Continued from Cross-Country with Kyle pt. 3: The Empty Highway to Santa Fe
That next morning we slept in until 9 or so. We had a short driving day – according to Mapquest, it was 6 hours and the drive was through the Southern Rockies up to Southwest Colorado, in my opinion one of the most beautiful places in the country.
"Kyle, today you’re gonna see why all that rushing through the boring parts the last two days was worth it. This is God’s country."
"I can see," he said, catching a glimpse out the windows of snowcapped mountains.
"Well there are two routes we can take. We can go back on the 25 to another highway. It’s more highway driving and we might see less but it’ll be quicker. Or we could just cut up north through the mountains of Southern New Mexico and go a little more off the beaten path.
"Well we’re only going to be here once," Kyle said, "Let’s go through the mountains."
In the parking lot, a group of Mexicans sat on the bed of a pick-up truck, "Parking Lot Pimping". We drove around the corner to the Dunkin Donuts to use up another one of Kyle’s graduation gift cards. We each got breakfast sandwiches and coffees to fight the cold Santa Fe morning. This day would be the first we would be able to drive without the AC on, just open the windows and feel the fresh mountain air sweeping over us.
"I thought New Mexico to be a hot-ass desert place," said Kyle. I told him that was southern New Mexico. We drove back to a gas station where Kyle filled up, finding for the first time the truck not being able to be completely filled on 40 bucks. I drove up Cerillos, crossing the Santa Fe river, to S. Francisco, where we started to make random turns, trying to find 285 and trying to drive around the city a little.
We rocked out the Arctic Monkeys’ as we drove through a city center unlike any we had ever seen. All the architecture, from State buildings to hotels to stores and restaurants, was adobe, multi-level with wide, wrap around porches supported by rustic wooden posts. The town was quaint and beautiful, the first city on our travels that reminded us not all cities are exactly the same. It had a distinct personality, like the place where history was still alive and all that corny tourist travel cliché. A good feeling exuded from the downtown as we drove around and we decided that Santa Fe would be a great place to come for a work convention or retreat at some point. We passed art galleries depicting the old west with wolves howling at the moon on lonely plateaus and old Indian chiefs looking forward stoically, all the soft pinks and yellows and reds that represented the great Southwest. I told Kyle that I had always greatly disliked New Mexico south of Santa Fe – Albuquerque and below were so dirty and depressing. They had a sick, dirty industrial feel, closer to Mexican Border cities of Tijuana and Juarez. Las Cruces, named after the cemetery dug for Spanish explorers slaughtered by the local Indians, served for me as an unforsaken piece of rock with nothing but scorpions and other creatures well-equipped to live in hostile conditions roaming the country freely. I remember spending some time there, how the water tasted like cigarette butts if you left it in your glass too long and how they served 40 oz’s in champagne ice holders at some of the local bars in the walnut orchards. From Santa Fe up, I told Kyle, it was beautiful and fresh. South might as well be one grand Mexican border town.We stopped at a a woman was standing in a median selling newspapers to ask her for directions.
"Excuse me ma’am, could you tell me how to get to the 84 North?"
She looked up at me through tired eyes, a faded, somewhat shriveled woman. She was thin, not by choice, and I could tell that she looked much older than she actually was. She showed the signs of a woman for whom life was a heavy weight, ever pressing harder and harder on her chest.
"No, I ain’t from here. My boss just drives me up here from Albuquerque to sell these newspapers. In Albuquerque I could tell you how to get everywhere but I don’t know up here."
"Ok."
"Yeah, I lost my ‘partment and I’m working’ sellin’ these newspapers an’ I don’t know a thing ‘bout Santa Fe but you get down to Albuquerque, I know all’s over that place."
"Great, thanks. Good luck," and with that we drove on. Albuquerque.
After driving around for another 20 minutes or so, we passed one of the oldest bars in Santa Fe that looked like it hadn’t changed much since the old West trading days, an adobe elementary school, a gothic-looking church, and an ancient cider press.
"It’s like a small town but a little bit bigger", I said. Eventually we found signs to 285/84 and the highway. We drove through the Santa Fe national cemetery, then past a grand adobe hotel on a beautifully-manicured golf course. On all sides of us the southern tips of the Rockies framed the road with desert land dotted with scrub-brush directly adjacent. It would have been perfect if it weren’t for the beat up old junker car in front of us that sounded like a weak motorcycle, spitting out miserable fumes that smelt like burning metal. We couldn’t pass it on the two-lane highway so we were stuck switching between frustration with the driver and fear that the smell and sound were actually coming from my truck.
