Colorado - Sterling, Greeley, Longmont, The Rockies, Denver, Central City, Castle Rock, Colorado Springs, Walsenburg, Trinidad, Pueblo

“I went outside. And there in the blue air I saw for the first time, far off, the great snowy tops of the Rocky Mountains. I took a deep breath. I had to get to Denver at once” (31).

“… he let me off at Longmont, Colorado….It was beautiful in Longmont under a tremendous old tree was a bed of green lawn-grass belonging to a gas station. I asked the attendant if I could sleep there, and he said sure; so I stretched out a wool shirt, laid my face flat on it, with an elbow out, and with one eye cocked at the snowy Rockies in the hot sun for just a moment….And here I am in Colorado! I kept thinking gleefully. Damn! damn! damn! I’m making it! And after a refreshing sleep filled with cobwebby dreams of my past life in the East …” (31).

“… and here I was in Denver. He let me off at Larimer Street. I stumbled along with the most wicked grin of joy in the world, among the old bums and beat cowboys of Larimer Street” (32).

“Off we rushed into the night; Carlo joined us in an alley. And we proceeded down the narrowest, strangest, and most crooked little city street I’ve ever seen, deep in the in heart of Denver Mexican-town” (39).

“Carlo’s basement apartment was on Grant Street in an old redbrick rooming house near a church” (42).

“… on the corner of Curtis and 15^th [Denver]. I walked around the sad honkytonks of Curtis Street; young kids in jeans and red shirts; peanut shells, movie marquees, shooting parlors. Beyond the glittering street was darkness, and beyond the darkness the West. I had to go” (52).

“I wandered around Curtis Street and Larimer Street, worked awhile in the wholesale fruit market where I almost got hired in 1947 …” (169).

(not Curtis and Larimer, but still Denver)

“At lilac evening I walked with every muscle aching among the lights of 27^th and Welton” (169).

“It was with a great deal of silly relief that these people let us off the car at the corner of 27^th and Federal. Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life” (200).

“At night all the lights of Denver lay like a great wheel on the plain below, for the house was in that part of the West where the mountains roll down foothilling to the plain and where in primeval times soft waves must have washed from sealike Mississippi to make such round and perfect stools for the island-peaks like Pike and Longs” (203).

“The cousin dropped us off at the sad lights of a carnival on Alameda Boulevard at Federal” (205).

(Alameda Ave)

“We went to Mexican town, we went to Five Points, we reeled around” (252).

“Central City is an old mining town that was once called the Richest Square Mile in the World …” (46).

“It was a wonderful night. Central City is two miles high; at first you get drunk on the altitude, then you get tired, and there’s a fever in your soul” (48).

(Central City is one big tourist trap, featuring gambling. If you click on the picture, look to the right, and see the lowest green sign on the stoplight pole, you'll see "oh my God rd.")

“I wondered what the Spirit of the Mountain was thinking, and looked up and saw jackpines in the moon, and saw ghosts of old miners, and wondered about it. In the whole eastern dark wall of the Divide this night there was silence and the whisper of the wind, except in the great Western Slope, and the big plateau that went to Steamboat Springs, and dropped, and led you to the western Colorado desert and mountain nook, mad drunken Americans in the mighty land. We were on the roof of America and all we could do was yell, I guess—across the night, eastward over the Plains, where somewhere an old man with white hair was probably walking toward us with the Word, and would arrive any minute and make us silent.” (50)

(this picture appears again below)

“At night in this part of the West the stars, as I had seen them in Wyoming, are big as roman candles and as lonely as the Prince of the Dharma who’s lost his ancestral grove and journeys across the spaces between points in the handle of the Big Dipper, trying to find it again. So they slowly wheeled the night, and then long before actual sunrise the great red light appeared far over the dun bleak land toward West Kansas and the birds took up their trill above Denver.” (211).

“The kind of utter darkness that falls on a prairie like that is inconceivable to an Easterner. There were no stars, no moon, no light whatever except the light of Mrs. Wall’s kitchen. What lay beyond the shadows of the yard was an endless view of the world that you wouldn’t be able to see till dawn” (216).

(there was a moon, but the prairie was still extremely dark without all the phosphorescent pollution of city lights).

“It didn’t seem we were even going seventy but all the cars fell from us like dead flies on the straightaway highway leading up to Greeley.” (214)

“Reason why we’re going northeast is because, Sal, we must absolutely visit Ed Wall’s ranch in Sterling, you’ve got to meet him and see his ranch and this boat cuts so fast we can make it without any time trouble and get to Chicago long before that man’s train.” (214)

(Sterling, CO. Ugly as hell.)

