The Boys of 1973 Take On Colorado
I can now check a few more things off my bucket list.
This is due to the second pre-class reunion get-together of some of the boys from the Red Wing Central High School Class of 1973. With our 50-year reunion next year, we were supposed to start planning it. I didn’t think it also meant getting COVID.
If we plan our reunion the way we planned this trip, we’re in trouble. Retired guys are a little slow. So when nobody committed to meeting at suggested locations, classmate Bryce Anderson announced that it would be at his cabin in the middle of Colorado.
What better place to plan a class reunion than at a cabin in the South Park region of the Rockies, about two hours southwest of Denver. It’s right in the middle of the state, just south of Hartsel, considered “the heart of Colorado.” It’s a town you could blink and miss, like a lot them out there.
The group this year was two shy of our total last time. This one meant travel for three of us from Minnesota. I flew out with classmate Jim Shabatura. Kevin Severson drove out there and Kurt Schwartau lives in the Denver area. We had intended to invite others but we dawdled too long. Next time.
The trip was therapeutic. After being cooped up for three years I needed to get away, to see some different territory. But so did everyone else. The airports were crazy busy.
Denver is a busy place and growing. There’s a decided distain for Texans, who apparently can’t drive or ski well but have big pickups and carry a wad of cash. There were many RVs on the road. Some were towing cars. Probably Texans.
The weather was dry, normal for this time of the year. However, it rained quite a bit the two nights Jim and I stayed at Bryce’s house in Denver. Bryce said if we can bring rain when we visit, we can visit any time.
We took a scenic route to his cabin, stopping in Georgetown and driving through Guanella Pass and Fairplay, which is the visual basis for the Town of South Park in the television series South Park. A walking museum section of town has buildings depicted in the show.
Bryce’s cabin stands out at an elevation of 9,370 feet in a mountain meadow. The front porch is on the back of the house with a view of low mountains between there and the start of the Great Plains. We spent most of our time there, talking sideways. Two wicker chairs on the windy end of the porch are screwed to the floor.
I hadn’t talked this much for a long time and got a sore neck turning to talk on the porch. At our age it only takes one minute before you start talking about health issues. It takes just one day or less before you start repeating yourself. When we needed noise we listened to a 60s radio station, which made us hoarse from talking over it. Attempts at horseshoes and corn hole games were quickly abandoned.
So there were times when it was nice just to sit in the near total silence, watching hummingbirds at the feeder or staring at the mountains where I was drawn to a large alpine meadow. It reminded me of a hayfield in the hilly farm country back home, just a whole lot larger.
But any calm the porch provided was quickly forgotten by a half-day of whitewater rafting. An amiable guide steered us through numerous rapids on a portion of the Arkansas River. Bryce and I paddled up front as “bow cows.” We got wet but no one died. I needed a nap back at the cabin.
One night as we were viewing the starry sky we saw a bright white light in the distance. It suddenly spread out as it approached overhead to become a line of many smaller white lights. That line moved slowly over the sky. For a moment I thought it could be a UFO or world war.
I learned that it was SpaceX Starlink satellites, part of an internet constellation. The launch vehicle deploys 60 satellites into an initial ‘parking orbit’ at around 270 miles above Earth. From there, the individual satellites spread out around the planet.
Relieved that Earth might remain intact for another day, we took a day trip south to Cañon City where we viewed Royal Gorge, a section of the Arkansas River that has carved its way through almost 1,000 feet of rock. There’s a privately owned bridge across it, complete with modern attractions like a zip line, tram, and even a swing that flies you out over the edge. No thanks. A couple us wouldn’t get within 20 feet of the edge.
The trip was a nice adventure, except for getting COVID afterward. At least it didn’t affect the trip. I suppose it was the airport but I tested negative shortly after getting home and positive a week later. Go figure.
I think I’ll survive so I’m adding it to my bucket list as an achievement, along with rafting and visiting Bryce’s cabin.
Oh, the group decided that the arrangements for our 45th class reunion were fine so we should just do that again for the 50th.