We passed some small trading stops North of Santa Fe selling leather and jerky and cheap Indian memorabilia. We drove through Sangre de Christo, or Blood of Christ, a name for a part of the Rockies. At sunset, at the right time of year and on the right slopes, when the sun was at the right angle, the sun’s rays descended the folds of the mountains, bathing them in red light and looking like the blood of Christ running into the villages at their bases.
We entered the Tesuque reservation, then through the more developed Pojoaque reservation where we passed the casino directly across Camel Rock. It was a plain-looking building more resembling the casinos north of Las Vegas on the 15 than the extravagant tourist draws that littered the Vegas Strip. The burning car turned off there and I wondered if it would ever start again. I imagined a poor modern Indian driving from a job in Santa Fe to his family in a small shack on reservation land, every day praying his car wouldn’t break down on the roadside desert somewhere between. Everyday praying that his children would grow up to be great men in the white man’s world who wouldn’t have to drive a junker car from Sante Fe to Pojoaque.
The scrub-brush gave way to small deciduous tees with the occasional pine tree thrown in for good measure. Now we were in the wild west.
"It’s not like the streets of Baltimore, that’s for damn sure," Kyle said. He put on some country music, some Tim McGraw and Toby Keith. We soon pulled off at a roadside stop. To our west was a sparkling, high alpine lake surrounded by mountains. To the south was an enormous cliff and directly to our east were exaggerated foothills, folded red like giant clay bands jutting dramatically up from the road.
"This is God’s country. Literally, God owns this country."
"You know, this is the kind of place that reminds you how big America really is. That for all the cities and everything, there are still some places so desolate and bare that most people will never see." Thoreau I was not, though it was the best I could think of at the time. We decided that when our travel site "Whut’sHappening.com", becomes successful, we would have a conference at nearby Ghost Ranch Lodge, in the nowhere between Santa Fe and Pagosa Springs on the 84.
Back on the road, the desert gave way to greener lands full of pine trees, the air cold and fresh. We talked about how we would take "Whuts Happening" to the next level. Kyle suggested we try doing something to broadcast local concerts and other cool attractions. I told him we should also add something that allowed people to send in their travel writings, like a literary journal but dedicated solely to journey, adding artistic flare to travel spots. We had great plans and needed only to find somebody to build the site. Tom Petty played as we drove towards snow-capped peaks on May 31st and passed a Zapatistas tag saying "Tierra o Muerte" – land or death.
Soon the snow-capped mountains were no longer north but actually east of us and we drove talking about the fact that of all the people we knew, probably none had ever seen the sights we were privy to. We turned off the radio, and enjoyed the silence and freshness of the air. The two greatest things about driving cross-country with someone are the deep conversations and the more frequent deep silences. We passed chimney rock, which Kyle had tried to name penis rock though the name didn’t stick because of the prudish missionaries.
We drove past small farms and turned the radio back on, getting the broadcast in from Pagosa Springs, driving through Jicarilla Apache land. Soon we crossed into Colorado, continuing a little north until Pagosa Springs where we jumped on 160 West. We slowed down as it became the main street in the little town and drove through. the quaint Colorado mountain town. You could always tell when you had entered Colorado because all of the buildings looked like the buildings in Breckenridge, small, wooden throwback cottages advertising hunting and hiking and kayaking expeditions. We stopped at a light to watch a middle-school class crossing and wondered what it would be like to go to school and grow up in a place so isolated and beautiful. We talked about the ultimate comedy – many of these people probably grew up to desire city living while many people living in cities yearned to leave it all behind and live a quiet existence in the mountains. Just outside of town we found a Conoco station where we used the facilities and bought some snacks, energy drinks, and waters, the cooler being basically empty. A cowboy drove by with his cowboy hat and nodded to us in our pick-up truck, tipping his hat. Kyle tipped an imaginary cowboy hat back at him and that was to be his greeting to passersby on the road for the rest of the trip.
We drove west on 160, the small highway snaking past Devil Creek State Wildlife area through the coniferous San Juan national forest. At Durango, we turned right onto 550 North, driving up through town. I told Kyle that when I lived in Steamboat, I had met some kids from Durango who told me the Ariano family basically ran Durango. They owned 2 restaurants, a car dealership, and the Coors distributorship. We joked about stopping and trying to find them, telling them we were long-lost cousins and asking for a free lunch. Durango was a small town, though about twice the size of Pagosa, with ads all over for ski lodges and the local mountain ski resorts. Its hotels were newer and bigger and everything felt a bit more hospitable. I wouldn’t say more open to tourists because all of Colorado was very open to and comfortable with tourists. Some towns, I thought, were just bigger than others.