“It grew dark when we turned off the highway at Junction and hit a dirt road that took us across dismal East Colorado plains to Ed Wall’s ranch in the middle of Coyote Nowhere.” (214)

“’Look out!’ Yelled Dean, who didn’t give a damn and wrestled with his Angel a moment, and we ended up backass in the ditch with the front out on the road. A great stillness fell over everything. We heard the whining wind. We were in the middle of the wild prairie.” (215)

“Beyond we saw the light of Ed Wall’s ranch house. Around this lonely light stretched hundreds of miles of plains” (216).

“I walked out and took a trolley to my apartment, and Carlo Marx’s papier-mache mountains grew red as the great sun rose from the eastward plains” (45).

“Now we pointed our rattle snout south and headed for Castle Rock, Colorado, as the sum turned red and the rock of the mountains to the west looked like a Brooklyn brewery in November dusks. Far up in the purple shades of the rock there was someone walking, walking, but we could not see; maybe that old man with the white hair I had sensed years ago up in the peaks. Zacatecan Jack. But he was coming closer to me; if only ever just behind. And Denver recede back of us like the city of salt, her smokes breaking up in the air and dissolving to our sight.” (255)

“We passed Castle Rock, came to Colorado Springs at dark. The great shadow of Pike’s Peak loomed to our right. We bowled down the Pueblo highway” (256).

(Castle Rock)

(Colorado Springs)

(Pueblo)

“We passed Walsenburg; suddenly we passed Trinidad” (257).

(Trinidad)

(This captures my general experience of the west, and pretty much everywhere else, thus far--authenticity corrupted by ubiquitous commercialism)

(Garden of the Gods, CO)

(The Rockies)

(View from Dream Lake, in the Rockies)

(On top of some boulder in the Rockies)

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I left Rapid City, SD around mid-afternoon, rolled through surprisingly scenic western Nebraska, and arrived in Colorado in the evening. I came in and noticed the elevation signs posted underneath signs announcing the existence of a small town, and I wondered at what point would the elevation change manifest itself physically in me, if at all. I only noticed a change while having a few beers later that night (much easier to get buzzed when you're a mile above sea level), and the next day when I decided to hike in the Rockies (who has time to get acclimated?)

But my initial impressions of Colorado weren't so fantastic; Sterling seemed like your average mid-sized town you can find anywhere--nothing to make it stand out. The same for seedy-feeling Greeley, and Longmont saw the beginning of the trend of omnipresent cyclists and fitness junkies of all types. Which made me wonder: you'd think with everyone working out (Colorado being the most fit state in big fat America), the endorphins would make most people at least borderline approachable/affable. Maybe it's just my luck to talk to fifteen assholes in a row, but Colorado didn't seem to offer a lot in friendliness, much less hospitality. The only conversation I had with anyone in my four days in that state was with a passing park ranger on my way up a trail in the Rockies, and our conversation was limited to how to stay safe during the lighting storm that was going on around us. In Utah, I discussed this anomaly in conviviality with a few people, and they validated my experience as typical Colorado. Definitely one of the least friendly states I've visited yet.

But despite it's people, Colorado had a lot to offer in terms of diverse scenery and outdoor activity. I enjoyed the landscape, from the Rocky mountains to the scrubby, some-kind-of-desert located around Pueblo. The Rockies were expectantly magnificent, even as I was getting soaked and rattled from thunder booming across craggy peaks and slopes dense with pine. So that was an experience, as well as the first real hike into wilderness I've had up to that point in my journey. The air was pure and cold, and when standing on top of certain boulders and peaks you can't help but realize that what's passing through and around you, being exhaled at two miles above sea level, may not be breathed in by another solitary human being on a mountain at that height (or higher) until it wisps its way to Europe. Immense.

I couldn't find anyone else to stay with anywhere in the state (more than twenty requests sent out via couchsurfing.com brought no replies), so I drove south to Colorado Springs, Pueblo, etc., to Raton, New Mexico, then southeast to Dalhart, Texas, contemplated driving to Amarillo and back that night (but was tired and didn't want to drive three hundred more miles), so I swung north to Boise City, Oklahoma, and back up to Colorado, where I finally stopped in La Junta to sleep in a rest area. I woke up four hours later, drove a hundred or so miles to Central City, then Cheyenne, Wyoming, rolled across that beautiful state until I had car trouble and had to get towed the awesome distance of 133 miles into Utah. Up until the point I had to get towed, I had driven 1,306 miles in the past 22 hours, not including the four-hour nap, two hours for various small meals, and a total of almost four hours spent in the nearly one dozen towns/cities I've visited across the five states I've driven through in the past day and a half. It averages out to 59.36 miles per hour, a full 10 mph average slower than when Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty (Jack and Neal) drove from Denver to Chicago in 17 hours. I just can't break that record, but it's all right anyway.

