Back in the early'80s I was living in San Angelo, Texas with my ex-wife's mother (my ex-wife once told me with great venom that I should have married her mother) and I responded to an ad in the local paper looking for a cook to work for the summer at an RV resort in Southern Colorado. I was ready for a change of scenery so I interviewed for the job and accepted when it was offered. I threw my few belongings in the back of my beloved baby-blue Ford Econoline van, fitted out with double bed, sink, stove and aluminum rocking chair and headed off to Hidden Valley Resort, a broad riverside meadow dotted with trailer spaces around a timbered lodge, hunched in a sheltered valley between Pagosa Springs and Southfork, Colorado.
Well, the job didn't exactly work out as planned and I was asked to leave about 5 weeks in. The owners claimed they didn't like my cooking, but to that point I was only cooking for the staff as they straggled in to get the place open for another summer, and the staff claimed to love my cooking. My suspicion is that the owners got wind that their Mexican maid, Virginia, had been meeting me secretly in the woods at night, away from prying eyes.
Truth is that Virginia wanted a baby with blue eyes to take back to Mexico with her at the first opportunity and I was the paternal candidate at hand. I can honestly say that I declined to co-operate fully with her plan, but I didn't entirely resist her advances. So I suspect that the owners had a suspicion of what was going on and decided to nip it in the bud.
As it happened, I knew a couple of people in Pagosa Springs, Wayne and Nancy Walls, who operated an outdoor outfitting operation, based at the Fairfield timeshare resort on the pleasant road between Pagosa and Durango. I had met Wayne and Nancy a year or so earlier when I spent several days participating in a "Long Dance" ceremony and sweat lodge near Socorro, New Mexico. We had all become quite close in our few days in the desert, as one does sitting naked in a rough brush shelter in the desert with a bunch of strangers sweating like pigs, and so I had already gotten in touch with Wayne and Nancy as soon as I arrived in Pagosa. The day that I was cut loose from Hidden Valley I stopped at the Post Office on my way out of town, with no destination in mind, and I bumped into Nancy who immediately offered me a job as a driver for the bus they used to ferry river rafters to and from the San Juan River. They had an empty trailer on their property, and I moved right in.
After a crash (!) course in bus driving I got a commercial license and started work. A few succesful runs later I was asked to take on other responsibilities and I wound up taking groups to the Durango Silverton Railroad, dropping them off at the station in Durango, then racing up the mountain to pick them up in the historic mining town of Silverton to pilot their bus along the steep and winding road down the mountain and home to Pagosa. The drive was gorgeous and the tips were plentiful.
I also drove groups to Creede, another historic mining town to the east, which had a particularly good summer theater company, as well as the grave of Robert Ford, the man who shot Jesse James. I would stop on the way up to Creede in a pretty alpine meadow, fix a pleasant picnic lunch for the group, then on to the matinee performance in Creede. Add to that Friday night Bingo runs to the Indian reservation and occasional 4-wheel drive trips and it was a busy and varied summer. But the highlight was always the trip to the Anasazi ruins on the Ute Mountain reservation, near Towaoc, south of Cortez
These ruins are less well-known and thus less-visited than the far more famous Mesa Verde, but well worth a visit. We had a special arrangement with the tribe that allowed us to enter the reservation through an unposted rear entrance and meet the local guides, at a simple thatched ramada near the ruins, where we set up a picnic lunch for ourselves and the guides. From there the Ute guides, led by a wonderful character by the name of Art Cut-hair, would lead the group through the ruins, along the cliffs, through the dwellings and we would almost always be the only group there. The highlight was "Eagle's Nest", a cliff house that could only be reached by an almost vertical 20 ft rough wooden ladder, with great views of the canyon lands beyond. I got to know the area and its history and the guides themselves so well that on one occasion, when there wasn't a guide available, I was given permission to lead the group on my own. I loved that trip! It was a beautiful and evocative place, and I hope it still is.
So, Roy Romer, the Governor of Colorado at that time, decided to bring his entourage down from Denver to spend a few days on the reservation. We were asked to outfit the trip and, of course, I was to be the cook. We all camped out in teepees, including Governor Romer and his entire staff, and bathed in the river, no showers, no comfy beds. I did some of my cooking over the campfire, although I did use a 2-burner propane stove for much of the work.
It was great fun, though I never had time to leave the campground. The Governor and his folks spent about 3 days hiking the area and visiting the ruins. Governor Romer was pleasant company, a down to earth fellow who enjoyed oatmeal for breakfast and chocolate cake with milk for dessert. I used to have a cheerful photo of myself taken with Roy Romer and his staff at the camp, but I haven't seen it in years.