At one point, just before Silverton, the map had us turning left to get onto the 145 to Telluride. The computer map, though, showed a route that was past Silverton and cut through the mountains. We decided to head in that direction since I had wanted to see legendary Silverton Mountain, a bare-bones ski resort with no boundaries. It had no real base village, a few lifts, cheap prices, and few restrictions. It also had no grooming, boasting some of the wildest lift-serviced terrain in North America. You had to sign a waiver and bring your avalanche beacons to ride and for this reason my old Jackson Hole buddies and I got all giddy when we talked about it.
We decided to continue on to Silverton. As we drove north on 550, the road began to climb rapidly. The temperature dropped as we drove into the snow-capped mountains until we stopped for the first time since Pagosa, pulling off to stare at the snowy chutes and peaks that we were now even with. It was a brisk 59 degrees at 1 in the afternoon and Kyle and I kept exclaiming how amazed we were to be able to look below us on the San Juan forest land covered in snow. A couple on a big, loaded-up motorcycle slowly rolled past us, not daring to drive too fast through the high alpine switchbacks, feeling, I was sure, mighty cold. We drove on a little further, stopping at the summit of Molas pass, a little above 10,800 feet. We were about 2 miles up, staring out as if on top of the world, struggling to breathe. Below us was a beautiful, icy blue lake and there were only a few other people around. A van pulled up and a family jumped out, all playing and running around on the grass and in the snow. We called Mom and Dad, exclaiming how amazed we were by the place, how pristine and beautiful and awe-inspiring it was. It was the first time we had called them about the splendor and beauty of the trip and Kyle especially couldn’t contain his excitement. After calling them, I called my partner Eric and our movie’s producer Aldo, getting some more details squared away on the finder’s agreement that they would need to sign before our big movie meeting on Monday at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood.
We continued on, stopping in Silverton to fill up the truck. It was an old gas station, one of the last ones that accepted cash only and where the pump had manual numbers that ticked off as you filled your vehicle with gas. There was a small main street next to us followed by a small creek running parallel to the town and there was a feeling that this old mining boom town would never get any bigger than it was. That felt good, I thought. Kyle offered to drive but I told him that since Telluride wasn’t far and he had driven both night shifts, I’d just finish out the day. We turned left despite signs saying the road to Telluride was in the other direction and drove along the Million Dollar Highway, named such because of all the great metals and mineral resources that had once been sucked out of the mountains in the town. According to the computer map, the access road would be just over this ridge.
We drove past ancient lead mills and mines and up into the mountain range just northwest of the little town. The rode rose and our ears popped once again as we peaked and began coming down severe switchbacks, a speed limit sign advising us to keep around 25, hugging the curves, Led Zeppelin and The Who and Guns N’ Roses blaring in our ears. The road was dangerous, a sheer, several-hundred foot plummet into an iron-red rock gorge on our left and a hard stone wall to our right. It was rugged and extreme, the kind of rock that made you think about dynamite crews blowing up tunnels to bring the railroad through Soon we caught up to a tourbus filled with tourists visiting the American old west. Because of its size and its weight it was puttering along at less than 20 miles per hour and I didn’t dare to pass it. It was stressful driving with the smell of burning brakes in my nose, the painful stench of metal melting and chipping and rotting from underneath the bus and I knew the brakes would have to be fixed upon the end of its trip. I wondered what would happen if its brakes went out, if it would go off careening like a wild steel boulder out of control until it launched off of or into a cliff and was reduced to a smoldering steel death trap. After what felt like forever the road began to level off and I began to look for the access road.
"Are you sure this is the right way?"
"It’s what the computer said."
"I don’t see this access road." And there was no way that an access road would be able to cut through the mountains there, I determined. Finally we descended into the little town of Ouray, "The Switzerland of America". It was in the heart of mining country in the San Juans, an area created millions of years ago by a volcanic explosion. The lava rock cooled and was followed by ice, then glacial erosion, creating the dramatic, jagged peaks of the area. It also created all the mineral deposits that miners would find, ushering in Ouray as a boom town. Its name came from the Ute Chief Ouray who in the late 1800’s had "decided" to sign the land over to encroaching white men. Basically, sell out your people’s natural heritage and your pride at the end of a rifle to the white man and you’ll get a little town in the heart of the southwest Colorado Rockies named after you. It reminded me of the small cities you pass on route 70 from Denver like Georgetown, with that old west miner town feel but mixed with some of the architecture I saw when passing through the high-alpine towns of Austria outside Innsbruck. The heart of the little town was a single strip mixing quaint Germanic lodges with wild-west porched ranchers and Victorian mansions. Kyle called it an old frontier town. We drove by a swimming hole full of kids and families, finding the visitor center at the end of town in an old Victorian two-level house. The main street looked forward upon a massive snow-covered bowl, visible from the visitor center parking lot and Kyle videoed it while panning over to the directly adjacent rocky mountains filled with the brightest of green pine trees.
