faced East towards Kansas. A slight turn to the west revealed
the place I would fall in love with over and over again. I had
gone to Denver to see a girl, but it was those mountains that
captured my heart for the long haul.
Moving to Colorado has been filled with some of the best
mistakes of my life and almost getting married was one of
them. It was a beautiful mistake that I wouldn’t change for
anything because I wouldn’t be where I am today. It’s a
great story for another time, but just so I don’t leave anyone
hanging, she didn’t have an Adam’s Apple or anything like
that, it just didn’t work out.
Soon after I found myself single in Colorado the calls came
in from the East Coast asking when I was moving back. I
knew Colorado was where I was meant to be, so I responded
by buying a house and a motorcycle. I never did move into
the house. It also didn’t have an Adam’s Apple; it just didn’t
work out. I didn’t want to be tied down. The motorcycle on
the other hand reawakened a lifelong passion.
In my youth, I always heard of people heading west to Park
City, Sierra Nevada, Aspen, Vail, etc. to ski. I wasn’t much
of a skier so I didn’t see the point of heading west. But that
was before discovering the west held something else more
12 Thunder Roads Magazine® Colorado
appealing than snow . . . . . . Sunshine!
Even though Colorado’s mythical three hundred days a
year of sunshine has long since been debunked. Proving to
be nothing more than a publicity stunt for the railroads over
100 years ago, it is still a pretty glorious place to live and
ride. For years, I defended the state to friends back east,
who believe I lived in the tundra. They were still calling soda,
soder, so I sympathized. I insisted that the weather was
beautiful year round. They didn’t buy it and I could swear I
could hear them turn up Billy Joel’s “Scenes from an Italian
Restaurant” in the background as a way to try and tempt
me back home. But Colorado was now my home. Besides I
could get a bottle of red and bottle of white--depending on my
appetite and mood, directly from the Front Range anytime I
wanted. I even tried to tell them that his amazing 1976 Album
Turnstiles heralding in Billy’s return to NYC from California
was actually overdubbed and mixed in Netherland, CO at the
Caribou Ranch, but it was of no use.
As I turn off pavement and onto the muddy road up the
approximately 11,676 feet in elevation that is the trail up
Rollins Pass, my Bluetooth speakers deliver that album to
my helmet. Coincidentally, as the second to last track, “I’ve
March 2016
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