Day 6: Craig–We finally get to see what Aunt Rosie has been writing about in those cards all these years
We’d wanted to zip on over to Salt Lake City by fairly directly via I-70 then Colo Hwy 40. But we ended up going through Estes National Park. We didn’t know what this would entail besides some natural beauty. It’s $20 to drive in. It’s crowded. The beauty is OK. It took all day. So we were going to spend the night mid-state Colo instead.
Steamboat seems like a nice town. Not Aspen-fancy yet, but hoppin’ with outdoor action. There’s a soda fountain on a corner in Steamboat that serves hard Italian gelato. Cool.
Seeing the hundred hat store signs on the way to town got me thinking hats. Clever. We checked it out. Pricey hats in the $30 to $80 range. OK, good hats. None were right. Too Western for me. I ended up getting a big straw sombrero thing for outdoor action but not for in-car. Too big. My old Panama was just too trashed and dirty to wear anymore. People had been saying trashed was cool, but M was finally putting her foot down. And the kids had stamped on it too much. But the main thing was that it was just too hot. I needed a straw hat with lots of venting. Not easy to find. I sweat. Grommets are not enough. Leaving Steamboat I started noticing that gas stations were selling a wide range of pretty cool big-brim hats, cheap. Saw a style that suited me. But not in the right size. So we stopped as we drove. I finally found one that was just right. Big ole venting, moderate brim size. $8. I got two. Ah, relief.
(A decent 100degF western $8 car hat.)
We’d been trying to get in touch with my Uncle Dale who lives a couple hours outside Steamboat in Craig. But our addressbook didn’t have their ph# and no relatives were home and they were unlisted. Rats.
My dad has 5 bro’s and a sister. Dale is 70 and retired but got himself invited to a church recently and is now a preacher again after a couple decades off. He’d been trucking. We wanted to stop in and say Hi. He’s a hunting guide, too. Like all my uncles, he and his wife Aunt Rosie had lots of kids. We’d grown up in touch with them, but they were the only ones to leave town. Dale had been a missionary out west to the Mormons. Yeah, a Baptist converting Mormons. We’d never visited them out west. They’d come trucking on through and stop in and see us over the years.
Well, we’d just go to their house. Then we realized it was Sunday evening and that Dale would be preaching. We got into the very rural but fairly sizeable Craig and found their house in town. Big hounds were barking out back. The door was open, TV on. No one home. Van in drive said the name of the church on the side. We drove into town and asked at the grocery store and then drove out to the church. I peeked in and saw Dale in a suit. Bingo. We waited outside a bit. Suddenly petite little Rosie came out, greying hair, and in a lace dress up to her chin. She about fell over. “Well, well, well, what a surprise!” On the second beat: “We’ll have to go to the cabin when Dale gets done!” she announced. Yee-haw! We’d been reading for years about the hunting resort with its lodge and cabins in holiday cards Rosie sent out. About how they finally built their own little cabin, no heat, plumbing or electricity out on this huge mountain ranch where Dale guided, where they stayed for cold months at a time. It might’ve been small and primitive but it was clearly no place they shied away from!
Henry fell right in love with Rosie and soon had some special rocks to give her, then rushed to the van and started making her some clay things. She was impressed and touched.
These days they live in town in a duplex that the rancher owns and where the rancher’s son lives in the other half. They attend Dale’s church. The rancher has miles of land. Rosie cooks for the hunters during the seasons.
Craig is dry, sage-brushy, rural, well-preserved and basically dry-yellow in color.
Dale has some wind to him and when he wasn’t coming out of the church directly, despite time being up, Rosie said she’d go “give him a nudge,” as it was getting on toward evening. I saw some antelope on a ridge beyond the parking lot. Directly, Dale came out in his well-filed suit and cowboy boots. “Well, well, well! What say we head on up to the cabin!” Promptly, we were on our way back to house in peal-out of gravel, with me trying to keep up with the preacher-mobile. At the house the “elderly” couple were a blur of packing and then into their big ole truck, with coolers and all. We stopped for a quick pet of the lion hounds out back. Very friendly. Dale quickly showed Henry the skull from the first lion he shot last winter, with a pistol. Rosie had quickly popped popcorn for the kids. “It’s 20 miles up. Follow us!” And their diesel roared away.
As we drove through the apparently desolate rangeland, we noticed we were winding higher and higher. It was dark now but it was getting cooler and more humid. Greener, more trees, wide valleys surrounded by aspen. Dale would slow up and we’d see his spotlight reveal a group of muley bucks in a lush meadow. Then we pealed off the road onto a ranch 2-track. A few miles later we were scaling a lumpy, twisty grade when we stopped. There was the cabin. The air was fresh and crisp, stars in the black sky. We sat out on the porch, chatting. They had to get up at 5a.m. the next morning to drive some teens to Utah for a camp. It was great to see them, even though out on the deck we could only hear them. We watched the stars and hung out, telling old family stories, then hit the hay.
What a great place. No wonder they wanted to get up there. Dale said there was a herd of a thousand elk right in the meadow out front last Thanksgiving. Rosie keeps these places spotless and runs two stoves at the main mess hall.
Later on I told my Dad about the cabin and he perked up at my layout description. It’s just like the house we grew up in, he said, with a chuckle. There’s roots for you.