"Look at what these people get to wake up to every single day," he said into the camera.
I went in and asked the people how to get to Telluride. They were kindly enough, good, heart and soul Colorado mountain folk, all red, white and blue, apple pie, and the good lord Jesus Christ, their leader a librarian-type with huge glasses. They told me that, coincidentally, 2 of the locals who also worked at the tourist center, a husband and wife, were originally from Baltimore.
"I can see why they’d want to come out here. There’s not much beauty, at least not like this, in Baltimore."
"That’s exactly what they said." They gave me the directions, although not without reminding me of what a great place Ouray was and for me to stop and stay there my next time through. I told them I would.
We drove along the 550, part of a giant loop comprising what was known as the San Juan Skyway. The road traced the Uncompahgre River which had carved what we had just descended, the Uncompahgre Gorge. The mountain in front of us was Montrose and as we swung left at the one stoplight on the road we found ourselves presented with the backside of Telluride’s Mt. Sneffels, over the Uncompahgre Forest. The left took us onto the 62 West, which hit 145 where we turned left, at Placerville. We jammed out to the new Citizen Cope as we were now just a few miles from our destination. We drove through Sawpit, in a small two-lane road pandering along a creek bed of the San Miguel River and turned on the radio. We listened to a local public station jamming out bluegrass as we passed in the shadows of great aspen trees and drove beside yellow wildflowers marching into the stream. I said how much of a pain it would probably be to get into town during a big snowday. We saw a sign for Mountain Village on our right but decided it would probably be more affordable and fun if we stayed in the town, just up ahead. We passed Mill Creek road and eventually found ourselves faced with the Victorian village of Telluride, Colorado.
An ad for the upcoming Bluegrass Festival came on the radio as we drove down the main strip, Colorado Avenue, 7 blocks or so of shops and restaurants which framed a breathtaking sheer white peak. At the end of the main area I turned right and immediately hit construction. Since it was the time of year between the tourist peaks of Ski Season and Summer Tourist season, the town was fixing itself up, blocking off roads for construction and road repair from the harsh winter. I turned around and drove up a street from Colorado to see if there was anything else but saw only row after row of quaint, well-manicured Victorian houses. How a ski bum could afford to live here I could never know. I had thought Steamboat small and Jackson kinda expensive but this place looked much smaller and much more costly than both.
A few streets up we turned left, heading to the next street past Colorado, W. Pacific Ave. We drove a few blocks until we saw the Victorian Inn, a place that looked just how it sounded – like a large Victorian inn, sitting quietly on the corner of West Pacific Avenue and South Aspen Street. I parked behind it and walked up the wrap-around lower deck to the office. Inside, an Asian girl with a delicate English accent greeted me and offered us a room for $95 dollars.
I looked around the lobby. It was well-kept, with a beautiful china closet full of expensive silverware in the corner. It had nicely-done walls and a great rustic but extravagant feel and I could tell that this place would be at least $300 a night during the ski season. I accepted and she gave me the keys, old metal kinds from before the computerized plastic cards became all the rage (and which I found so classy and real – I don’t know why, but there’s something about using real keys to open your hotel doors that I appreciate). I walked back to grab Kyle, some clothes, my office stuff, and the Gentleman Jack. We had arrived before sunset – in fact, it was just 5 o’clock.
We walked up to our room, following old wooden stairs and wrapping around on an old wooden porch. The room was simple but elegant, with two queen beds sporting fine intricate iron headboards. We laid down on the beds, turned on the TV, and took swigs of our Gentleman Jack.
"What’s the plan?"
"I dunno what do you wanna do?"
"I dunno. We definitely gotta get some food."
"Absolutely."
"Relaxing also sounds nice."
"Yeah."
"What do you think about this? Let’s walk around to a liquor store, get some beers, and hang out here while we decide where to eat. That way I can also send off this contract stuff for the movie and we can figure out what’s the deal with camping out at the Grand Canyon."
"Sounds good to me."
We walked to the front desk and asked for where the closest liquor store was. She told us there was a little general store a few blocks away in the downtown area. We thanked her and headed out on foot. It was a nice feeling walking around. We passed a few tourist shops on Colorado selling "Telluride" and "Ski or Die" t-shirts, stuff that all the gapers bought. We passed a little music store and a hot heady girl, as Kyle said. She had dreads and simple, hemp clothes.
