MY 50-STATE STRATEGY

Your correspondent in front of Wild West legend Buffalo Bill's final resting place high atop Lookout Mountain above Golden, Colo.

THINGS TO DO IN DENVER ...

After striking camp in the Rocky Mountain National Park, I swiftly descended down into the Mile-High City, hugging the deep curves on the alpine cliffs through switchback after switchback. Throw in a few dozen sharp hairpin turns and a rush-hour traffic jam on the short stretch of I-70 that I had to travel to reach Denver and you have my commute from the forest to the freeways in a nutshell.

Buffalo Bill

As I reached Denver and was trying to locate the hotel I would be lodged in, I began to notice the multitude of street people who congregated on the corners and along the avenues or in front of the many missions of this city. They were legion! – The Back Bay of Boston or Central Square in Cambridge to the 10th power.
(Later, it was related to me, second-hand via the hotel‘s concierge, that Denver has never had any vagrancy statutes and that other cities in the area export their people problems here by bus. This city, alongside its many massive religious missions, foots the bill for the care, feeding and nightly housing of these folks and, truth be told, they seem non-threatening as well as somewhat clean and reasonably well-robed. They appear satisfied with their lot in life and if, for some reason, I can’t get a job after this trip, at least I’ll know in which direction to start walking … Just kidding!)

The Junction Jet, Ol' 56 and Rockie Roy.

Since, due to the winter conditions at the national park, there was no water available to wash myself with up there, I was rather dusty and crusty myself following two days in the bush. After garaging the truck and wearing grimy, smoky-smelling jeans and a soiled sweatshirt as well as hoisting an old camping duffel bag, I found that I blended in with the hordes of hobos near the hotel complex.
However, I firmly believe that I was the only one among these folks who appeared to be a bum at 5:30 p.m., but had a table set at Morton’s for 7 sharp. Fine dining for the so-recently shabby!
At the hotel, I met up with a Back Bay buddy of mine, from the salad days of the late 1980s and early-‘90s. Let’s call him “Ol’ 56.” Now happily married and the father of a young daughter, he’s recovered from the long hours of toil, sleepless nights and endless amusements available during the heady times of yesteryear - as have I.
Ol’ 56 is half-a-big wheel in the business world today, travels extensively to service his accounts and knows how to live the good life on the road. Four-star hotels … Fine restaurants … Toss in a token business meeting (or three), and you’ve got a pretty good four-day trip. Always the backslapper, a serial flatterer and a hale fellow well-met, Ol’ 56 has managed to turn his prodigious talent for the high-schmooze into a very bankable skill. (This fine fellow deserves our congratulations. Who knew? Maybe he should teach a course at the Harvard “B” school!)

Gene Simmons

As I began my journey across this country, Ol’ 56 and I caught up by phone when I was in Marfa, Texas and he told me, if I was near to Denver during this time period, to come on over and share somewhat in his bounty. It was an invitation I gratefully accepted then and fully appreciate now.
Ol’ 56 was accompanied by his young protege and assistant, for our purposes, “Rockie Roy.” To his credit, Rockie Roy is beginning to recognize a war story for what it is, a skill that will serve him well as he climbs up the slippery ladder to success. Also joining our merry band on several forays was a local fellow, a boyhood chum of Ol’ 56 from Long Island and now a teacher employed near Denver during the school year as well as a gentleman rancher weekends and summers near the western end of Colorado. His name here will be “Junction Jet.”
After a bout with the fine food and drink the first night in town, I was easily tuckered out and early to sleep. Rising the next morning I joined Ol’ 56 and Rockie Roy in the sparsely populated hotel dining room for a hearty breakfast. At a nearby table sat the lead singer from the rock band KISS, Gene Simmons. With no envy for what must it must be like to live your life as if in a fishbowl, I’m here to report that the rocker, sans his costume, kept a cell phone pressed to his ear the entire time he dined. He may have had some early business or this may have been a defensive mechanism to fend off would-be glad-handers, but either way, that practice just can’t be good for the digestion. (As Simmons rose to leave, we discussed how tall he seemed. I researched his height on the web to relate it to you, but it is listed at only 6-2. If true, I swear he must have been sporting shoe lifts as well as high heels, as he seemed to us, from 20 feet away, to be close to a half-a-foot taller. Considering the makeup and wigs he wears to work, height elevators aren’t such a stretch.)

Keystone cases roll down line at Coors Brewery.


