This is why a small town's library makes for the best browsing. I looked at the wee half-stack of juvenile fiction in Crested Butte and immediately saw two titles I wanted (this and Second Summer).
I did the same in the adult stacks but ask me if I've cracked Prague yet.
From Ouray we detoured to Telluride. The way led among mountains in more dire need of an orthodontist than any I have seen before, between working ranches and resort ranches and ghost ranches, through quaking aspen and gambel oak, up the San Miguel river, and into another mostly preserved, mostly Victorian town (with some architecture that wouldn't be out of place in Aspen, and some even in Anonymous Suburb, U.S.A.)
From Cascade Canyon last year I remember glacier-fed creeks tumbling down hillsides, and one of those is the prominent feature of Telluride, visible from anywhere in town at the end of the canyon. A private residence improbably perches halfway up Bridal Veil Falls. From partway up the ski slope by gondola, you can see the young craggy mountains (whose names I forget), lapsed volcanoes like Little Cone, and other unimaginatively name hills like Bald Mountain that cradle the town.
Passing signs for it, I had no idea how anyone could fit an airport into the narrow canyon; from the ski slope I looked down on its single, short runway on a conveniently placed plateau that must make for gnarly approaches and departures.
The town is so crunchy! Boulder is not, actually, crunchy anymore. The Ramseys lived there: QED. In Crested Butte and in Telluride, wild mushroom festivals were going on. Telluride has a movie festival, a bluegrass festival, and Widespread Panic just played. How Spreadheads afforded Telluride, even camping, I do not know. But when we come into our money, we're moving there.
Coming down just the sixty miles thence to Montrose--well, I wished the whole state looked like Telluride. Montrose is flat and arid, eh. From Montrose to Delta didn't turn my head either, and just east of Delta, Colorado looks as much like the barren former seabed of Utah as anything else that I never want to see again. (I just don't do deserts or near-deserts well. I can live with that.) We were in the Gunnison Gorge area, but you'd never know there was a river within a million miles.
But then, oh, but then, we started to climb again. Colorado's geography changes so rapidly, so dramatically, and so much over the state, that I am ashamed it took me eight years to learn this for myself. After Hotchkiss, the altitude enough to trap the clouds, the land blossomed. Cherries and apples and peaches, vegetable crops, livestock: beautiful country. We passed through a coal-mining town that brimmed with stories. I regret to report that even Paonia Reservoir, high enough to be surrounded by forest, still looks like a reservoir. Mostly, the climb to and the drop from McClure Pass was staggeringly beautiful. There is a campground along the North Fork of the Gunnison which looks both fishable and swimmable and went on the list.
East from Montrose, lightning beckoned us up and chased us down the peaks. We had rain, lovely rain, sporadically throughout the drive. (We had rain nearly every day. I loved all of it.) We cut the trip short because, what with RDC's knee and antibiotics, hiking and camping weren't happening--next time, we camp either in Poudre Canyon or along McClure Pass. These several days were a gorgeous introduction to an area I want to see more of, and see more deeply, and find places to swim in. I will never ice climb, but Ouray in the winter must be even more spectacular; I am not a gazillionaire, but Telluride in snow (without diesel fumes) probably blinds one with beauty. Not a bad last sight.
There are more pictures in the gallery.
Denver Events, as Reconstructed: we got home, I brought my first load inside, I left the car unlocked and the doors open while I inspected the pear tree (denuded) and the tomatoes (booming) and the raspberries (not quite ripe yet) and the garage (tuckpointed but not acid-washed). I returned to the car for more stuff, emptied the car into the living room, and breathed. I showered and shampooed and shaved, and wrapped myself in my bathrobe, and, amidst piles of dirty laundry, sleeping bags, Nalgeen bottles, fishing tackle, etc., wondered aloud, "Where's my wallet?" which had the effect of convincing both of us I had left it in Montrose, either in the store or in the peer or on the car.
Montrose Events, as Reconstructed: I left RDC to fuel Cassidy and went into the shop to case it for peers, snacks, and drinks. Exploration of its nether corners yielded no peer of either persuasion, so I asked a clerk, who said they were outside round the corner. I tried the female one, whose door I could not budge, and returned to the car, somewhat shamed of leaving RDC to both pump and squeegee. We both went back to the store and out again. He and I serially used the same facility, with him guarding me while I violated gender protocol. We bought Gator-Ade and Dove Dark Chocolate and retreated to the car, whence we did not emerge until nearly Glenwood Springs, where we made use of a McDonald's, and not again until Denver.
Did I drop my wallet on the initial pass-through of the store? on the roof of the car when I offered to squeegee? in the peer? RDC thought I left it in the peer, because he would have remembered seeing it in my mouth (where I hold it, lacking pockets, not to put it down) and he did not.
When my keys run away, I generally panic and give them a day to their own devices. I use the spare house and car keys and then, finally, make one more assay into my bag where, invariably thus far, they have hidden in some recess. My wallet has never run away before, but anonymous keys are a lot less scary to lose than a wallet. I would have to drive all over the state to reaccumulate all my library barcodes, for one thing. Someone else could enter the Botanic Gardens in my name and maybe spit in the lily pond! My first step was to google "Montrose Conoco" and RDC's to place holds on the credit and debit accounts.
To clear my head, I continued to unpack. Sorting laundry. Hanging up parkas. Searching the car, like the undercarriage of the passenger seat where, it turns out, Rarities, B-Sides, and Slow, Sad Waltzes emerged several months after I replaced it (so I gave it to JGW, thereby converting yet another person to the Cowboy Junkies). Picking tomatoes. Showering. We were both in the kitchen when I lifted my Camelbak bladder from the counter to rinse it, exposing the wallet beneath, which did not skitter away quite fast enough. I pounced.
Stress kills my appetite anyway, and what fortuitous timing: there's nothing in the house to eat but cherry tomatoes.