"I need me a hot heady girl," Kyle told me and I agreed. We turned right down Fir Street to the Village Market general store where we bought a six-pack of Fat Tire and some waters. We walked back to the hotel on W. Pacific, passing nice homes and beautiful trees. Everything in the mountains, I thought, is more severe, more refreshing and real. As a friend of mine would tell me a few months later, being in the mountains is like seeing life and the world in HD while being in most cities is like watching it on a regular TV.
As we walked back into our hotel, we saw two women walking by, one pushing a stroller. They were both in their 30’s, with tight bodies. The one pushing the stroller had long black hair and was a total milf. I told Kyle that mountain moms are usually milfs because to live up here, you have to be in shape and tough. And that rends real milfs, not the plastic abominations that slink around Orange County strip mall bars looking for young boys to fuck as revenge against their unfaithful ex-husbands. Nobody wants to marry and spend a life with that type of woman, it’s like trying to find substance and fulfillment from a Danielle Steele novel.
Back in the room, we each cracked a beer and turned on the TV. I got online and after talking with my "lawyer" (Lukey V, still in law school) I got a final correction for the contract and sent it off. I called Aldo and Eric to discuss and confirm that they had received the papers and would sign them. Neither person picked up so I just went online and checked out camping in the Grand Canyon. It said that camping in the South Rim, especially on the one campground right by the canyon’s edge, filled up quickly so I tried to make reservations online, only to find the system down. I called the Federal Park service. After waiting for 20 minutes on hold, finally somebody came on the line and informed me that their system was also down.
"Seriously? Is there anything else I can do or anybody else I can call?"
"No, I’m sorry. You’re just gonna have to try and get there as soon as possible tomorrow."
"Ok, thanks." I was now a little worried. I remembered going to the grand canyon 2 years before or so and spending over a hundred and forty dollars on a second-rate motel outside the park. This would completely ruin our plan of staying for cheap near the giant gorge and eating mushrooms while the sun set. I tried calling Aldo and Eric again to no success, also worrying me.
Kyle showered and I looked through our dining options, trying to find something cheap but good. Not a little pizza place, but also not a big steak house. Kyle had offered to pay for dinner this night and I didn’t want him to have to spend an arm and a leg, but at the same time we both knew we wanted meat and we didn’t want to eat crap.
The girl at the front desk had told me that just a few blocks away was the gondola. She told us it provided free service up to the mountain village and ran until 10. We couldn’t decide where to eat so Kyle decided that we should just ride the gondola up, get a few drinks, look for someplace to eat, and ride the Gondola drunken back down the mountain.
"So Ocean City Maryland has a drunk bus," Kyle exclaimed to the camera, "This is how they get back and forth from the bar every night, they take a fucking gondola".
"This is a perfect town, even though it’s full of heady girls."
"Hot heady girls."
We rode above the ski runs, looking at the slope covered in grass and mud. While videotaping going up, we saw a few hippies riding down with their dog, a husky/german shepherd mix. They smiled and gave us the finger, 2 guys and a girl, baked out of their minds, fresh from a day of hiking with their dog. We went up, thronged on both sides by bleached aspen trees.
"This isn’t like the public transportation elsewhere," I said.
As the gondola climbed higher the view grew more dramatic, bringing us to the level of the snow-capped peaks, showing us panoramas of the valley and the low grasslands where Telluride nestled in the Sneffels Wilderness. The sun shone brightly on the grasslands and the flowers and quaint little houses and cabins below and I felt the peace and tranquility that always washed over me when I went up into the mountains. It was as if a part of my soul was being satisfied and fulfilled. Probably the only time I felt truly complete was when I was atop a mountain peak in nature. I sighed to myself as the gondola peaked, on both sides greeted by paintings made by local kids of Van Gogh masterpieces like "A Starry Night", then descended down to Mountain Village. We passed over enormous luxury mansions on the slopes, houses that easily cost over $10million, and I remembered hearing that this place had a huge celebrity following, that Oprah and Leo DiCaprio had bought houses here.
