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Please click here for – Part Three
Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir
It turned into a white-knuckle drive as we dropped down Colorado’s Front Range into the Denver metro area. The construction on Interstate 70 added to the stress. I wished I was back in Wyoming driving through savage thunderstorms. That was easy compared to this. Exhausted, but, for the most part unscathed, we arrived at Scott & Channie’s humble home Friday in the early afternoon. They had graciously invited us to spend three nights with them – as planned and set up by the girls at that lunch in Manitou Springs.
To put this city drive into perspective, when we leave our local Post Office after picking up mail in our PO Box, if we have to wait for more than two vehicles to make the left onto Pony Express Trail, we ask, “Why is it so busy?” Our town, also, does not have an intersection with a traffic signal. We’re selling out and moving if or when one is put in.
Here's a quick story on how I met Scott 50 years ago, two young men in their twenties (Scott and I) worked together at a small banjo company in Wisconsin building banjos.
We both left that company in the mid 1970’s. I pursued a career in building, repairing, and restoring vintage banjos.
The highlight of the career was all the wonderful characters I’ve met and built musical instruments for.
One of Johnny Carson’s jokes was this – Here’s something you’ll never hear, “That’s the banjo player’s Porsche.” During my career I learned Johnny was wrong. Here’s Kerner with his Porsche and his two Hendricks banjos.
Scott moved to Colorado and pursued a career in photojournalism. He was a longtime videographer for a major Denver television news station. His list of the people that he filmed and interviewed over his career is truly impressive. He shared with us several stories he has written about the most memorable encounters, such as the time he interviewed Ralph Lauren and was led into the dressing room where all the supermodels were changing. The story gets better, but it is Scott’s story to tell. Many of us hope his collection of stories will come out as a book. Scott’s writing style and the stories are excellent.
I last saw Scott 11 years ago when he was out to pick up the custom banjo I built for him.
And so, fifty years later Scott and I are now old guys. Scott is never without his phone – and constantly insisting I get one – and took a photo of us with his arm outstretched. He called it a “selfie,” my very first.
We had an absolutely grand time with Scott and Channie. Our friendship was rekindled and we thank them both for their hospitality and generosity. So, what did we do during this close encounter with civilization? First off, we left our truck parked and did not drive anywhere. So, I must add, thanks Scott and Channie for carting us about!
This was our first adventure that took place on Saturday. You need to be sitting down for this one and brace yourselves. We visited the Denver Art Museum and saw Monets, Van Goghs, and Renoirs, among so many others along with, of course, Bierstadts and Remingtons. Scott and I were continuously sharing stories. I told him about the kid in The North Face store in Steamboat that didn’t know what fish & chips are. Scott said, “There’s a British pub around the corner. We can surely get fish and chips there!” Off we went to the British pub. Oh my goodness were we disappointed. The fries were greasy shoestring style and the fish (grilled salmon) was overcooked and dry. But the art museum was great.
The Lady was up early the next morning and getting something out of the camper when an older gentleman walked by and inquired, “Is the old man up yet?” This is how we met Scott’s neighbor, Rusty. And Julie was quick and immediately picked up that Rusty was inquiring about Scott and not the other old man now in the house. This turned into an invitation to walk over and see Rusty’s two 1957 Fords.
A Thunderbird and a Fairlane. I should note here that Rusty restored both of these cars to original condition, and they are award winners.
There are two things I’ve learned about old farts with the vintage automobile hobby – one is they usually have something like this aboard…..
And two, if there are women they can show off their cars to, they are in heaven. Channie and Julie were the center of Rusty’s attention, and it was a great time. And it led to a classic American Graffiti moment with Channie.
During the morning, we heard – and felt – a large plane fly over with the unmistakable sound of massive radial engines. Scott instantly turned to his phone – flight tracker – and reported, “It’s a B-29! We have to go find it!”
We were off on another adventure.
I so enjoyed these two kid’s curiosities as to what was inside.
We finished off the day at a local farmer’s market.
Scott had one thing he wanted me to do for him. Many years ago, I restored a banjo (it was a basket case when it came to me) that was built in the early 1930’s. It became part of a world renown banjo collection. Scott owns a copy of the book that covers the collection, and he asked that I inscribe the page with this banjo.
In more recent years this collection was liquidated, and I heard a story (I have not confirmed it so consider it only a story) this banjo sold $250,000.
And I have one thing to ask of Scott. Get the book finished and published!
Monday morning came and it was time for goodbyes. We left Scott on his front porch, playing music, and tossing peanuts to their resident red squirrel they call Draggin’ Nuts.
It was time for us to head home to doctor appointments and such that occupy old people’s schedules.
Thank you, our friends, for such a great time!
We made it a long day of driving as the Lady made a request in regard to something she wanted to do. We spent the night at a favorite dispersed campsite north of Salina, Utah. We arrived at Great Basin National Park at noon and secured a campsite for the night in Upper Lehman Campground (Wheeler Peak Campground was closed due to construction).
Over the years we’ve used the hike to the summit of Wheeler Peak, Nevada’s second highest peak, as a way to get off the highway and stretch our legs with a little exercise. The Lady’s request – let’s do it again. As a guess, this would be our 5th or 6th hike to the top. The sky was clear of clouds with no threat of thunderstorm. We left the trailhead at 1300, which gave us plenty of time to complete the close to 9-mile round trip well before dark. It is a little over 3000 vertical feet elevation gain to the summit – a hop, skip, and a hump.
The views were outstanding as we climbed.
This is such a fun ascent.
We made the summit.
I remember there being a steel sign at the summit but, for some reason, it appears to be gone. Someone left their homemade cardboard sign wedged in the rocks.
The vistas were grand.
The Lady loves summit registers.
I, once again, managed to operate the camera’s timer for a summit photo.
After a half hour on the top, we started back down. There was a strong west wind that battered us all the way down the ridge – that is pretty common here in the afternoon.
Since this trip story started with a smoke column, I’ll add this photo. The wind also blew up the Broom Canyon Fire far to the west of the Snake Range.
We pretty much had the trail to ourselves which made for a very nice finish.
We were back at the truck at 1800, so with a half hour on the summit, it took 2.25 hours to go up and the same to come down – a great way to stretch the legs and get a bit of exercise during a long drive. And stand on a grand mountain top.
We would spend one more night out before getting home so, the next morning, we had time to search for an archeological site that’s been on “the list.” It was a large, stacked rock wall hunting blind associated with driving pronghorn past it.
We parked the truck and set out on foot.
Success!
As we were hiking, searching for this site, we both noticed a distant rock outcrop and remarked “We have to go check that out. If there’s any rock art in the area, it’s there.”
After success with the antelope drive site, we hiked over to the rock outcrop and found a shelter site.
Do you see the pictographs? Our hunch paid off.
DStretch applied.
We reached Austin Summit on highway 50 mid-afternoon and settled into a familiar dispersed site for our last night of this trip. The evening light worked its way on the landscape and was a very nice end to this spectacular trip.
Thanks for following along with us. We hope you enjoyed it, because we sure did.
