How did I end up in Colorado ? Part Two.
As I said before, Pete and I are sitting in a baking hot government truck on our afternoon break, and I'm looking at a full-page advertisement with a log cabin, and snow-covered mountains in the background, which hit me at that moment, as the most wonderful place I had ever seen in my life, and the current Miami temperature of 97° and 99% humidity had a lot to do with those feelings.
I searched the advertisement for small print and found a tiny blurb that I think said something about Montrose, Colorado. The reason I don't remember the details of that advertisement, even though it changed my life dramatically, is that I kept that advertisement, and it's still in my storage room, back in Divide, Colorado, so I don't need to remember it.
I showed Pete the advertisement, and he told me that he had a couple of brothers who live in Denver, whom he visits pretty regularly, and yes, Colorado really is that beautiful.
Well, that was all I needed to hear; I had already made up my mind that I needed to get out of Miami, since my daughter would be starting kindergarten soon, and I did not believe there was any chance my daughter would survive the school that she was legally required to attend, since those were the days of mandatory school busing and the school she would be required to go to was considered dangerous even by Miami standards. Picture an elementary school that you roll up your windows and lock the doors as you drive by..... Not a high school, but an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.
So Pete called his brothers, who agreed to put us both up for a couple of weeks during the summer. And I started making plans to see what living in Colorado would be like.
I had a 1982 Ford Econoline van that I had fixed up to be able to sleep in, not realizing at the time that it was my first boondocking vehicle, and Pete had a pickup truck with a topper on the back that he could sleep in. So when the time came, I put my motorcycle in the back of my van and headed for Denver.
We ended up driving all over Colorado, which I had never been to before, riding our dirt bikes, visiting little towns in the mountains, and occasionally staying at Pete's relatives' in Denver.
Since Miami was an expensive place to live and I didn't have a whole lot of extra money laying around, To help finance this trip, we took advantage of the fact that Coors beer was not sold east of the Mississippi, in those days, which meant that all the GIs we knew at Homestead Air Force Base couldn't get Coors beer, and of course, anything you can't get is something you want more than anything else so we bought 15 or 20 cases of Coors beer which was dirt cheap in Denver, and schlepped It back to Miami, where it was worth a fortune. We made enough money selling it to the GIs to pay for some of the trip.
I'm pretty sure that selling that beer broke several laws, both state and federal. But I think that shows how badly I wanted to get out of Miami.
I thought I was going to finish this story today, but it looks like I can stretch it for one more day. I'm always amazed how I can turn a brief but nonetheless boring story into an exceptionally long, incredibly boring story......It's a gift.
Theboondork
I think this is the tallest yucca plant I've ever seen; it must be 30 feet tall if it's an inch.
See the contrail in the sky, just above and to the right of my camper? That contrail should be about 36,000 feet high, and who knows how far away. But hidden on the lower end of it is a commercial jet passenger plane.....
There it is !!!