When we got down and stepped off the gondola, we found ourselves in a standard Colorado mountain base not unlike a small version of Vail Village. Lots of stone and brickwork with new condos in classic ski-town fashion, slanted roofs over wood-slatted sides, strong oak logs acting as supports to add that elegant ski mountain flare to everything. We walked up trying to find our way around to a restaurant we wanted to check out called Bistro Isabelle. When we finally found it, we saw a sign in front advertising "A burger, fries, and a Bud - $10". We walked in and asked for the special, with everything, mine rare and Kyle’s medium. We sat at a little wooden table with 4 wooden chairs, by the door, right next to the polished wood bar. The walls were colored purple with yellow beams and an industrial ceiling showing round exposed ventilation ducts and a little wooden fan. It was the newest Colorado mountain creation, rugged chic with plasma screens finishing off the décor of the dimly lit burger joint in Mountain Village, Telluride. I stepped outside and tried to make another call, once again not getting Aldo or Eric. I came back in and Kyle and I drank our beers. NASCAR was on and we stared blankly at the screen. I was quiet and pensive and Kyle could tell.
"What’s wrong?"
"I don’t know. I can’t get ahold of Eric, I can’t get ahold of Aldo. They’re cutting me out, I know it, I should have gotten a contract they’re gonna fuck me over and get rid of me."
"Ryan, you’re just being paranoid."
"I don’t think so. They don’t need me anymore, I already put them in contact, they’re just cutting me out, I’m fucked. Dammit!"
"Ryan, stop. You’re being paranoid and stupid and you need to get over it because personally, I don’t want to hang out with somebody who’s being paranoid and crazy. That’s not a fun time." I looked at him and he stared back at me, having just spoken with true authority. It was one of the first times I had ever heard him talk so strongly and sternly, the only previous few being when we lived together in San Diego and when I stayed with him in OCMD, when he checked my overt dramaticism. I could see in his eyes that he was serious. And that he was right. I smiled.
"You’re right. You’re right, I’m just freaking out."
"Yeah, you are." We drank our beers and stared back at NASCAR.
"Dude, you should definitely try and live in a ski town at some time."
"Yeah, I’d love to live here. And ride the drunk gondola all the time."
"Yeah. That’d be awesome." The sole bartender, owner, and cook, a big Italian man with a slight beard, came up and asked us if we wanted another beer each and we said yes. While we waited there, some old thin gray-hair walked in, wearing a polo shirt with a vest, the standard Colorado wealthy person mountain outfit.
"I tried calling down here, did you not hear it?"
"I’m the only person here, sorry I didn’t" the man behind the counter answered.
"Well this is ridiculous I called 970-728-0647."
"Oh, I’m sorry sir but that’s not our number anymore."
"Well that’s how it’s written in the guide book."
"Really? We asked them to change it, which guidebook are you using?"
"I don’t know but this is ridiculous! Really, all I wanted was some burgers and some fries and I had to come all the way down and order and wait for them!"
"Don’t worry, we’ll get it done quick. How many burgers do you want?"
"3. With fries."
"Alright, will do." The man stood at the bar as the owner disappeared to cook the burgers. He stared angrily at the wall between the bar and the kitchen, as if his anger and impatience would cook the burgers faster. I looked at him and saw what happens when wealth and power grows unchecked, unhumbled. I remembered how much I hated those people when they came into my ski shop in Jackson Hole, the irritating gapers who thought that since they were good at suckling the teat of the capitalist pig they were deserved of special treatment by ski town locals. Imagine if a skier who was considered just short of a God on the mountain walked into a trading room on Wall Street – or more appropriately into Smith and Wollensky’s in Manhattan – and demanded the best seat in the house and deferential treatment. Of course, in the end that analogy doesn’t work because what that one guys is best at – crunching numbers and negotiating deals – yields lots of money while what the other guy is best at – exploring the bounds of human athleticism and risking life and limb every day to prove to themselves and everyone else just where the boundaries of gravity and possibility lay – yields only a fulfilled, simple soul. It does have a tendency to soften the mind a bit, however. I made a note in my head that no matter what becomes of me, whatever financial success I may achieve, I would never become like the man with the gray hair demanding big-city corporate protocol out of those for whom life is more than schedules and Excel charts.
The bartender/cook/owner came back with the man’s meal to go and he paid, grumbling, and left. Kyle caught the bartender’s eye and the man expressed a look of apology as he opened our Bud’s and brought them over. Just then, my phone rang – it was Eric.
I excused myself, took a big drink of my beer, and stepped outside, into the stone patio with the view of all the other mountain stores and condos, mostly closed down.
"Yo yo, what’s up my man?" Eric said, in his fast-talking Manhattan dialectic.
We talked about the contract, about Aldo, about all the film shit, allaying my paranoia. While we were talking, I looked inside at Kyle, by himself, watching NASCAR in silence. I felt guilty but I knew he understood – this was my future and possibly his future since I would try to hire him for whatever job I could on the movie. Still, this was our trip together.
