Day 4: Denver–Swiss Family Fondue
We loaded up and blasted for Denver to visit old family friends. We’d alerted them of our arrival just a few hours before. Not polite, I know, but they were excited and said “Let’s party!”
Then we hit the freeway in the 110degF heat. We get out at intervals for tank after tank of gas and pop and cold things. When we get out of the car, it’s like a furnace. But I love it. Gimme that lung-filling heat, that luxurious sweat. I sweat. I notice other people sweating, too. At a gas station while I’m filling up a young woman is sprawling in the car next to us. She’s barely clad, lean and curvy, stretching and writhing around, covered in sweat, angled my way and angling more and more. Oh my. It was quite a show. I try not to hyperventilate and get the gas cap back on. Her tattoo’ed Latin guy comes out later and they peel away.
I spent a few months in Denver back in the mid-80’s. It was a formative time and as we drove the freeway north of town I saw various neighborhoods beyond the barriers that brought back great old memories and even semi-visceral feelings that I didn’t know I had. There’s an oldstyle amusement park with wooden rollercoaster next to a small lake that we went past. I recalled going there with friends on a hot summer night. I’d forgotten. Very nice to get that one back. We overshot our exit on I-70 west of town and went down that huge luge-run stretch of freeway that twists and drops out of sight at the Chief Hosa exit. An exciting ‘welcome back’ for a flatlander who hasn’t driven in heavy steep-descending traffic in years. Bikes are legal on the freeways in Colorado. I wonder how fast one could get rolling in that 5 mile stretch. It would be fun to find out!
We also blew past the ole Red Rocks musicgrounds exit, bringing back more memories of whitelining through heavy traffic with pal Randy on his motorcycle to go to rock concerts and crazily explore the vicinity: riding up the dirt road to the big antenna hill nearby.
We finally got off at the El Rancho exit west of town. There’s a great old restaurant right there that I haven’t been to but which I recommend. I really like swanky old log cabin 50’s-era restaurants: big chandeliers and fireplaces. I suspect one could have a great steak and good time there. But we were meeting friends in the parking lot. They escorted us back to their mountainside condo.
These are international people where the husband is from Switzerland. It was near midnight and we hadn’t had dinner yet but they insisted on a proper Swiss fondue welcome. Wunderbar! The kids loved it, too. We sat up chatting and having a fine time. Fondue: the social dinner. Fritz is presently working with Vietnam on its economy. Pretty big stuff. He says he has 2000 farmers who are ready to export the very best in bamboo flooring anywhere in the world. They’re working on lining up markets for them. Just tell them who wants a container to kick things off. I guess bamboo makes a cheap good beautiful hardwood floor. Outside below the condo balcony where we’re breakfasting in our first fresh mountain air some pre-teen girls like my stickers so I let them each take one.
