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Colorado Road Trip 9: Mountains and Sea
A mountain can serve as a beach — without the waves.
Plus tougher walks.
This year’s contribution came from Rob, who teaches at Colorado College. He engaged a cabin northeast of Durango, Colo., and our heavenly week turned into nine uninterrupted days of reading, talking, cooking, drinking, playing, screening and walking. Oh, and a few sidetrips to cliff dwellings, spas and twee downtown Durango.
One remarkable parallel: The weather. Winter on the Gulf alternates arid sunshine with shivery rain, both welcome. Summer on the Western Front of the Rockies at the lower end of the San Juan Mountains shifts between brilliant mornings and showery afternoons.
At the beach, one naps to the sound of crashing surf. In the mountains, it’s the wind combing through the tall pines.
Three of our companions I’ve known for more than 30 years each. Another four I’ve known for almost 20 years each. One, Doug, made his debut before this daunting company trapped with us in a remote cabin.
Paul and Doug’s story is like a song. Specifically, Kander and Ebb’s “Ring Them Bells.” The new couple lived across the quad from each other 25 years ago at Rice University. They both worked for major Texas-based airlines. They had had hundreds of chances to meet each other, but didn’t until they met earlier this year on a cruise to Antarctica.
Hearing of this, I immediately sent Paul a link to the lyrics of “Ring Them Bells,” which chronicles a New York gal who meets the boy next door, not at home, but in Dubrovnik on the Dalmatian Coast.
“‘Five? Five Riverside Drive in New York, that’s where you live?’” Shirley asks her new boyfriend, Norm Saperstein. “‘That’s that’s where I live, Five? Are you sure?’ As if that wasn’t enough, poor Shirley thought she’d gone deaf, When he told her his apartment there was 29 F. Yes, she was ‘E’, he was ‘F’, and they had not even met, Until she traveled the world to Yugoslavia yet.”
Paul, on five-month tour of seven continents after a lay-off from a high-tech firm, invited Doug to Dubrovnik. Kander and Ebb got it right: Single? “Open up the door, and hurry out in the hall!”
“Ring them bells, come on, come on, ring them bells. Make ‘em sing, you’d better ring them bells. It’s such a happy thing to hear ‘em ting-a-ling. You gotta swing them, ring them, swing them, ring them be-ells.”
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By Jeff
June 13, 2009 12:59 AM | Link to this
Oh, my heart melts and I'm sitting here crying. Wow.