"You know what I’m saying?" I heard Eric say.
"Hell yeah bro. Hey, just make sure you check out that contract."
"Sounds perfect my man."
"Ryan," Kyle called from the door of the bar, "Hey get back in here and finish your beer. He’s closing.
"Alright," then back to Eric, "Hey, I gotta go. Check that contract out and try to get ahold of Aldo. You know the deal." I walked back in.
"Sorry about that."
"No worries. Finish your beer, I just paid. This guy’s closing up." I drank it quickly and we left. Kyle and I decided to stop at another spot that was open so we could get drunk before taking the gondola back to town and officially christen the drunk gondy. We found the Poachers pub.
Just a few steps from the Isabelle as well as from the gondola, it had more of a ski-town feel. Sitting at the bar were three guys – one in a turtle neck and nice slacks, one in a shaggy jacket with long hair and a beard, and another in overalls and a t-shirt with some facial scruff and eyes that seemed too young to fit his face. Behind the bar, a thin guy with a dark complexion and shoulder-length dark hair, either Greek or Italian, stood in a t-shirt, waiting to take our order. The two locals at the bar gave us an inquisitive look as we walked in and sat down. The third guy, an obvious tourist, just kept on trying to talk to the guy in the beard and scruffy jacket. Just as we sat down, my phone rang. It was Aldo.
"Sorry Kyle, I gotta take this." I stepped outside and stood in a stone courtyard encircling a grassy area where there were statues and a kids’ jungle gym. I stared up at the base of the gondola and the grassy ski slope as I picked up the call.
We discussed the contract while he started adding disclaimers to the initial amount he had offered for our finder’s fee. He was backing out of everything he promised and for the first time seemed a little slimey. He asked me to send him a word copy of the contract and I told him that was fine. I hung up, then called my lawyer/advisor Luke. He wasn’t in so I left a message asking him to send me a word version of the contract. I was officially done my phone calls for the night and so stepped back into the bar feeling as if a huge weight was off my shoulders. Inside, Kyle was sitting there, viciously drinking a beer. I sat down next to him and told him it was Aldo and that everything was great. He said okay and ordered another drink.
"Uhh could I have a whiskey and Coke?" he ordered.
"Sure what kind?"
"Jack?"
"No wait," I said, "Let’s make that a Knob Creek."
"Do you still want the coke?"
"God no, just a little ice. Knob Creek and Coke? Isn’t that illegal in most states?"
"If not, it should be," the guy in the overalls exclaimed. We all chuckled a little and the bartender poured us two Knob Creeks. I threw down my card and we sat there, drinking.
"Hey Ryan, this guy’s been to Jackson before."
"That’s awesome, I used to live there."
"That’s what he said. Where are you guys from."
"Originally we’re from Baltimore but I’ve lived in California for a couple years."
"Nice. Do you surf?"
"Yeah. I kinda alternate back and forth. I lived in Steamboat for a bit, then San Diego, then Jackson Hole, now Laguna."
"That’s awesome. I’ve gone a few times but never really got good at it. I’d like to move there maybe and try it for a little. I think that beach towns and mountain towns are kinda the same. Surfers and skiers just have access to a secret that most other people will never see, y’know?"
The other two locals sat at the small L-shaped bar, with us on the shorter bottom part and they at the longer part, one reading his newspaper, the other now talking to the tourist (or maybe he was just a rich local – who could tell?). We sipped our whiskey and talked in-depth with the bartender about cities versus mountain towns versus beach towns.
"I see what you mean, but I think there’s more soul in these mountain towns. Maybe because it’s tougher and more secluded up here so living in Telluride or Jackson or whatever is more of a commitment than living in San Diego. I mean, nearly every beach is located on or just outside a city. The mountains are like a complete rejection of that. Except Big Bear, maybe."
"True, true. I don’t know, I’ve only been to Cali twice, but it was definitely much more like a city than this. Still, I really liked it."
Before we knew it we were finished our first drinks and Kyle and I ordered round 2 of Knob Creek. We talked a bit more, going on to how dead it was and asking what was going on.
"Oh I don’t know. I think there’s something going on at the Brewpub. If not there, maybe check out Big Daddy’s."
"Is it dead here in the Village?"
"Oh yeah, at least right now."
"That’s awesome that you can ride the gondola up here for free and have some drinks and head back. I bet there’s some raging parties on it when it gets crazy here."
"Yeah, it’s insane around the Bluegrass festival. All the music’s here and it just goes off. Lots of hippies smoking and drinking everywhere, in the gondies and everything."
