Heads up that this is really just a what-I-did-this-past-week ramble without any underlying theme or clever message. I’ve just been in Colorado this past week, catching up with old friends and revisiting some old (in one case, really old) haunts. Slog through at your own peril.

Many of you know I grew up – to the extent that I ever properly grew up – in Denver, and still have many old friends, and some newer ones, scattered up and down the Front Range. And I’ve been getting back to Colorado regularly each August for Rocky Mountain Song School, in Lyons, along the St. Vrain River (I’ve written about that before).

But the problem is that, for the past few years, I’ve also had commitments back home ending the day before Song School started, and others back home the day after it ended. So I’ve had to dash in and back out, and never had the chance to actually visit most of these friends.

This year I decided to abandon those other annual commitments and indulge myself in a rental-car-powered stroll/drive down memory lane.

Started out north, catching up with Brydon and LaRissa, and their two dangerously adorable (and precocious) towhead boys. We met Brydon – gosh, how many years ago? – when a friend who was camped out in our guest room at the Greenwood Home for Wayward Nerds asked if we could take in a friend of his for just a few days. The thing was, he said, he was worried that we’d like Brydon more than we liked him. I don’t rate my friends, but it was impossible not to fall in love with Brydon, and then his wife LaRissa, and now they’re an important part of our lives. (Don’t worry, Zach, we still love you, too – come visit some time?)

I made a quick dash up to Fort Collins to meet with an amazing singer/songwriter who I’d only ever known from a Facebook group. I’d emailed her and invited myself up (“I adore your music – can I come visit?”), and we spent the afternoon swapping songs and talking about everywhich thing musical. I left, southbound, with my head bubbling with new tunes and ideas. Check her out on SoundCloud and YouTube.

Dinner with high school sweetie Charlotte and her brother Newton, catching up like we were still debate team rivals – oh, how did we ever survive those days? – then back west to Golden to see my old USAP manager Scott.

Who are these goofballs?!?

Scott was the guy who first invited me to work on an icebreaker (and as you know, turned my world upside down). When he’s not keeping things from going sideways down under, one of his favorite outdoor pastimes is four-wheeling in the high mountains with his three amazing Eagle scout kids. But as they’ve grown and developed their own interests, he’s had fewer opportunities to share this hobby.

Twist my arm.

I’d never been on one of these beasts before. But Scott walked me through the basics, and soon we were bouncing our way up old power line tracks and railway inclines above Georgetown to Argentine Pass, the highest* machine-traversable pass in Colorado, stopping to explore old silver mines along the way.

Then it was down to Walsenburg. Y’all know the story: Brian was my best friend in high school, Gretchen was my college sweetheart. I was (second) best man at their wedding and they’ve been a second family to our son Jeremy, who treats their four amazing kids as adoptive siblings.

So down I drove – hung out with the whole Orr-Sporleder clan for a few days. I spent a lot of time trying to catch up on correspondence while Brian and Gretchen worked. But those two have spent the past 30 or more years building and running the newspaper of record for three or four southern Colorado counties. So I got to ride along the “paper route” with Brian one morning, dropping bundles and chatting up customers in thriving little burgs and near ghost towns from Walsenburg all the way down to Raton, New Mexico.

B&G still own and maintain some of the mountain ranch land that Gretchen’s great grandfather, Louis B. Sporleder, bought after he came out in the 1870’s. Louis was a poetic spirit – an artist and writer, and visiting what remains of that expanse, especially with his descendants, is always a soul-filling experience.

A visit to the Orr clan is always punctuated – frequently! – by food. Ever since Gretchen first beguiled me with her mother’s secret butterscotch brownie recipe, I’ve understood how deeply rooted the family is in attention to food. Son Tom and his wife Helena run the justifiably busiest restaurant in town, a converted old gas station now reborn as Gub Gub’s Pizza. My second night in town, the whole family pitched in to cook up a feast at home, and I’m sure I’m still carrying some extra weight from those burgers.

On the way down to Walsenburg, I noticed that the coming weekend was the closing weekend of the Colorado Renaissance Festival, about an hour south of Denver. Brian and I used to go back in high school, and I’m kicking myself that I can’t now, from the road, find any of the undoubtedly embarrassing pictures of us all dressed up back then.

So how could I resist? Driving back up yesterday afternoon, I had to detour over to catch the final few hours of a festival I last attended over 45 years ago.

They’ve…they’ve got my number…

It’s…grown. While I’ve grown used to renfaires with plywood cutouts propped up in empty fields, the Colorado Renaissance Festival is an entire village of actual buildings, a maze of paths and streets on a wooded hillside that seemed to keep going in all directions. Honestly, it was kind of overwhelming. But fabulously goofy and fun – renfolk are there to be goofy and fun, and it’s a pretty universal language. Full set of pics here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/B1x8DMdkxhWm6rjy9

But now? Now it’s Sunday afternoon. I’ve already serendipitized myself through a quiet Saturday night in Arvada, picking a random Holiday Inn on the map and finding myself around the corner from both a fabulous late-night open mic, and a delightful Sunday morning farmers market. Spent the morning wandering up El Dorado Canyon in the 100F+ heat we’re having here, and soaked myself in a mountain stream. But Song School registration starts in a couple of hours, and the coming week is going to take all the energy and brain power and stamina I can muster.

More as it happens!