After four days of gazing at the Rocky Mountains through the seventh floor
of our hotel room, my friend Lauren Kingsley and I were more than ready to
head into them. The Fly-Fishing Retailer’s Show ended at 3 on Tuesday,
September 18, and we were packed up, checked out, and ready to go by 5.

I had dreamed about those mountains for many years after moving to
Michigan, and I hadn’t been back for fourteen years. As we got closer
and closer, my excitement grew. We drove through Boulder, which had
grown so much I hardly recognized it, then fifteen miles northwest to
Lyons. We watched the subtle browns, reds, and ochres of the plains
and foothills grass shift into the blues and yellows of the mountains
as we climbed.

It was suppertime when we arrived in Lyons, a small town at the base
of a red sandstone bluff, or cuesta, as my geologist father informed me,
named Steamboat Mountain. Lyons is home to less than 2,000 people, many
of them artists, musicians, writers, and athletes.

We easily found Oskar Blues Grill and Brew, where we had been told we
could get a good meal and listen to the great bluegrass jam they have on
Tuesday nights. As we devoured our crab cakes, coconut shrimp, and sweet
potato fries, tables were being moved around us to accommodate the growing
number of "pickers" with guitars, banjos, and fiddles who were
arriving on the scene, so we had a front row seat.

They played in a circle, led by a great bass player named Eric Thorin.
Eric is a friend of Lauren’s friend K. C. Groves. He greeted us in a
friendly Colorado drawl and promised to show us where we’d be staying later.
I was in heaven, listening to the voices and instruments around us. There
was even a Dobro player! I knew "dobro" means "good"
(I had a Czech grandmother) but the name actually comes from the Dopera
Brothers, (Do-Bro) who developed the steel guitar with an aluminum resonator,
usually played flat on the lap.

Around eleven o’clock that night, Eric took a break and led the way north
out of town a few miles up Apple Valley Road to the guest house on the river
where K.C. had made arrangements for us to stay. He helped us with our
luggage and insisted we keep his flashlight for the walk to the cabin from the
truck. We had already heard a few bear and mountain lion stories. Our
hostess, Betsy Burton, was written up in a Good Housekeeping "Survival
Story" a few years back, when she and her dog encountered a cougar while
walking nearby.

The next morning I was up at dawn, exploring our surroundings. The smell
of the cottonwoods on the river in the cool morning air and the sight of the
sun rising behind the sandstone cliff above us made my heart sing. There was
a hot tub on the porch, a hammock in the trees, and a table and chairs on the
banks of the river, where I could SMELL the trout.

We had breakfast at the Lyons Café, where the cooks took their time
cooking, bantering with the locals seated at the counter. We wolfed down bacon,
eggs and home fries, then stopped at the South Fork Fly Shop, where we talked
to the owner, Mike Clark. He sold us some flies tied by A.K. Best and told us
we should fish the north St. Vrain and the Big Thompson. We got fishing
licenses at the hardware store and drove up into one of two canyons leading out
of Lyons and into the mountains.

We took a serendipitous detour at the intersection of Hwy. 7 and 36, where I
wondered if Cal-Wood Ranch still existed, where my father taught geology field
methods years ago. We didn’t find it, so we drove into Jamestown, where I asked
a silver-bearded gentleman leaving the post office. He drew a map, and gave me
his address, as he owned some gold mines in the area and wondered if my dad
still had any old maps. He then invited me to tour his museum-in-progress down
the road, while Lauren made a few casts into Jamestown Creek.

I remembered The Elk Palace from my trips to this old mining town back in the
1970’s. The gentleman I had just met, Tom Maloney, was turning it into a monument
to the Arapaho Indians killed near here in the Sand Creek Massacre, a blot on
Colorado history. The tipi near his place was beautifully painted with animals
of the area. He had photographs and relics of early Jamestown in his museum,
and showed me his future barroom, where he wants an antique slot machine. I
told him I knew where he could get one, and I’m hoping to be able to deliver it!
When Lauren came to pick me up, we were sitting in the front yard with Tom’s
friend and his wolf dog, drinking rum and root beer (!)

We then went up to Cal-Wood, which was virtually unchanged.

From there, we made our way to the Wild Basin area at the south edge of Rocky
Mountain Park, where we happily, although unsuccessfully, fished the north St.
Vrain. We kept wondering who Saint Vrain was, so I looked it up, and learned
that the river was named for Cerran St. Vrain, an early French trapper who was
involved with Bent’s Fort, the first trading post established by white men in
what is now Colorado.

