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Travel> Rocky Mountain
Colorado - Rocky
Mountain High Anxiety Tour
By Mike (Roadie) Marino
Published October 2004
| Colorado has a schizophrenic
schism that is more pronounced than the Continental
Divide! This Rocky Mountain duality manifests
itself in it's approach to the arts, history
and tourism. It is also this very same lets
split-the-atom personality that has also been
responsible for the Frankensteinian creation
of a corral full of colorful Colorado characters
whose mythic size and legend loom bigger than
antlers on a bull elk in rut! |
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The true dichotomy of the
state lies in fact with the existence of the Continental
Divide. Water runs to the Atlantic on the east,
and makes a beeline for the Pacific on the west,
go west, young river. A paranormal convergence
of the planets can't be blamed, just plain old
fashioned gravity. The same force that holds us
terra firmly and keeps us grounded. A fact of
nature, and a fact of life is all. The duality
continues with the fact that yoga and vegetarianism
stand shoulder to shoulder with pyramid power
and the magic of crystals, yet carnivoria is celebrated
and the state is damned proud that it was home
to America's Cannibal, Alferd Packard, a meat
eater if ever one lived. Hell, the medical college
even has a bronze bust of the eater of human happy
meals in the university cafeteria!
If it's a Mile High Art
Attack your after, they have a high brow plethora
of Picasso's and museums of Monet's. Yet, in the
parks around Denver they have scads of sculptures
and at the Swetsville Zoo north of the Mile High
City, a field of dreams exists where everything
from Jurassic giants and offbeat oddities abound
made completely of auto, truck and tractor parts.
It's not highbrow to raise your eyebrows, but
simply enough a lovable collection of pedestrian
art and decadent heavy metal deco. Art, nonetheless,
pedestrian, to be sure.
Fine wine, and delicious
dine are hallmarks of life in the Rockies. French
nouvelle, prepared by pampered chef's send signals
to the brain that pleasure awaits them with every
plateful and every palateful of souffled and flambeaued
passion, attractively adorned on the platter.
Yet, in Severence, Colorado, you can wolf down
an intimidating plateful of Rocky Mountain Oysters
and wash it all down with an inexpensive beer
or ale. No Bull!
Life is love and love is
life in Colorado, yet there is a morbid, yet lighthearted
fascination and celebration of death. Doc Holliday,
for example, is buried somewhere in Glenwood Springs,
no one is exactly sure where for certain, and
no one is absolutetly certain where in fact he
died. Sanitarium or Hotel Room. After the "troubles"
in Tombstone and the sixgun cacophony of the Ok
Corral, he ventured to the Springs for his health.
Unfortunately the healing gasses were not compatible
with his tuberculosis, and in time the fumes snuffed
him out like a candle. Similar thing happend to
Bela Lugosi. After years of heroin abuse, he quit
jamming needles into his arm and died soon thereafter
while filming an Ed Wood movie and in effect drove
a virtual stake through his own heart. Doc Holliday
now not only has a bar and grill named after him
in Glenwood Springs, complete with two story neon
sixshooter outside, but has death has become the
stuff of legend and mystery, and certainly qualifies
him as the Jimmy Hoffa of the old west. To borrow
phrase from Doc, "Isn't it funny"..
Buffalo Bill Cody, showman
and frontiersman, is buried under concrete on
top of Lookout Mountain in Golden, Colorado. Cody
was a premier showman who brought the Wild West,
complete with "plains savages", warpaint
and guns ablazin' to the genteel cities of the
east and the European world stages in the waning
years of the West. When he died, he was buried
six feet under good, firm Colorado soil. However,
Nebraska decided to not let one of their sons
rest in peace in a foriegn land. Once he was buried
in the state, nefarious Nebraskans stole his body
and re-buried him in the farm rich soils of the
rectangle state. Corn mostly. Coloradan's not
wanting to be outdone by Cornhuskers, unearthed
the Nebraska soils, carried Cody back to Colorado
and today he rests in peace under concrete, safe
from Nebraska shovels, dreaming of the Old West
and Coor's beer.
If your looking to be dazed
and bedazzled, then Nederland, Colorado outdoes
them all, and their celebration of the dead would
rival the most robust of New Orleans funerals
as they roll out a dead Norweigian for the annual
Dead Guy Days every year. Bredo Morstoel was born
in Norway in 1901, died in Norway in 1989, cryo-ed
in LA and somehow ended up in a frozen bombproof
bunker in Colorado. In Spring, Nederlands only
"dead" resident alien Grandpa, as Bredo
is lovingly referred to, is rolled out of his
bombshelter for a whopping hoot of a festival,
complete with food vendors, music, races and souvenirs.