"Are you stoked for that?"
"Kind of. It’s just a lot of work, though."
"But don’t you at least make some good money?"
"Naw man, they’re hippies. They don’t have two cents to rub together."
"Yeah, true." We finished our second drinks and he poured us one of the local brews as well as one for himself. We all drank them down, talking to him about how it was living there, me telling Kyle that he should move up here now that he’s graduated and him agreeing. We were starting to feel the high altitude and the strong whiskey kicking in. We asked him for the bill and when he gave it to us, it only had the whiskies - the beer had been on him. We thanked him and got his name – Adam – and stumbled out of the bar, climbing into the gondola just as the sun was going down, around 9 o’clock.
We talked about how about how we would be kicked off or arrested on the drunk bus and how this had a better view than any drunk bus we had ever been on. We laughed about how the bartender looked like Jimmy Kusner but was much cooler. We talked about coming back for the Bluegrass fest when there were 30,000 people in this small town. Kyle said that the person who got a DUI in this town was an idiot since there was a gondola that took you from one town to another – he proposed definite life incarceration or possibly the death penalty for being dumb enough to get a DUI in Telluride. Our drunken ramblings sustained us with laughter until we got back in town and started walking to the bars, searching for anything that was open.
We found a little Irish bar we had seen earlier when we had gone to the Village Market and walked down a flight of steps into a basement with dim lights, a couple pool tables, and a bar staring at the NBA playoffs game. It was game 3 of the Cavaliers/Pistons series and LeBron was killing it. After losing the first one, Cleveland, led by King James, had come back with a vengeance. Kyle and I ordered beers, staring at the screen. Kyle’s excitement over the game and knowledge of everything going on made it more interesting. For some reason, he was born with the gene that made him a virtual encyclopedia of any and all sports stats. He knew who was who, what teams’ records were, their strengths, their weaknesses, who was playing and when. I had never been that interested in watching sports. Correction, I was never that interested in mainstream sports. Whenever I go to a bar with snowboard, skate, or surf videos I can’t keep conversations, I just stare at the screen, awestruck, feeling my adrenalin pump and my heart race, wishing I was doing exactly that trick or riding that wave or that cliff-band at that exact.
The game went into overtime and we ordered more beers. A little Mexican woman with a slightly-misshapen, pockmarked face and sad eyes sidled up next to us on a stool at the bar and stared at us. It was uncomfortable and I didn’t know if she was blind or just hoping that by staring at us from point-blank range we would eventually turn our eyes back and talk to her. Either way, our best option was to ignore her and stare intensely at the small TV above the bar. More beers. Second OT. Scouting the place for girls for Kyle but seeing none except the little Mexican next to us. King James finishes up with 48 points, 29 of the Cavaliers’ last 30, and Cleveland wins it 109-107 in double-ot, clinching game 3. We finished our beers and left, intoxicated in a Telluride night.
When you’re really drunk, everything looks like I imagine it would be with cataracts. The field of vision is blurred and the edges are soft and fuzzy. With that to guide us in unfamiliar streets, we ran into a band of rowdy drunk people, three guys and two girls who looked too hot to be locals (why are female ski-town locals usually so beat?). We asked them where they were coming from and they said Big Daddy’s. They said there was a cougar behind the bar but otherwise it was dead. We decided to go there and popped into the larger establishment. There were a few more girls but each was surrounded by 2 to 3 guys. Behind the bar, a guy bartender and a 40-year-old woman with a good body and a weather-beaten face made jokes and served beers.
We sidled up to the bar and ordered a beer each, then a shot of whiskey. My last memory was of ordering Jack and cokes before everything plunged into darkness. After we got back to Laguna and watched the footage from the night in Telluride, Kyle and I uncovered the fact that we ended the night taking swigs of Gentleman Jack in our beds. Kyle was going off about how he was a gentleman and was such because we were watching South Park and there were a lot of gentlemen on that and there was another South Park coming on. I was videotaping and I tried to say something but all I could get out was a slurred "Gentleman" about 10 times as Kyle handed me the whiskey bottle and I took a swig. Kyle then said he wasn’t a gentleman, then said he was because he "didn’t say anything rude to any girls tonight even though there was only one girl we saw at the bars and she looked like a girl {he} just hooked up with who was beat!", adding more emphasis to that word and kicking his voice’s pitch up a step. "But I didn’t say anything bad to her and now I’m watching South Park." That was the last recorded statement of the night.
(Continued on Cross-Country w/Kyle pt. 5: Nauseous on the Devil's Road to the Grand Canyon Sunset - by way of Monument Valley)
