Colorado (red, white and) blues

Crossing the last of Kansas before its border with Colorado, we run into the most beautiful line of low-hanging clouds. They look like soft pleats on some silk-chiffon gown, or maybe the graceful lines from a spatula swiped straight through vanilla icing. They mesmerize. They are gray-white but not at all gloomy.


A day later, the opposite effect appears. Skies above the Roxborough State Park near our friends' home, southwest of Denver, are unbelievably blue. This, plus a few thin wisps of white serve to contrast nicely with the huge upthrust of red sandstone rocks in the park. In fact, it is all so dramatically red, white and blue, so to speak, that it's the only state park designated by the U.S. Department of the Interior as a National Natural Landmark (www.parks.state.co.us/roxborough).

We hike with good friends Beki and William Adams for about three miles -- up to a lookout, over to the little homestead of newspaperman Henry S. Persse in the early 1900s who purchased this spectacular land in 1899, and renamed it Roxborough Park, so the story goes, after his family's estate in County Galway, Ireland. "In 1902, he and two other men formed the Roxborough Land Company to develop the property into a premier tourist destination," says a Flickr entry online. "Persse died in 1918 when he was hit by a tramway car in Denver, with his plans of a world class resort unrealized."  All the better for us in the 21st century who love nature and wilderness. As we walk back to our car through wildflower-edged paths, tiny blue butterflies -- as blue as the sky above them -- dot the way. They land at our feet to get, apparently, any moisture in sandy soil below.

We’re having the best time catching up (William used to live in St. Louis and was one of the regular musicians at our house for Sunday-night, wine-and-music get-togethers). Besides hiking, we eat great hot Thai food (at Wild Ginger) and a mellow Middle Eastern meal (at Jerusalem, next to the University of Denver) and drink sublime Denver brew-pub beer (Great Divide Brewing Co.’s Titan IPA, http://www.greatdivide.com/). Sitting on the wide back porch of their new home near the foothills of the Rockies, we also laugh, talk and look out over a new raised bed plus other handsome gardens-in-the-making and wish that they still lived in St. Louis (or we moved nearby, to Montana perhaps?).

We depart sunny Denver after two days and enter a Wyoming buffeted by winds of up to 50-miles-per-hour. Clouds are low and blue-black, dropping so close to the ground that you think a Missouri-style tornado might materialize...

... Rain pummels our car. Could hail, or worse, be far off?? Buttes to the left of us, buttes to the right of us, mountains on the horizon and mayhem threatening overhead. Twenty minutes later, there’s blue sky and puffy clouds. And a huge and cheerful statue of a buffalo greets us at the state line. Welcome to the ever-changing weather of the West! And to our very quirky overnight at the Mill Inn in Sheridan, Wyoming (http://www.sheridanmillinn.com/, a converted flour mill and, let us say, an acquired taste; read the online reviews and judge for yourselves).

Here’s the real reason that I am on this trip. Who could resist this little face? It's my husband Alex, age 7, barefoot and proudly flaunting his new cap pistol in front of two jealous Montana boys -- Kelsey and Eric.

Alex and his Tulane-faculty mother and father used to pile into their car every summer in the 1950s and drive all the way from home in New Orleans to Hamilton (just before the Interstate highway system, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/history.htm) to visit Montana friends.

And that's my Montana connection -- Alex, his wonderful, cap-pistol-stealing friend Kelsey and our own trips in the early '90s to re-visit Montana. Al wants to return for real. He wants a permanent foothold in the foothills of the Bitterroot. I am not sure that I do. Therein lies the joy (and the tension) in this fantastic trip. Tomorrow, the real thing -- an overnight at in Gallatin Gateway, MT, before we get "home" to Hamilton.

On the road again

We’ve hit the road and it’s such a bittersweet feeling, as I think it is for any long-distance traveler.

We’re away from our big, old wonderful city house that, in retirement, has become our refuge, our constant project and our entertaining space. We’re out of view of the tiny, prissy backyard garden that we both now tend and, this year, is full of bumper crops of lettuces, kale and nasturtiums (started from the  Missouri’s fabulous Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds! http://rareseeds.com/). 

And, we’re away from Josephine, the cat we took in  for nine months while her owners/neighbors were away doing visiting-professor stuff. We fell in love. She’s in good hands with a new house-sitter for the owners' last month away -- right Stephen!?!