If the same festival were held in Chicago, Grandpa
Bredo would probably be given a voting ballot.
Vote early, Vote often. Now, that is a Rocky Mountain
Cryofest that pushes the envelope.
No amount of prozac or other
prescribed meds will ever cure Colorado of it's
peculiar schizoid personality. On the one hand,
logical, self sufficient beings go about their
daily lives, much as they do in Indiana or anywhere
else as bland as mashed potato's, but then you
have one gent near Colorado City who has been
building a rock castle complete with metal dragons
heads in the mountains since 1969.
Not only will you get to
enjoy the mortar maze of the mountains at Bishop
Castle, but will also, if he's in the mood, the
owner will regale you, with the evils of the World
Bank and life under the communist dictatorship
of FDR. Strangely enough, or maybe not, the castle
is being built on a grassy knoll!
John Denver sang the virtues
of America's spinal column for years, before his
wings gave out, and he is not the only celebrity
to race to the Rockie's to get high. Gonzo-god
and journalist, Hunter S. Thompson maintains a
compound sanctuary just outside of Aspen, and
the rags make way for the riches every year during
winter, as the Celebrity Nation descends to the
area to ascend the ski slopes and enjoy the powder.
As the Zeusians enjoy the
mountains with mountains of money, the Plebians
can enjoy Colorado's natural bounty as well, for
free, or at least on the cheap. Garden of the
Gods and Pike's Peak in Colorado Springs are a
couple of environmentally correct choices and
the outdoor activity can't be beat. The Arkansas
River turns white water into gold with activities
ranging from rafting and kayaking and the Royal
Gorge of Canon City, and the Black Canyon of the
Gunnison run deep with tranquil beauty.
Mountain bikes share
the road with the prodigy of Henry Ford. Cheap
beer can be found in the center of Colorado's
wine country, yes, there actually is such a place,
and while the general population is as normal
as mom and apple pie, across the valley, it's
not unusual to have a lost soul, fed up with local
government, take a bulldozer and mow down city
hall, and then relocate to Idaho! So don't be
surprised some day to wander into a restuarant
in downtown Denver and see a Cannibal and a vegetarian
from Vincennes enjoying a glass of chablis together.
The Colorado Schizophrenia is what gives the region
is color and it's character, and as long as it
keeps taking it's meds, you shouldn't have to
bring along a straight jacket on your next vacation.
This
Dharmabum Roadhead writer's work has been described as DELIGHTFULLY WIERD and
WICKEDLY WONDERFUL!! Mike (Roadie) Marino is a publisher of an on line
magazine called ROAD TRIPPIN' USA. It's an asphalt kickin' journey of Roadside
Nostalgia and American Pop/Car Culture for the Chrome-Magnon in all of us. The
style is lock n load and deals with the realm of where Pop Culture and Chrome
meet Asphalt and Art!!
Mike
also writes a monthly feature column under the banner THE ROADHEAD for the award
winning Offbeat Travel zine. His column deals with bizzare ashpalt and roadside
oddities and locales from mechanical museums to Cadillac Ranch. Mike is also
a freelance writer of travel and history pieces that have been published in
magazines and ezines in the US and Europe.
Most
current project includes toiling endlessly on his first book about Pop and Car
Culture in America of the 50's, 60's and 70's. Although born in the rustbelt
of industrial Detroit, he's also been the definitive son-of-a-beach and has
lived in a treehouse in Honolulu, the tie dyed spare change neighborhood of
Haight Ashbury in San Francisco, as well as the North Beach district..where
the Beat Goes On!!
Today
Mike (Roadie) Marino lives in Missouri near the banks of the Missouri
River with his word processor. In addition, to writing and backpacking, Mike
has a penchant for Hawaiian shirts, Jimmy Buffett albums and Corona Beer. If
you would like to use any of Mike's articles some of which are included here,
contact him at the email address below or at dharmabumroadie@yahoo.com He also
accepts contract work and what the hell, a good agent wouldn't hurt either.
So contact him for rates and information. Now...Have Fun Reading...Grab A Cold
Corona..And Kick Asphalt!!!
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