Resting Amongst the Wealthy; A Satisfying Appreciation

Having crossed the desert bare, it was time to breathe some mountain air. I made Vail a stopover point to visit my friend Mike Slass. Mike lives in Seattle, where he is a computer programmer/stagehand - an unlikely multi-class if ever there was one. Mike is the only other person I know who has worked in both events and software development. He contends the two disciplines are nothing alike, I contend they are a lot alike. We can't both be right.

I forgot to snap a pic of Mike, because by the time I busted my camera out on getaway day, he had already left for physical therapy. Mike is in Vail...again...for a round of surgery and rehab on his knee, which he messed up skiing a few years back. It turns out one of the best knee surgeons in the world is in Vail. One of the best hip surgeons, too. They're so good that professional sports teams send their athletes to get repaired here. Mike shared PT space with Adam Vinatieri a few weeks ago. Evidently Adam's a very nice guy...and was hitting 65 yard field goals at the local high school after his rehab. Also visiting the clinic this week while Mike was in therapy was a member of the Portland Trailblazers and two currently unidentified NFL linemen.

However, I did get a picture of Stephanie, somewhat to her chagrin. Stephanie is a college friend of Mike's who was also in town to help out after his surgery. She made us both delicious breakfast...yum!

I had been driving hard for the previous two days, so a rest was well in order, I thought. As Mike has rented a spacious condo in Vail village for the duration of his rehab, I decided to hang here for a couple nights. I spent the day in between, while Mike was doing two-a-day workouts, wandering around Vail village. Some of you ski or snowboard, so you'll know what I mean when I say that it's a typical but quite nice manufactured ski village. It's busy in the summer season as well. They keep the gondolas running part time and let hikers and mountain bikers up on the runs.

The whole resort and the village around it was founded by a fellow named Pete Seibert (1922 - 2002). Pete grew up in New England, but enlisted to fight the war. He joined the 10th Mountain Rangers, which trained in southern Colorado. After his service, during which he was severely wounded in fighting in Italy, he became a professional skier. See...and you thought the army couldn't prepare you for anything useful. Pete got together with a rancher he knew to start the ski resort. I'm told many of the ski resorts in America were actually started by veterans of the 10th Mountain Rangers. It's a very interesting claim. Right time, right place I guess.

This is definitely one of the continent's premier resorts. It's at very high elevation, over 8000 feet. It's well known for it's back bowl terrain. There are actually two villages, Vail and Lionsgate, each served by their own battery of lifts.

Vail village is going for a sort of faux-Austrian Alps theme. It's...charming...I suppose. That is to say, it's definitely a fantastic ski village. But something didn't sit quite right with me with the old European stylistic look. There were cowboy shops alongside faux brauhauses. I guess everyone wants to be somebody else for a while.

There were also designer clothing studios, furriers, jewelry shops, and other delights to tempt the mega rich. There seem to be two types of people for whom Vail is specifically designed: the crowd of folks largely in their 50s or so who "have arrived" as the saying goes, and the ultra-fit 20 something ski bums who attend to their every need. At least that's who I saw wandering around the town. That, and more than a few folks on crutches from the clinic.

Construction is booming in Vail. Either they haven't heard of the global recession, or the constructions projects were already too far along to be affected by it. The Four Seasons is building a massive but terribly tasteful resort at one end of the town, a short two blocks or so from the lifts in Vail village. Rarely does one see modern construction with concrete and Tyvek using huge timbers and decorative stonework in quite this combination.


Pete Seibert's dream is not only still alive, it continues to grow after he has left us. It's a worthy monument to his vision and his labors. Don't let a little envious nitpicking fool you, this place is great. Out of idle curiosity, I stopped to lick the windows of the local real estate office. You can get a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom 1300 square foot 3rd floor condo in the village overlooking the lifts for the low price of 2.1 million. That's an ask...you might be able to haggle them down a bit. If that's too rich for your blood, you can always but a couple acres of undeveloped, currently unserviced land a few miles down the road toward the town of Gypsum. That's only 800k. The sell sheet assured astounding views.

