east, the slush turns to rain and fog; hard rain and heavy fog, all the way to Salina, KS. Somewhere along the way, maybe between Colby and Hays, KS, we hear a noise beneath the car that sounds as if we’ve run over a rock, and it has hit the bottom center of the car. Nothing seems amiss, and on we drive. When the rain stopped and the wipers finally went off, I began to hear a noise that sounded a little like white noise that you would hear if the radio were on, but not tuned to a station. Not being able to discover the source, I again went back to the matter at hand, i.e. eating up ground in an easterly direction.
I’ll make this brief, because it isn’t interesting and I can’t make it funny. The bad rock under the car noise and undetectable “white noise” noise was a failed transfer case in the four-wheel drive transmission – those are $1400 at your local auto repair shop. It was a long first day of vacation.
Day two finds us at our unsold home in KC. In mid-March, I received a “feedback” email from a realtor who showed the house, which simply said “sump pump is broken, basement is flooded.” It being a buyer’s market and all, his clients decided to pass on our house and look for one without a flooded basement. I’m cool with that. (We find out that the pilot light in the heater has gone off, and there is no heat in the house. This causes the water in the pipes to freeze, and the pipes to burst, including the exhaust line on the sump pump. When the weather warms, and it begins to rain, the sump pump is doing its intended thing, pumping water away from our foundation; except the water isn’t being pumped outside, it’s being pumped right through that ruptured pipe back into our basement – “sump pump is broken, basement is flooded”.) In having the situation remedied from 700 miles away, the repairman tells me that we also have several copper pipes that have burst, and they will need to be repaired before the water can be turned back on. I decide to tackle this myself when I’m back on vacation, and begin to do just that upon our Saturday arrival.
Two hours and seven trips to the Home Depot later, I’ve got a new sump pump and four new pieces of copper pipe installed. It is time for the moment of truth that all amateur plumbers dread – time to turn on the water and check for leaks. I turn on the main valve, and quickly head for the repaired breaks; all looks good, no leaks. But I hear running water coming from upstairs; lots of water like the sound that a big, pretty waterfall makes. I quickly turn the main off and run upstairs, and am quick to detect the source of the waterfall sound, as water is pouring out of a recessed can-light fixture in the kitchen, out of the center of the ceiling in the family room, and down a wall in the dining room. It splatters as it hits the bare hardwood floor, and the sound of the splatter resonates throughout the empty house. I’m thinking maybe there are more broken pipes than I’ve accounted for. On the bright side, I’m in Kansas City, and I am actually able to get a plumber to 1) answer his phone and 2) show up as promised – sober to boot! Six large holes cut in our ceiling and a $600 plumbing bill later, and we have running water again. However, we still have six large holes cut in our ceilings and walls; another not so appealing feature in a buyer’s real estate market.
The final indignity occurred Monday morning, April 26th. It stormed and rained heavily Sunday night/Monday morning, this on top of already saturated ground. Remember that new sump pump I installed? I commented to Julie at the time, “never has one of my home repair projects gone so smoothly.” I hooked it up right, measured everything right the first time, plugged it in and tested it – Bingo, it worked like a champ; I saved $250 in plumbing labor. However, a real plumber – the ones that charge $250 to hook these babies up - would have known to make sure the float switch was unobstructed. Float switch, unobstructed? What the hell is that all about? It’s about the little ball that, when the pit is full of water, floats to the top of the sump pit and turns the pump on; if the ball isn’t able to float free and unobstructed, the pump won’t turn on and the basement will flood - again, only this time worse than before. All of the new padding that had been installed from the first flood had to be ripped up and replaced, not to mention the cost of drying the basement out with big blowers and dehumidifiers. Thank God for insurance, but damn those high deductibles.
So, as vacations go, this one wouldn’t rate high on the list of providing quality rest and relaxation; starting out with the ultimate ride piloting the white knuckle express down
Mt. Snowdeath, and finishing with an infrastructural nightmare that made us long for our 106-year old Colorado money pit. Between our places in Hot Sulphur and Kansas City, I’d better be getting some big-ass Christmas hams from plumbers this year, as I certainly don’t expect to be getting any from blog-reading semi-drivers; not that there are any.
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