COLORADO: Final Days

DAYS 7 AND 8: REVISITED

I spent 2 largely lovely days in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. It really is a geological wonder. Long ago, volcanic activity left behind some softer rock on top of the harder granite rock. Flowing water now known as the Gunnison River easily carved through that softer rock and then became trapped in the newly created river basin. Over many centuries, the river has carved out this deep, deep gorge in the bedrock. The sheer cliffs are truly astounding – and a bit terrifying. Many of the vista points have railings, but many do not. People do rock climb and river raft, but you need special permits. This is not for the ill-prepared. I don’t think any of my photos capture the perspective needed to gauge how deep and narrow the gorge is.

Painted Rock

The trip was marred by a couple incidents, however. The first is one that seems so minor in retrospect that I wish it was the one that preoccupies me still: A condescending, sexist campsite host spoke to me so rudely about my driving of the camper that I fumed all the way down the mountain to town about what I wished I had said to him in response. Sadly, this memory was soon wiped out by a horrific episode at the dump station. I guess I need something worse to happen so I can rid my mind of that. OK, wait. No. Nevermind. I’ll learn to live with the dump station memory. No no no no. Nothing worse, please!

Related or not, I soon decided to abandon my original plan of driving all the way down to Mesa Verde National Park to see the ancient pueblos. It would involve a lot of driving and much hotter temperatures, and my confidence in the camper was waning. My “levels” indicator in the camper was malfunctioning – it said the fresh water was empty right after I filled it and that the gray water was full right after I emptied it. Then the propane stopped working, which affects the refrigeration and stove.

It was time for a Plan B, which became getting a hotel in Gunnison, Colorado. It was a good choice, largely because after I checked in and had a 2-hour nap, I strolled down to High Alpine Brewery and sat at the end of the bar watching baseball and chatting with various locals. The one I’ll remember most is “Ray of Sunshine” (a mnemonic device he offered for remembering his name), who is a paramedic in town. He recently moved back to Colorado from Flagstaff, Arizona, where he had worked as an air rescue EMT, rescuing, among others, people from the Grand Canyon. All interesting enough, but as we talked, Ray revealed that he lives in his van. “You live in a van?” Yeah, for about 10 years. “You’ve lived in a van for 10 years?” And he hoped I hadn’t noticed his speech impediment, because a year and a half ago he had brain surgery to remove a tumor. “You lived in a van while recovering from brain surgery?” The conversation then turned to health insurance, and then to politics, and I asked how he could vote without a permanent address. Oh, he said, he hasn’t voted in years. “You haven’t voted in years??!!” I think the last revelation was the hardest for me to hear!

After Ray left, I met a lovely young couple who wanted me to go rafting down (a quiet part of) the Gunnison River with them the next day. I have to say I was tempted, but I felt I would need another night in the hotel to recover from a day of rafting in the high-altitude sun, so I passed. I spent part of the next morning waiting for Cruise America’s service people to call me back and help fix the propane. I finally pushed on to Buena Vista and the Cottonwood Hot Springs. The service people didn’t call back for 7 hours!!! And at that point I was soaking in the hot springs, waiting for my massage appointment.

DAYS 9 AND 10

I’m now in Buena Vista, a cute touristy town at the base of several “fourteeners” – peaks all around that top 14,000 feet (namely, Mt. Yale, Mt. Harvard, and Mt. Princeton; not making that up – they call it the “collegiate range”). Cottonwood Hot Springs is a very hippie, mellow place, with rustic cabins, a lodge, and tent sites. I’m at a tent site in my camper. My neighbors are a young couple from Denver, with whom I shared cocktails and snacks before the sunset last night. This morning, I slept in and then had a soak in the hot springs and a nice hot shower.

So in the end, Plan B has worked out fine, and I’ve enjoyed having a little more contact with people since leaving the Black Canyon. I had had a small crisis even earlier (not camper-related), at about the mid-point of the trip, when I pulled into a remote and relatively deserted campground. I suddenly felt very isolated and lonely. Not surprisingly, the mid-point of one of these crazy trips is when I question what the hell I am doing. What the hell am I doing? I’ve had an amazing trip, and I’ve seen some of the most beautiful areas in the world, let alone the US. I’ve read some great books, met interesting people, and learned many things – about myself and about the world. Those are all the things I hope to get out of my travels. And traveling alone is its own particular experience – no one to question my decisions, my driving, my choice of where and when to go, do, be. But it is, of course, isolating and lonely. It always is. Eventually a few people pass in and out of my story. But what about the main cast – my family and friends back home, who say “someday,” or “next time,” when they talk about traveling? I don’t like to say “someday.” When I find myself saying “someday,” I pull out a calendar and find the day. The result is always amazing, but also occasionally isolating and lonely.

later that day…
Shortly after writing the above, a thunderstorm rolled through Buena Vista. I had driven back to my campsite and sat out the storm from inside my camper, with the windows and doors open, listening to the crashing thunder and the pounding rain. It was a lovely summer storm, and a fitting bookend to my trip, which had begun the same way, back in RMNP.

I then hit a local bar for my last drink on my last day of my vacation. I think I’m getting the hang of this sitting-alone-at-a-bar thing. I ended up exchanging some very lovely conversations with a couple different people; the last, a single woman in her 60s, told me about her travails with online dating, on the site Farmers Only. Yep. Are you “Single in the Country?” This site is for you. She gave me some advice: feel into the energy out there. The energy of a person is what matters, what calls us, and what we should try to respond to. I’ve studied and read and meditated on this concept. And now Sherrie, 63, who lives in her RV and builds greenhouses, is reminding me. The energy of the moment led me on this latest adventure, and to meet people like Ray and Sherrie. Hey, Universe! I’m ready for what’s NEXT!