South Dakota, Part Two - Badlands

I'm not limiting myself to one post for South Dakota--it was too important of a stop, plus I spent the most time there out of any where I've been to so far. No quotes, just pictures. I hope you like them as much as I liked taking them.

(outside of Pine Ridge)

(spent the night on a farm on the edge of the Missouri River, near Chamberlain, South Dakota)

(driving east on 80)

(drove through yet another storm, and came out to this as I was driving through the badlands on 44 west)

(end of the rainbow)

Worth every mile.

South Dakota, Part One - Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Rapid City, Chamberlain, Kyle, Red Cloud Indian School

"But Dean’s intelligence was every bit as formal and shining and complete, without the tedious intellectualness. And his ‘criminality’ was not something that sulked and sneered; it was a wild yea-saying overburst of American joy; it was Western, the west wind, and ode from the Plains, something new, long prophesied, long a-coming …” (7).

“… I thought of all my friends from one end of the country to the other and how they were really all in the same vast backyard doing something so frantic and rushing-about. And for the first time in my life, the following afternoon, I went into the West” (11).

“He was out to get back everything he’d lost; there was no end to his loss; this thing would drag on forever” (63).

“The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sight and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death. But who wants to die?” (115).

(The monument directly above is Chief Big Foot's grave, Wounded Knee)

“Whitside told Big Foot that he had orders to take him to a cavalry camp on Wounded Knee Creek. The Minneconjou chief replied that he was going in that direction; he was taking his people to Pine Ridge for safety” (440) Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

"Twilight was falling when the column crawled over the last rise in the land and began descending the slope toward Chankpe Opi Wakpala, the creek called Wounded Knee. The wintry dusk and the tiny crystals of ice dancing in the dying light added a supernatural quality to the somber landscape. Somewhere along this frozen stream the heart of Crazy Horse lay in a secret place, and the Ghost Dancers believed that his disembodied spirit was waiting impatiently for the new earth that would surely come with the first green grass of spring." (440-41) Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

“It made me think that everything was about to arrive—the moment when you know all and everything is decided forever” (119).

“But why think about that when all the golden land’s ahead of you and all kinds of unforeseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you’re alive to see?” (126).

“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing?—it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies” (146).

“It was sad to see his tall figure receding in the dark as we drove away, just like the other figures in New York and New Orleans: they stand uncertainly underneath immense skies, and everything about them is drowned. Where go? what do? what for?—sleep. But this foolish gang was bending onward” (155).

“‘… the point being that we know what IT is and we know TIME and we know that everything is really FINE’” (197).

“I could feel the road some twenty inches beneath me, unfurling and flying and hissing at incredible speeds across the groaning continent with that mad Ahab at the wheel. When I closed my eyes all I could see was the road unwinding into me. When I opened them I saw flashing shadows of trees vibrating on the floor of the car. There was no escaping it. I resigned myself to all.” (222)

(Drove right into this storm, which wasn't as bad as it looks.)

“'What’s your road, man?—holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It’s an anywhere road for anybody anyhow. Where body how?’” (239)

“Now, Sal, we’re leaving everything behind us and entering a new and unknown phase of things. All the years and troubles and kicks—and now this! So that we can safely think of nothing else and just go on ahead with our faces stuck out like this, you see, and understanding the world as, really and genuinely speaking, other Americans haven’t done before us they were here, weren’t they?” (264).

“The whole mad swirl of everything that was to come began then; it would mix up all my friends and all I had left of my family in the big dust cloud over the American Night.” (5)

It was a long straight road through dry fields as far as a person could see. You’d think the sky didn’t have any air in it, and the earth was made of paper. Rather than moving, we were just getting smaller and smaller. (49) Denis Johnson, “Dundun,” Jesus’ Son

“… under a sky as blue and brainless as the love of God…” (105). Denis Johnson, “The Other Man,” Jesus’ Son

(Crazy Horse Memorial, along with the bluest skies I've ever seen. Somewhere in the Plains and Black Hills, South Dakota)

(She's a wolf. I took this when I visited a Lakota Medicine Man one day, somewhere out in the middle of the Pine Ridge Reservation.)

(Ghost town on the edge of the badlands--the only real ghost town I've been to--it's not some commercialized tourist trap, as you can plainly see. The end building used to be a hostel, but those days are passed).

(It was over a hundred degrees that day. I wish I would have taken this before I did that Pine Ridge charity drive in high school--it's a lot harder to be apathetic when your fellow humans spend their lives like this, then end them in ditches from malnourishment, or die from exposure because the Bureau of Indian Affairs decided to condemn their FEMA shelters.)