I spent 2 delightful summers in Pagosa Springs, wintering in California. Then disaster struck. I was returning from a 4-wheel drive trip when the vehicle I was driving, which had been overheating all day, caught fire as we drove through downtown Pagosa Springs and burned to the ground. The guys at the local gas station nicknamed me "Sparky" after that and my relationship with Wayne and Nancy soured and I never went back. The paying guests who were with me on the trip were quite delightful and tipped me heavily out of sympathy, and their kids drew me a crayon rendering of the disaster!
.
Well, the job didn't exactly work out as planned and I was asked to leave about 5 weeks in. The owners claimed they didn't like my cooking, but to that point I was only cooking for the staff as they straggled in to get the place open for another summer, and the staff claimed to love my cooking. My suspicion is that the owners got wind that their Mexican maid, Virginia, had been meeting me secretly in the woods at night, away from prying eyes.
Truth is that Virginia wanted a baby with blue eyes to take back to Mexico with her at the first opportunity and I was the paternal candidate at hand. I can honestly say that I declined to co-operate fully with her plan, but I didn't entirely resist her advances. So I suspect that the owners had a suspicion of what was going on and decided to nip it in the bud.
As it happened, I knew a couple of people in Pagosa Springs, Wayne and Nancy Walls, who operated an outdoor outfitting operation, based at the Fairfield timeshare resort on the pleasant road between Pagosa and Durango. I had met Wayne and Nancy a year or so earlier when I spent several days participating in a "Long Dance" ceremony and sweat lodge near Socorro, New Mexico. We had all become quite close in our few days in the desert, as one does sitting naked in a rough brush shelter in the desert with a bunch of strangers sweating like pigs, and so I had already gotten in touch with Wayne and Nancy as soon as I arrived in Pagosa. The day that I was cut loose from Hidden Valley I stopped at the Post Office on my way out of town, with no destination in mind, and I bumped into Nancy who immediately offered me a job as a driver for the bus they used to ferry river rafters to and from the San Juan River. They had an empty trailer on their property, and I moved right in.
After a crash (!) course in bus driving I got a commercial license and started work. A few succesful runs later I was asked to take on other responsibilities and I wound up taking groups to the Durango Silverton Railroad, dropping them off at the station in Durango, then racing up the mountain to pick them up in the historic mining town of Silverton to pilot their bus along the steep and winding road down the mountain and home to Pagosa. The drive was gorgeous and the tips were plentiful.
I also drove groups to Creede, another historic mining town to the east, which had a particularly good summer theater company, as well as the grave of Robert Ford, the man who shot Jesse James. I would stop on the way up to Creede in a pretty alpine meadow, fix a pleasant picnic lunch for the group, then on to the matinee performance in Creede. Add to that Friday night Bingo runs to the Indian reservation and occasional 4-wheel drive trips and it was a busy and varied summer. But the highlight was always the trip to the Anasazi ruins on the Ute Mountain reservation, near Towaoc, south of Cortez
These ruins are less well-known and thus less-visited than the far more famous Mesa Verde, but well worth a visit. We had a special arrangement with the tribe that allowed us to enter the reservation through an unposted rear entrance and meet the local guides, at a simple thatched ramada near the ruins, where we set up a picnic lunch for ourselves and the guides. From there the Ute guides, led by a wonderful character by the name of Art Cut-hair, would lead the group through the ruins, along the cliffs, through the dwellings and we would almost always be the only group there. The highlight was "Eagle's Nest", a cliff house that could only be reached by an almost vertical 20 ft rough wooden ladder, with great views of the canyon lands beyond. I got to know the area and its history and the guides themselves so well that on one occasion, when there wasn't a guide available, I was given permission to lead the group on my own. I loved that trip! It was a beautiful and evocative place, and I hope it still is.
So, Roy Romer, the Governor of Colorado at that time, decided to bring his entourage down from Denver to spend a few days on the reservation. We were asked to outfit the trip and, of course, I was to be the cook. We all camped out in teepees, including Governor Romer and his entire staff, and bathed in the river, no showers, no comfy beds. I did some of my cooking over the campfire, although I did use a 2-burner propane stove for much of the work.
It was great fun, though I never had time to leave the campground. The Governor and his folks spent about 3 days hiking the area and visiting the ruins. Governor Romer was pleasant company, a down to earth fellow who enjoyed oatmeal for breakfast and chocolate cake with milk for dessert. I used to have a cheerful photo of myself taken with Roy Romer and his staff at the camp, but I haven't seen it in years.
I spent 2 delightful summers in Pagosa Springs, wintering in California. Then disaster struck. I was returning from a 4-wheel drive trip when the vehicle I was driving, which had been overheating all day, caught fire as we drove through downtown Pagosa Springs and burned to the ground. The guys at the local gas station nicknamed me "Sparky" after that and my relationship with Wayne and Nancy soured and I never went back. The paying guests who were with me on the trip were quite delightful and tipped me heavily out of sympathy, and their kids drew me a crayon rendering of the disaster!
.
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