But driving out of tornado alley isn’t so bad. Three or four instances of cowering in the basement makes a trek west in calm winds, under puffiest clouds ever a relative dee-light.

And we approach Kansas City quickly! Should we stop somewhere along the way for a picnic lunch from the cooler? We’ve packed chicken salad and baked ham for sandwiches, gala apples and cheeses. Or should we drive easily off of the Interstate to Arthur Bryant’s? Picnic, or ribs? Sandwiches, or one shot at the best-BBQ in the Midwest (world)? Hmmmmmm? Which should it be? 

Arthur Bryant’s (http://www.arthurbryantsbbq.com/), of course. It’s 1 p.m. and the place is mobbed! We stand in line for a long time right next to pictures of Stephen Spielberg and Kate Capshaw with platters of Bryant’s  ribs. We finally get to the bustling kitchen/serving area and have decided to do a Spielberg – order a slab of pork ribs plus a side of cole slaw (for me, of course)  and fries (for Alex, he’d live on frites if he could). We are in hog heaven, literally, as we join the serious eaters tableside. There’s very little conversation. Lots of napkins and much dolloping of sauce out of squeeze bottles. We climb back into the car and, remarkably, are just pleasantly full, not stuffed.

But the next travel choice cinches it that our ribs decision was the right one. We remember our hike years ago in the nearby Nature Conservancy preserve that is the huge Konza Prairie (http://www.konza.ksu.edu/KNZ/default.aspx) that's just north of the Interstate near Manhattan, KS. We get gas near there and find the quiet little entrance to trails off of McDowell Creek Road. We walk up steep slopes surrounded by new, knee-high uber-green prairie grasses and the occasional burst of big, yellow Missouri evening primrose among a few small lupine and daisy-like flowers.

 
Konza is quiet, treeless and amazing. Buffalo graze in the far distance. We love it. We walk nearly three miles and feel totally guilt-free about the lunch.

Tomorrow, leaving from a motel in Hays, KS, we’ll feel like we’re in the true West  -- singing “Home, Home on the Range” and looking roadside for antelope. So far, a great beginning!!

Looking West

We'd already decided to spend at least the month of June in Montana, written our Hamilton MT friends, booked a little house on South Third St. there and found a house sitter here, when I attended an April concert in St Louis' historic Bellefontaine Cemetery (www.bellefontainecemetery.org).  Alex and friends had been asked to play some lively Baroque pieces in the renovated chapel. And afterward, while he and the others finished talking with guests and packing up instruments, I decided to drive around the handsome old arboretum.

With map in hand, I found myself in the vicinity of the grave of William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame. He'd once made a trip from St. Louis to Montana! I decided to check him out.


It turned out to be an emotional visit.  Clark's handsome face in a bronze bust looked so openly, optimistically westward that it broke my heart to think about his difficulties along the way. Navigating up the troublesome Missouri River in 1804 with heat, injuries, insects, plus the exhaustion of fighting a current or pulling boats from land by rope! Such an experience is so foreign to me, sitting in my air-conditioned car, navigating by Google maps or iPhone, listening to satellite radio and drinking the latest latte. But that's essentially the way that Alex and I will do it.


We leave on Friday!! Did I mention we're driving to Montana? Starting Friday!!! So exciting. We've packed up the eight-year-old Subaru with fishing gear and car-camping tent, air mattress, Coleman stove, folding chairs and other provisions and are luxing our way west. Full disclosure: We've booked nice rooms along the way -- most wonderfully at the renovated railroad hotel north of Yellowstone (www.gallatingatewayinn.com). And, we'll stay two nights with friends in Denver.  But once headquartered in Hamilton, we'll take a few days here and there to car camp in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness area (www.npr.org/programs/re/archivesdate/2004/sep/selway/), which the late, great Doris Milner (mother of Alex's childhood MT buddies) successfully petitioned Congress to protect!! We hope it's still as beautiful as our last camp there, way back in 1993.


(A footnote on Clark: I shouldn't romanticize him too much. He was of a Southern slave-owning family and brought a slave named York along with him on the historic trek. York provided many services for the entire crew, not the least of which was distracting and entertaining not-so-friendly native tribes and collecting many wild greens to supplement a mostly meat diet.  "Arriving back to St. Louis, Missouri, on September 23, 1806," says http://lewisandclarktrail.com/york.htm, "York asked Clark to grant him his freedom as payment for his services which was denied.")