Later the same day, the three of us toured the city somewhat, cruising the 16th Avenue Mall. It is a near-clone of Boston’s Washington Street’s Downtown Crossing district except that, in Denver, it is carried out to the length of 16 blocks and serviced by free street trolleys in both directions.
(I realized later that I lost a small camera bag on a scenic overlook across from "The Summit", a group of mountain peaks seen when heading west on I-70. Inside that bag was a digital film chip holding photos from our downtown Denver tour, so no photos here. Where available, I'll link up what I can, but it is unfortunate.)
We visited the ornate Colorado State House, a magnificent structure downtown stuffed with political artifacts and heavy with history lessons. Always worth a visit, if and when I come across one, the peoples' houses never disappoint. We were also shut out of a tour of the Denver Mint as reservations made far in advance were required, then found the Denver Art Museum virtually closed during a massive spate of remodeling. Lastly, we spent several hours at the  Colorado History Museum, viewing its collections of Wild West memorabilia, railroad paraphernalia, old gold-mining gear and tools, Women in the West, scale models of the forts and frontiers scenes from the days of the Indian Wars as well as uniforms, weapons, photos and letters from members of the 10th Mountain Division, the U.S. Army's answer to winter combat in World War II, which had trained in the Colorado mountains. That evening, Ol’ 56 and Rockie Roy left me to my own devices as they were off on a bit of business.

The next day, joined by the Junction Jet, we headed west to Golden, Colo. Our first stop was the grave of American legend Buffalo Bill (see photo above), high atop Lookout Mountain. Buried there 90 years ago, William Cody was an Indian fighter, Pony Express rider extraordinaire and master Wild West showman, and his resting place and the museum surrounding his exploits still draws a crowd.


An empty Red Rocks is still magnificent.

 Next we headed to the Coors Brewery in the valley below Lookout Mountain. We joined a tour of about 20 folks and were regaled with tales of the brew’s origin and the processes needed to maintain its excellence. We learned how hops, barley and variations and amounts of yeast are combined with clean fresh water to produce Coors products, saw the huge grain-filtering trays, heating kettles and cooling vats, the bottling plant and the assembly line (see above), generally following the brew master’s techniques all the way from the crops into the cases. This visit culminated with a wee taste of the brew in the Coors Lounge.

A poster board covered with promotion materials from famous shows

played at Red Rocks. Music fans should click on this photo to enlarge it.

The last stop that afternoon was an unexpected surprise. We drove a short distance south to Morrison, Colo., the site of Red Rocks, a legendary music amphitheatre of just under 9,500 seats reputed to have perfect acoustics with nary an obstructed view. It is nestled among the tall red rocks of a canyon with bench seating radiating up and outward from the stage.Opening in 1947, it seems just about everybody who is anybody in contemporary music has appeared on this stage. Lately a rock venue, top acts - from the Dead to Springsteen, Hendrix to U2, Neil Young to the Nine Inch Nails - have been graced to appear here. A snippet of a rockumentry looping in the Visitors Center has Phil Lesh, the bassist and guardian of all things Grateful Dead, relating that Red Rocks is one of his two favorite places to play - the other being the Great Pyramids of Egypt.
We finished off the day with another deluxe dinner, this time at The Palm. Thank goodness I’m not on the road with Ol’ 56 all the time. I’d need a crew of Sherpas to hoist me aloft and carry me about, here, there & just about everywhere.

Another day in Boulder.

The next day, we journeyed northwest to Boulder, Colo., the home of the University of Colorado and also site of a fine walking mall on Pearl Street. The mall reminds me of Harvard Square, after a fashion, with coffee shops, cafes, art stores, bookshops and ethnic restaurants. Between the plantings and benches dotting the mall, various street performers - fire jugglers, contortionists and portrait painters - plied passers-by for tips.
Before we had a fine Mexican lunch, I stopped at an information kiosk to pick up a couple of fliers on the area and the two fellows standing in front of the booth were discussing, of all things, the corruption and graft surrounding Boston’s Big Dig.
We capped off the trip by taking in a ballgame at Coors Field. Ol’ 56 had arranged for club seats. Coors Field is located on Blake Street in downtown Denver and it has been the home of the National League’s Rockies since 1995. Inter-league play began that weekend and the visitors that evening were the Toronto Blue Jays (see photo below). The Rockies held sway, 5-1, with Rockies’ left-hander Jeff Francis perfect through five innings. Truth-be-told, the Jays haunt the Red Sox, but on this night they appeared mediocre, quite inferior to the home club.

The next morning, after brief goodbyes, we split up, Ol’ 56 and Rockie Roy flying east, with the Junction Jet staying put, and me heading west to pick up the trailer in Moab, Utah. I’ll be taking it easy in the food department for the next few weeks, trying to drop the extra few pounds I surely gained in Denver.

Rocky Mountains sunset seen from the upper boxes behind the plate at Coors Field.