The fly has found us. Don’t ask me how it did it. It must have hunted long and hard, but the fly has found us.
Yesterday we woke leisurely with our heads and hearts not quite wrapped around the two hour time difference. I mean, really, we sort of raced out here to Colorado, with three days to become adjusted. It’s not quite jet lag (or whatever the word is when you go the other direction) but our bodies are waking us up at 8.30am or so, which is just bloody unnatural.
The drive was monstrous. And Heather drove all of it. I’m incapable of amusing myself with the road for long stretches. My attention wanders, I get distracted by trees and litter and women in passing cars. Heather meanwhile, seems to Love it. Long, straight highways that stretch on to forever – she’s fascinated with the jet black soil of Illinois, and the windswept plains of Nebraska, and the huge skies and the blue on the grey and the sweeps of sun – and she just keeps driving. She’s a machine.
We crept our way into Loveland at around 7pm or so. Traffic was kind – “Nothing much to report, you guys just aren’t bumping into each other very much” was how the local news put it.
We arrive in Loveland, and it is dark.
Our host, Jennie, is a friend of mine from college. A beautiful, tiny blonde sculptress, she’s teaching art to grade-schoolers nowadays, while keeping up with her own bronze-work. I’m eager to see her boyfriend again… Brandt’s toy collection is unequalled (and actually, I bet HE doesn’t even have a Zentraedi Battle Pod).
Anywho, it’s time for soup, and photographs, and Scrabble, and sleep. Fried eggplant comes and goes, and we collapse into bed at around midnight.
The next morning, we discover that whole time change thing.
Fresh and rested at 9am, we feel decidedly unnatural. When we finally get out to lunch, we go to an all you can eat Indian lunch buffet, which may or may not be a good idea. Apparently the biggest effect of the altitude so far is to give BOTH of us monsterous gas. Jennie suggests standing on our heads, but Heather is unwilling to hold my legs, and I’m not going to do it for her if she won’t do it for me, so we continue into the world, spreading noxious gastrointestinal distress.
From the highway outside the Indian restaurant we can see the mountains.
I pointed them out to Heather, who doesn’t notice them on the horizon. They read as clouds, or fog, or something. Pay attention to them and they resolve into the nation’s reknown “purple mountain majesties” – snow covered peaks looming in the distance. (In a rare display of self-control, I’ve edited out an Empire Strikes Back joke here).
After lunch, we catch up with Helenbeth and her man, Nick. It’s time to go play.
Estes Park, is not a Park. It’s a resort town, I think. I’m not totally sure on that, really, I’m sure someone will set me straight, eventually. But Estes Park is the first batch of lights we see after climbing into the mountains at a steady 35 mph for about half-an-hour. We’ve been crawling in darkness in a minivan, avoiding cliff-walls on one side, and a skittish, winding river on the other. Two deer make their presence known, and we struggle skyward.
I’m so glad Nick is driving. The Saturn would’ve cried. We pass a VW bus for sale. Sigh.
Estes Park is a welcome patch of side streets and shops and relatively flat ground. We make our way out to Mary’s Lake Lodge. In the dark, we can’t tell how big it is, but we step out to howling wind and crystalline skies. A bulging moon keeps us from seeing TOO many stars, but the place is gorgeous. Cold, but gorgeous. I’ve never been in the mountains at night, and though we’re only about 3000 feet closer to the sky than we were in Loveland, the stars are there for the taking.
The gig itself goes really well. We get a great response from the mountain crowd, and sell a good number of CDs. The Lodge feeds us, Loves us, pays us, and then eventually puts us up for the night. The food is delicious – and the sound is great – the Lodge itself is just so damned cool.
We pass the night playing, eating, watching the other performers, and talking to the guys who run the place. It’s a good Life. If every night could be as easy (and as lucrative) as tonight, I’d happily stay here. For a month. Maybe two. Maybe three if it was warmer.
I also need to figure out how to counteract the flash on my camera. It’s great being able to shoot in dim light and all, but man, the colour… the colour… sigh. Imagine all the photos taken at Mary’s Lake Lodge to have a more natural, almost sepia tone to them. Everything is dim, almost candle-lit – and outside, the wind is trying to take the van away. I go outside once or twice, there are huge heaters out on the porch, but they can’t fight the mountain-driven winds.
Chris is a bartender? I’m not quite sure of his position at the place, but he seems to know a bit more and have a bit more control than a common bartender – he’s tall and dark and wears a replica of an old Indian jacket – beads and leather and patterns and fringe that almost comes down past his tied-back hair. He wears a young Kurt Russel-esque face and glasses that almost look like shooting glasses.
He should have two matching chromed .45 automatics which he draws in a split-second to take down those who don’t follow the bar-rules. I see him in stylized movies, moving swift and sure.
He Lives at the base of an 8000 foot mountain with the Husky he’s had for ten years. He’s waiting for a woman that both he and the dog can agree on. He leads a toast in the bar – “25 degrees!!” as the weather report shows that Estes Park has the lowest temperature on the map. Bottles clash against one another like swords. It looks like a nightly ritual.
I don’t know WHAT they’re celebrating, it’s fucking COLD outside.
Later, Nick went on to play harmonica. He gave me some advice on how to play one (after I intimated that I’d almost swallowed a chromatica once) – but I feel I should not repeat that advice here. I think you need to show me ID before I pass along what he said, actually.
The other performer of the evening was Tim Wahler. Another guy I’d encountered on my last Coloradan adventure – but I didn’t remember how good he was.
Swapping between the tiniest, but best sounding traveller’s guitar and a strum stick, accompanying himself with a Boss RC-20 – he gave some pretty amazing renditions of old blues standards, jazz tunes, all sorts of random stuff, some Grateful Dead thrown in for good measure. Incredible playing. Sort of a cross between JR Robusto’s sheer competence and Pat Klink’s grace. And a strong, solid voice to go with it. An incredible night.
Yay. Oh, and I’ve got to tell you about the seven foot boa constrictor…. but that’s for later. – and I guess this whole thing started about the fly. I’ve been distracted since then. Sigh. I promise to be better.
BUT THEY’RE HERE!!!
Heehee – I kicked her ass – er… by seven points or so. She’s catching me up.