Mile High Weekend

I'm going to start with some not excellent cellphone photography of a most excellent bull moose that we caught out in the open this past Friday in the Indian Mountains Wilderness above Tabernash, Colorado. So there you go. I only risked life and limb to creep up on this mighty bastard as he munched his riparian seaweed lunch so I could get within 75 yards or so and still just barely within the functional range of my Blackberry Tour 9630. Check out the resolution of 3.2 megapixels at 800% magnification. Impressive no? No.

But the moose, now that was really something. Too bad I couldn't capture it with the available state-of-the-art technology, but he seemed very at home there in central Colorado. Which is odd because he doesn't belong, not really. Moose in Colorado, like the mountain goat, is a man-made artifact. Someone in the late '70s, probably at the compelling behest of John Denver, who seemed authoritative, felt the place would be better off with some appealingly rustic immigrants and before you know it the wilds were populated with strange new beasts. This about a century after grizzly bears and wolves were extirpated from the area.

This wasn't the only human-affected oddity we observed in Colorado over the weekend. May I present the second (glimpses of which are also visible to the careful observer in my moose shot):

Here we have lodgepole pines, the ubiquitous conifer of the American Rockies, dying en masse thanks to pandemic mountain pine beetle infestation. Scientists concerned with the problem, which has killed vast swathes of Colorado forest (among other western states' groves) aren't entirely sure but believe the balance slipped out of control as a result of global warming, which shortened winter and expanded the window of time during which beetles may feed on the trees without die-off due to cold weather.

It was awesomely sad to see mile after mile of Colorado forest where I'd guess 85% of the trees were dead, withered and orange. Devastating forest fires are the inevitable next step and we may be witnessing the extinction of the lodgepole pine, which couldn't adapt too man-made global warming. The thriving moose, on the opposite tack, is a hopeful reminder that nature will survive it's encounter with humanity and its impact on evolution.

Road Trip: Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and Kansas

At this point, after five days thoroughly recreating in Sun Valley, the Special Lady had appointments back East with her new job and I was saddled with the responsibility of the car and our stuff, packed into the car with all the organization of a mash of sundried tomatoes, and getting said collective out to the East Coast.

Originally a daunting prospect, some 2,800 miles of solo, man-on-freeway action, was fortuitously thwarted by the welcomed (and uncoerced) intervention of Blake - my voluntary wingman who flew in from California for the chance to hit the road and man up the Interstate system one more time.

We struck out from Boise at 6am, because suddenly we had a goal - get to St. Louis, Missouri in time to catch the San Francisco Giants at the Cardinals the next evening. We were looking at almost 1,700 miles to cover in less than two days and a heroic first day was simply a requirement.

Idaho and Utah slipped by easily, under the heady fuel of enthusiasm for the opening hours on the road and nostalgic delight at the forgotten tracks on Blake's battered, old CD collection. Somehow, amid the emergent weirdness of two guys talking nonsense in the car for hours on end, the R. Kelly/Notorious B.I.G. collabo 'I'm Fucking You Tonight' from the album 'Life After Death,' became the anthem of the roadtrip. As amusing as we found this to be, it was tough to convey to people we ran into along the way. It's hard to share the sacred space of a road trip.

Wyoming was an entirely different proposition. I-80 soars over the high plains in a mostly straight line for nearly 500 miles. We stopped in Evanston on the southwestern edge of the state and made our first gastronomic mistake of the campaign - an eight taco lunchtime pigfest at Taco Time - a place which surely occupies the second to lowest rung on the fast food taco ladder, just barely outclassing Taco John's.

From there it was a gassy, malaodorous, 85mph slog over vast, open spaces, among herds of antelope, high winds, and mile after mile of the proverbial 'Big Sky.'

By the time we turned south, the sun was getting low in the sky and the scarp of the Rocky Mountain front near Fort Collins, Colorado was backlit. We arrived in Denver a little after 8pm with the express intent of dining at Illegal Pete's, where the concept of the enormous burrito is further advanced by the so-simple-it-should-have-been-obvious step of stirring your filling ingredients together before wrapping in tortilla. This way you capture the full flavor experience in each bit and avoid the unfortunate (and now former?) inevitably of the odd biteful of sour cream or lettuce.

By 8:30 we were headed east again, but on I-70 blazing out into the Great Plains and noticed that Colorado doesn't end just outside of Denver after the nose of dogfood from the Purina plant has left the air. In fact, it goes a long fucking way east and I was starting to think, that we'd made a big mistake housing enormous burritos before needing to drive another 350 miles into the night.

I was fading fast, eyelids leaden, and beginning to hallucinate in that way particular to the weary driver. Shadows of animals and obstacles flashed on the side of the road. My reaction time and decision making were slowed by the dearth of blood in my head as Illegal Pete's product ground slowly through the GI machinery. The Classic Rock, even, wasn't having any effect.

Things were looking grim, and the decision was made to get a tin of dip at the next gas station in Goodland, Kansas. Thereafter the little wad of tobacco and fiberglass sped the nicotine to my brain and I perked right up for the long cruise into Hays, Kansas. We arrived 1am local time, thanks to the timezone crossing and settled down for 5 hours of sleep at the Best Western.

Survived: Aspen New Year's Eve Bomb Threat

What a weird way to ring in the New Year. 16 blocks of downtown Aspen closed after James Blanning dragged a few Christmas-present-wrapped bombs into the Wells Fargo and Vectra banks downtown. So we tabled our plans for a night on the town and took some lobsters to-go from Butch's back up to Snowmass and had a night-in.

Meanwhile in Aspen, dozens of bars, restaurants and hotels geared up for their biggest night of the year were forced to close and residents and visitors to Aspen were evacuated while the bomb squad from Grand Junction disarmed the devices. Much of the planned celebration was canceled and though I've yet to see an official toll, you've got to think the economic impact of this was in the millions of dollars. New Year's Eve is a crucial night for hospitality businesses and particularly so in seasonal resort towns like Aspen. One restaurateur estimates that New Year's Eve is his biggest night by 3x and represents 15% of his total December sales.

This morning Blanning was found dead near Independence Pass after shooting himself in the head. His bombs in Aspen his final parting gift to the world.

It turns out the fireworks are back on tonight, a delayed celebration but perhaps one more poignant in the wake of a near miss and with the extra thanks that no one was hurt.