| The Savvy Stories by Steve Jones (continued) |
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| Chapter 26 - Grizzly Jones
Tames the Rockies August 5, 1981 - Aug 8, 1981 August 5th, 1981 was a beautiful day in the Denver suburbs. Uncle Kenny's RV proved to be so comfy and cozy that we made it our base of operations for the day. The sun was warm when we woke from sleeping in late, after the stressful two day drive. Uncle Kenny and Aunt Sally had already been up for several hours. As soon as we entered the house, Sally went into action in the kitchen, cooking up a big breakfast for us. The last time I'd been to visit them was when my cousin Linda got married in the summer of 1967, but they'd made several trips to Texas since then so my "look" wasn't a complete surprise to them. In fact, they didn't appear to think twice about it. That was unusual because their boys had always worn their hair short. We all sat in the kitchen and caught up on family news. Then Kenny gave us a tour of the house. There was a great pool in the back yard, and his garage seemed mostly dedicated to his collection of radio controlled aircraft. After a pleasant visit, I had to make a trip into Denver to drop off a Savvy promotional package at Feline Productions. Then Stacie and I paid a visit to my cousin Greg and his girlfriend Charlene at their apartment. Greg and I played guitars and even wrote an original song. I recorded it on my cheap portable cassette recorder, along with many other golden moments from the trip. Our third day in Colorado had been family day. We spent another night in the RV with plans to leave at first light to head into the mountains. Kenny had given me directions to the secret family vacation spot near a "honey hole" stream supposedly filled with trout. That's what this trip was all about, really. It had been 14 years since I'd been trout fishing in Bogan Flats, Colorado. I couldn't wait to get there. We were up early and started towards the mountains. The first leg of the trip took us through Golden, towards Loveland Pass. The scenery was breathtaking, and I couldn't help wondering how anyone could ever get tired of the view. Then we went through Dillon, home of Dillon Lake, Vail, and by the time we got to Glenwood Springs my butt was tired from sitting for so long. I had many fond childhood memories of the giant natural hot springs swimming pool in Glenwood Springs. We could see from the highway that the hot springs pool was jam packed with people. It was late afternoon so we kept driving in hopes of getting camp set up, and getting in a little fishing before dark. We turned southward at Glenwood Springs and headed into the White River National Forest. Carefully following the map Uncle Kenny had provided, we passed through Carbondale, Redstone, and then we saw the sign just beyond McClure Pass that said "Bogan Flats." Unfortunately, it appeared that Bogan Flats wasn't a family secret anymore. The place was PACKED with RV's, tents, and campers. People were everywhere. There was even a sizeable touch football game going on in a nearby field. This definitely was NOT the peaceful, secluded, back-to-nature refuge I'd hoped to find. Uncle Kenny's map ended there, but we decided to keep looking for a more private place to set up camp. As we came upon residents, I would ask them for directions to other possible campsites. Since that trip I've learned that residents of those mountain areas live for the opportunity to screw with tourists - particularly those with Texas license plates! It wasn't long before we were essentially lost on the winding roads between White River, and Gunnison National Forests. We'd been going in circles for almost an hour before we realized it. Everything looked the same in the forest. It was getting dark and I was just starting to worry, when we found Prospector's Mountain near Crested Butte. It was right on the river, and there were only two other campsites in the area - each about 100 yards apart. By the time we had set up camp, it was too dark to go fishing, so we decided to turn in early and do some early morning fishing the next day. It seemed our luck was changing for the better. The next morning started out much warmer than I'd anticipated. I remembered the streams being icy cold from my previous visits, but instead, the water was warm. But even more troubling than the temperature of the water was the depth - or lack thereof. Where one would normally find cold, rushing streams was barely a knee's worth of water! This couldn't be happening... Stacie and I hiked along the stream for a couple of miles before it opened up into a more of a river for fishing. Still, the shallow water was troubling to me. It also got very hot in the middle of the day. A few die-hard fishermen along the way gave us the lowdown about how there had been a heat wave and all the rivers and streams were extremely low. In short, the fishing was almost nonexistent. It would've been nice to have a full day of fishing, but by default we began paying more attention to simply exploring the area.
At one point we left the stream to head up into some wooded hills to find a place to set up a campfire and cook some beans for lunch. I was really proud of the spot we found. There was a clearing just the perfect size for a small campfire. Technically, it was way too warm to be building campfires in the heat of the day, but I was determined to have the full camping experience regardless of heat waves or dried up streams. But just about the time I got the fire going, we heard voices passing by just on the other side of a nearby tree line. Then we realized that we'd set up our campfire less than 25 feet from a horseback riding trail! As I walked over to investigate, I also noticed that just on the other side of that trail was the highway! There I'd thought we were in the middle of nowhere, with the woods all to ourselves, only to find out we were only feet away from civilization the entire time. Suddenly, one of the horses on the trail got spooked and started raring up, almost throwing its rider! After getting things under control, one of the riders dismounted and came over to chew me out for starting a fire so close to the trail. It seems that my fire had scared the horse. I was feeling like a complete dumb ass. We packed everything up, put out the fire, and ate cold beans for lunch. They actually tasted better cold anyway. We did manage to find a very old secluded cemetery filled mostly with the graves of young children. We spent about an hour just reading all the bizarre headstones. I concluded that there must have been a flu or other plague-like disease in the area at one time. We took some color slides of the beautiful scenery, and in a kind of silly move, I recorded the ambience with my portable boom box.
We finally hiked back to our campsite and packed everything up. It was time to head back in to Denver. Other than taking in some awesome scenery, the entire camping plan had been a bust. We pulled over and tried fishing again near Redstone, where I hooked a small trout, but it got away. I was sunburned and aggravated at the bad timing of the stupid heat wave. Who ever heard of a heat wave in Colorado? How was I supposed to know? The Weather Channel hadn't been invented yet. By the time we reached Glenwood Springs we decided there was no hurry to get back to Denver right away, so we got a hotel for the night. It wasn't easy, though. Everything was booked up. One particular desk clerk spoke with a Swedish accent. In a desperate attempt, I blurted out that I was Merle Haggard's road manager and that Merle was supposed to be meeting me in town. In her broken English, the woman replied, "Yah. And ayeem Dolly Parton." She tossed a key on the desk and said "Eighty dollar." It was highway robbery, but a shower and a nap sounded really good to me at the moment. We cleaned up and took a much-needed nap. After resting up, we decided to check out the night life of Glenwood Springs. We ended up going to the movies where we saw "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark." It had just come out and was a terrific movie. The next morning we slept in and grabbed lunch at a Burger Chef restaurant on the way back to Denver. At the restaurant we saw a girl gorging her food, eating even faster than I did back when RJ and me used to eat Mustard Jumbo Jacks after getting done playing at the dives on Hemphill. It almost made us sick, and it also made me think twice about my eating manners; did I look like that to other people when I ate a hamburger in a hurry? On the way back to Denver we enjoyed the mountain vistas and listened to music that would be called "classic rock" twenty years later. That, and Paul Harvey.
Back in Golden, Colorado we were suckered into visiting Buffalo Bill's grave on Lookout Mountain after seeing a dozen enticing billboards on the way in. It was sort of interesting, but the view overlooking Denver was even better! We got in a quick visit with cousin George and his family, and our last night in Colorado was spent with Greg and Charlene. The next morning we had a big breakfast, packed up the car for the long ride home, and took a few photos to remember the visit by. Then Stacie and I got in the car, waved goodbye, and drove away. We almost got out of their apartment parking lot before the car broke down. |
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