We drove back to Lyons and met K.C. at her home, where she had just returned
after a national tour with her bluegrass band, Uncle Earl. We were all tired,
but we managed a walk downtown to The Gateway Café, where Lauren and I
ordered from a surprisingly gourmet menu, and dined on salad and four-cheese
lasagna with elk chili on the side. The owners were funny and friendly and obviously
committed to their venture.
This town is full of surprises.
The older buildings are constructed with the native red sandstone and are beautifully
done. There is an annual Sculpture Trail winding through town. An old railroad caboose
sits a block away from the modern post office. You can buy organic produce and Levis,
antiques, art, and beer, all on the same street. Although there are signs for yoga,
pilates, wifi, etc., the ambience is not like yuppie heaven, Boulder, at all. Lyons is
reminiscent of the dusty small towns of my youth in Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas,
filled with interesting people from all walks of life.

The next day, we drove up to Estes Park and fished the Big Thompson River
east of town. The waters there are catch-and-release, so the fish are wily.
But the weather was gorgeous, as it was every day of our stay, unseasonably
warm, and sunny as it is 300 days a year in this area.

At the end of the day, we were invited to K.C. and Eric’s, where a chef
had prepared filet mignon wrapped in bacon with cream sauce, asparagus with
almonds and onions, and diced sweet potatoes dredged in butter. Dessert was
raspberry almond cake with raspberry coulis and vanilla custard, garnished
with fresh kiwi and peaches grown on the western slope. Thank goodness we were
getting a lot of exercise! A rancher friend of K.C.’s from Wyoming wandered
by in his ten-gallon hat and was invited to join us. After dessert, Lauren and
I drove to Lafayette, east of Boulder, where my friend Kevin Dooley was playing
in a club with his Irish band.

With only a few days left in Colorado, we were packing it all in.

September 21-24, 2007

It was warm and sunny every day we spent in Colorado.
Dexter artist Lauren Kingsley and I had worked a trade show
in Denver for three days, and were doing some serious fishing
now. We’d gotten a tip about a local fishing spot, so we
headed out early Friday the 21^st of September up
one of the canyons leading out of Lyons, following the South
St. Vrain River. We hiked a trail along the river to Button Rock.

I had worn Lauren’s husband’s waders the day before on the Big
Thompson and nearly killed myself trying to clamber up the rocky
slope back to the road in boots several sizes too big for me.
So today I elected to wade in rolled up pants and bare feet.
My legs were soon numb to the knees.

The source of the Middle and South forks of the St. Vrain
is around 12,000 feet in the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area,
whereas the North St. Vrain starts in Rocky Mountain National
Park. It flows east and joins the North Platte east of Longmont.
The upper reaches of the river boasts cutthroat trout while on
the lower branches you might see browns, brook trout, and a few
rainbows.

It was windy, and I was using a prince nymph like a streamer,
fooling one fish briefly, but failing to hook it. The catch of
the day was a tennis ball that floated downstream, probably a
loss from somebody playing with a dog along the trail. We made
our way up past a waterfall and practiced casting on a small
reservoir. Most of the streams we had seen up until now were
very brushy with a little pocket water.

We hiked and fished most of the day, stopping for a picnic
of apples and cheese. That afternoon, Lauren was spooked by a
strong ammonia smell along the banks of the river, and knowing
that signaled the possibility of a mountain lion, we decided to
call it a day.

We were a little discouraged that we hadn’t caught any fish,
but we took comfort that it was late in the season, streams were
over-fished, "catch and release" areas are home to
wily fish at season’s end, we had the wrong equipment, it was
windy, and there was hardly any bug activity. But the next day
as we walked by the fly shop in Lyons, we bemoaned our luck to
owner and rod maker Mike Clark, who told us that "six guys from
Texas" claimed they had caught a hundred fish between
them on the St. Vrain the day before. We wanted to strangle him,
but we just smiled sweetly. It was a joke for the rest of the
trip – "six guys from Texas!" Yeah, right.