We capped off a highly relaxing and enjoyable day with a sushi dinner. I was a little skeptical of ordering sushi in the mountains, but Mike assured me this place was great. He wasn't wrong. I don't know how they do it, but it was a fine meal. The next morning, realizing this was a road trip afterall, I knew I had to hit the road again.

I had climbed up to these lofty heights in the dark two days prior. I proceeded back down the other side under overcast and occasionally rainy skies, but enjoying late morning views. The passes kept climbing for a bit east of Vail. The elevations weren't well marked, but I think we must have got near 9000 feet if not a bit higher. Then the 6% downgrades started, and just didn't let up. At one point there was an 8 mile stretch of on-and-off again 5 and 6 percent downgrades. Semi-trucks were taking the whole thing in low gear and about 40mph. Despite or because of the twists, turns, traffic annoyances, and ear popping; I was filled with awe to make this rapid descent, embraced on all sides by walls of sheerest stone dressed in aspens just taking on brilliant hues of scarlet and gold.

But the embrace of this mountainous lover ended all too quickly. Less than 100 miles from Vail is the town of Golden, a westerly suburb of the great city of Denver. In Golden, the mountains simply end, abruptly and definitively, in a plateau of rolling hills. As one approaches this plateau, the prairie opens up in front of you like a book. I attempted to get a picture, but this doesn't do it justice by a fifth.

That blue-ish smudge you can just make out above the jeep in front of me is the horizon of the plains, probably seen here at a distance of over 50 miles.

I sped quickly past Denver without stopping. The morning was getting old, and I had to mentally steel myself for the long, flat journey ahead. My resolve to enjoy everyplace I go on this trip on its own merits was to be tested. For I wanted more of the thrill of speeding through the mountains, surrounded and safe and encompassed. But as it was very overcast, soon even the image of my affection was obscured in the rearview mirror behind a veil of gray. We aren't made to remember past joys.

Colorado is a state with a great PR drive behind it. While it is known as the home of the Rockies, in fact fully half the state is more akin to neighboring Kansas and Nebraska: high flat prairies of wheat and corn farms, cattle ranches, and the occasional oil well. It was through these prairies in eastern Colorado and Kansas that I spent my day whiling away many hours. There's a beauty here, but it takes a certain mind set to appreciate it. It's not desolate, as the desert west of the mountains is. The signs of human habitation are everywhere. But they are all very dispersed, as if they they all shared a common magnetic charge and were repelling each other to a state of perfect equilibrium. Everything in the western prairie is very far away from everything else.


After about 6 hours of this drive, with about two more in front of me, I experienced a moment that created that right mindset for me. I was running low on gas, and was feeling a bit hypnotized by the road. In this state, I missed an easy roadside gas station, and didn't know if I could hold out the 40 miles to the next major town. I resolved to pull off at one of the little village exits and find the nearest gas to the highway that I could. As it turns out, the name of the village is Dorrance, Kansas. Dorrance is about 45 minutes west of the larger town of Salina, which you've also never heard of but should at least appear on your road atlas. The station, which I'm certain was a one-man operation, was closed for the evening as it was almost 6pm. However, the pumps had a card reader of a particularly antique sort, so I could get fuel. Allow me to paint you a picture: this is a village of perhaps 10-20 houses...some quite nice...some nothing more than prettily maintained trailer homes. The rail line that parallels the interstate stops in Dorrance at the massive grain elevator, a fine representative of the structures that I had seen scores of on my cross country drive. Suddenly Kansas wasn't off in the distance, it was all around me. It smelled like mown grass, it sounded like crickets and contentment, and it looked like peace. I don't know if I could spend my life here happily, but I can appreciate the people who can.














A few hours after Dorrance I had gone as far east and south as the day would take me. I'm submitting this entry from Wichita, Kansas. Tomorrow will come the drive into an icon of America: the drive to take Texas, and the fine city of Austin.