Colorado Visiting

Winter Park, CO, November 29-December 1

I lived in Denver for more than 10 years. Ben and I moved there back in 1990, when I was thinking it would be my last hometown. White peaks on the horizon beckoned us to ski and snowboard in the winter. Purple peaks on the horizon called us to hike and backpack. The Broncos, Avalanche, Nuggets and Rockies kept Ben entertained. Technology, computer storage and dot-com companies gave us an Internet boom rush in the late 90s.

We lived in the Washington Park neighborhood, and we knew our neighbors well. We sat on our front porch with the dogs in the evening, drinking beer and watching the parade of people drawn to the Old South Gaylord shopping district's bars and restaurants. I worked at home for the first five years, then drove south on I-25 to the Tech Center for three years to work at a mining company and northwest to downtown to work at a public relations firm for a couple more.

But at some point, I got itchy feet. I have attachment issues that I blame on my long stint in an incubator after my pre-mature birth. I can’t stay anywhere very long. I don’t make many close friends, and those that I do make, I keep at a safe distance. So, after 10 years in one place, I started to feel like I’d been there long enough. I thought I recognized every face I saw on the 16th Street Mall. I grew tired of our house. The local authorities refused to let us build an addition on the back that would have preserved the garden landscaping we had installed on the south side of the house and would have preserved our north-side neighbor’s sun. I’ll never understand their objectives; they were actually encouraging pop-tops with their rules.

A job offer in Seattle was my ticket out. I’ll probably never move back.

But visiting is something else. Thanks mainly to the great friends I still have in Colorado, I usually have a fine time here, and usually don’t have time to see everyone I want to see or do everything I want to do.

When I arrived last Wednesday afternoon to a frozen city with an icy frosting of left-over snow, I drove straight to Argonaut Liquors on Colfax to stock up on wine offerings to pass out over the week. I remembered the store for having a big wine selection, and it still does.

At the cozy house of my friend Gina, we relaxed and shared some wine before heading out in the cold to dinner at Panzano Restaurant on 17th St. in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. I remembered it for its good pizza, but I decided to try the lasagna. Bad choice. A layer of dry, crumbly ground beef on the bottom was topped by some sticky layers of lasagna noodles, which was smothered with a grossly sweet marinara sauce. There was no cheese. Lasagna without ricotta or mozzarella or parmesan cheese! This was the laziest and poorest presentation of one of my favorite dishes I’ve ever had. Thankfully, the plate of big, fat, buttery breadsticks sated my hunger so I wasn’t totally disappointed.

On Thursday morning, Gina and I ran some errands – I had to send a FedEx package, she needed to pick up some rocks for her new landscaping, and we picked up eight of her dress jackets, which she had altered at the tailor’s shop. I bought some presents and a clock for our Palm Springs house at a great gardening store called Birdsall’s, where Gina once tested her patience for retail work.

We ate Mexican food at a restaurant along South Broadway. I ordered in Spanish, always looking for a chance to practice. However, the waitress was apparently embarrassed that she didn’t speak Spanish, so she didn’t bother to tell me. Therefore, although I ordered chile verde with flour tortillas, I received chile rellenos with corn tortillas. It wasn’t until we were eating that I overheard her talking with her daughter on the phone and to the cook in the kitchen – all in English.

Midway through the afternoon, I headed south to Colorado Springs to visit with my niece and her 10-month-old baby, Marshall, whom I had yet to see. I loaded up on meatloaf and five sides (including everyone’s favorite – creamed spinach) at Boston Market and drove more than a dozen miles east and north of the city to the suburban development where she is renting a home. It was dark by the time I got through the nasty, slow snarl of construction-menaced traffic to her neighborhood, and therefore, spent about a half hour lost and unable to read the street signs in the dark. Finally, after a frantic phone call – interrupted by signal interruptions – I reached the house to find Jenny and Marshall waiting at the door for me.

Jenny is my oldest brother’s daughter, and she recently took a job as a public defender. We look a slight bit alike. Marshall is quite possibly the best and most beautiful baby in the world, as her father will tell you. With a shock of curly brown hair and a perpetual smile, she sat on the floor happily trading toys and saliva with Jenny’s two dogs, Zoey and Swindle. The dogs play gently with Marshall, and he is not afraid of their big tongues or Swindle’s wagging tail.

Once Marland got home from work bearing a gift of zinfandel for dinner, he and I sat down and ate. Then while Marland watched Marshall, it was Jenny’s turn. I managed to make dinner last through both of these sittings.

The night passed quickly, and I found myself back on the road by 7 a.m. It took no time to find a Starbucks in the neighborhood Safeway, but thanks to some 13-year-olds’ need for blended foo-foo drinks at 7 in the morning, it took nearly 20 minutes to get my latte. Once on the road, I took I-25 to US 85 north to C-470. From there I zipped around the south and west sides of Denver, caught I-70 west without running into a bit of rush-hour traffic. This trip is much easier than I expected it to be at that time of day.

I reached my friend Janet’s condo outside of Winter Park long before noon. A snow storm was approaching, it’s heavy grey clouds just starting to spill over the mountain peaks, but I got there first.