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South Dakota was by far the most interesting and enlightening experience I’ve had so far on this trip. I was coming from the south (up through Nebraska), so fresh from the diverse beauty of sand hills, ranches, and plains dotted with cattle, rolls of hay, and old wooden fences I was struck with the absolute desolation as I crossed a border town that fit the very definition of “ghost town,” yet was populated. There must have been about fifty Native Americans laying around abandoned storefronts, under the shade of trees, and pretty much anywhere out of reach from the oppressive sun of the plains.

I then headed east to Pine Ridge, which was equally depressing and looked exactly as I had seen it five years ago. Then it was Wounded Knee, stained with history and sparsely populated with Native American vendors selling homemade items like necklaces, dream catchers, and drums (drums representing the heartbeat of the Lakota nation). Thankfully this time there was no bus full of Christian missionary kids running around the cemetery, leaving behind candy bar wrappers and other trash. Likewise, I didn’t notice any plastic bottle caps placed disrespectfully on the graves; where things like rocks and flowers were placed on memorials, I personally witnessed some bastards who, last time I was there, paid their “respects” by arranging garbage on the stone of Chief Big Foot.

I spent a few hours on the reservation, and dragged it with me when I left. Not an easy day. I arrived in Rapid City later that night, having more reasons to feel weary than I’ve had since Indiana. Fortunately, when I arrived at the place of my host Chris, there were five other guests that night; a girl and her uncle from Germany, a biker (road bike racing) from Florida, and two guys from Seattle. We spent the evening together wandering around downtown Rapid, checking out the shops, art scene, and concert that was being held that night in a street. This was the first night that I’ve had an actual place to stay since I left Pennsylvania, and I felt energized from the recent release from the slight but steady monotony of driving, as well as from the impending rest I was going to get. I had traveled 2,253 miles in four days, and this was the first night that I had an actual, arranged place to stay. I felt rejuvenated, and I hadn’t even relaxed yet; one good night like this would be enough to get me to the pacific coast.

With my host Chris’s enthusiastic permission, I decided to stay for a few days and experience Rapid, the first city I’ve really come to that I had spent more than six hours in. A day digging the western feel of the place, its people, the awesome climate (described as a “mountain climate” according to an acquaintance I made in a coffee shop), and its close proximity to the ominous, enigmatic Black Hills was the kind of engagement with the land I so sorely needed after passing most of it by at seventy-to-eighty miles an hour (see Wendell Berry’s essay “An Entrance to the Woods” ).

A day of that got me ready to travel again, only this time east, and over the comparatively insignificant distance of two hundred miles. Within two and a half hours I was pulling up to a farmhouse on the edge of the Missouri, under a red blanket of dusk and through the slight invisible fog of river-born humidity. I talked for a few hours with a person who held the extreme opposite of my views on practically every aspect I can imagine, save travel. So we agreed on travel, and two hitchhikers from Minnesota who were also staying there that night agreed upon its sublimity.

The next day I stopped by Chamberlain, a place I wouldn’t have gone had I not been curious about a string of coincidences that have been set in motion months ago. I had been looking for a Medicine Man, asking around the reservations and anyone I thought who might know one. While in Chamberlain, I asked somebody who worked with Saint Joseph’s Indian School if he knew of any, and he said he knows lots of people who call themselves medicine men, but only one true Medicine Man—the only thing is he lives two hundred miles away. I got his number, called him, and he agreed to meet with me later that afternoon at his home tucked away on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He told me to bring some tobacco so that we can sit out by a tree, smoke a pipe, and talk.

So the meeting with the Medicine Man was the only real experience I’ve had thus far on my trip; I’ve found everything to be what I expected it to be, and that is some stylized, commercialized vision of the west as some tourist trap, much like the Wild Bill shows held a century ago. My meeting with him lasted for a few hours, and it wasn’t at all like I anticipated a meeting with a Medicine Man to be for the first hour (save for the fact that he had a wolf for a pet and lived at the foot of a burial mound), but as we kept talking he became more and more enlightening and everything he said grew in importance. I won’t go into the details of our conversation, but by the end of it he gave me his blessing in Lakota and offered for me to come back before the summer’s over so that he can assist me in a vision quest once his sweat lodge is built—the details of which are complicated and personal. He told me what I’m doing now is a vision quest.

That was the most important experience I’ve had thus far, and the only thing that’s proven to be authentic. What’s more, it furthered my growing realization—a realization everyone innately has but maybe doesn’t exceed the rank of ‘suspicion’ in some—that all preconceived notions of people, places, e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, are absolutely meaningless in the face of genuine experience.