A few of my friends may not believe that we nearly encountered
a writing god in the fly-fishing world, John Gierach. I read
Trout Bum about twenty years ago and he’s written a shelf
full since. A friend e-mailed me before I left, "Say hi to
John Gierach if you see him", and I thought, "Oh, sure."
Little did I know that he not only lives in Lyons, he’s a good
friend of our hosts, who asked him to stop by. We learned later
that he did so twice, but we weren’t there – we were out fishing!

Later Friday we drove down to Boulder and called at an
outfitter’s shop that will handle some of Lauren’s creations, had
dinner with some old family friends, the Kelleys, and made our way
back to Lyons. There we met our friend KC at Oskar Blues, the café
we’d visited our first night in town. I ordered a piece of carrot
cake and just about had a heart attack seeing the portion – three
of us shared and still had half of it to take home.

John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin manages KC’s bluegrass band,
Uncle Earl, and the band has stayed at his house. She told us
she had tickets to a Zeppelin reunion concert in London, where
Uncle Earl will be on tour. The reunion was just announced to
the public recently, with a lot of fanfare. We didn’t realize
we’d gotten a "scoop"!

After breakfast at the Stone Cup Cafe the next morning,
Lauren and I met KC and her friend Eric Thorin, the bass
player we’d met earlier, and we all climbed into Eric’s Toyota
4Runner and drove up Lefthand Canyon to Lickskillet Road, which
leads to Gold Hill. I’m not afraid of heights and am accustomed
to mountain roads, but I was biting my knuckles on this one, with
switchbacks at every turn. The scenery was breath taking, and
when we got to the old mining town, it was like a scene out of
"Deadwood."

We visited the Gold Hill Inn, which features a 7-course meal
and has been praised in Gourmet magazine. We met a lady who
showed us the inside walls of her cabin, lined with egg cartons
for insulation. "This place isn’t for the faint of heart,"
she told us, "especially in winter." We stopped at the general
store, whose windows were lined with flyers warning of mountain lion
and bear activity, water shortage, and a fire ban, and advertising
"Wireless Café". We don’t even have wireless in Waterloo!

After lunch in Boulder at an outdoor café – salmon
pesto salad for Lauren, tomato Gorgonzola soup and baby spinach
salad for me - we met more friends at a beautiful spot outside
of Lyons called Planet Bluegrass. It’s a large park framed by
cliffs and river, with outdoor pavilions. Tonight’s event was
billed as a Mabon festival, which we learned is a Celtic harvest
festival. A cadre of bagpipes and drums played at sunset on
the cliffs above us, a very moving experience. We ate corned beef,
salmon hash browns, kale with bacon, potato mushroom soup, and
soda bread under tiny lights in the trees on the river bank.
The Yonder Mountain String Band played, and we listened until
our toes froze, then walked back into town to retrieve the truck
and say our goodbyes. We were up before sunrise Sunday, September
23, packed the truck, and reluctantly headed east.

As working artists, Lauren and I normally spend most of our
days and nights thinking and dreaming about our art business,
but we both admitted that we scarcely gave it a thought after
leaving Denver. We brainstormed all the way home, however.
We both sponsor artist-driven shows – her Art on the Farm is
this Sunday on Island Lake Road near Dexter, and my More Friends
Holiday Show is November 10^th at the Chelsea
Fairgrounds. We shared ideas for publicity and logistics,
easing back into our working lives.

The first day of our trip home, we drove from Lyons to
Iowa City in 12 hours. We passed fields of corn and soybeans,
Iowa 80, the "largest truck stop in the world,"
and a town called Crook. Iowa City is just east of Brooklyn,
Iowa, where I’d stayed with my family years ago at a
"B&B" that was straight out of the Munsters.
A crew of very scary looking roughnecks was staying there,
the "doors" were flimsy curtains, and the power
went out in an electrical storm during the night, I swear.
But that’s another story…

The sticky, humid air hit us hard when we stopped at our
motel, the dry air of the west only a memory. The next day
was an easy drive, with only seven hours to go. We passed a
sign near Peoria, Illinois, directing people to a Memorial
Wall to the Middle East Conflicts. I must admit that I’d
barely given world affairs a thought while we’d been gone.

As we neared the Michigan state line, I reached into the
cooler and took out the last of the carrot cake. My mouth
filled with carrots and raisins and nuts baked in Colorado
a few days earlier, and as I chewed, the sweetness turned
salty as tears rolled down my cheeks. Home is where the
heart is, they say, and although my heart is with my family
here in Michigan, a little piece of it still lives in the
mountains where I was born.