Long day Thursday as my sister and I spent nearly 12 hours driving to Maybell in Northwest Colorado and back. The reason was a funeral service for Bill Sloan, who died last week at age 78.
Bill was married to a cousin, Linda, daughter of our father’s oldest brother, Ed White. Linda lived for years with an artificial heart, and then a heart transplant. A tough, courageous woman, she had a son and two daughters who were at the service along with many grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Bill was a great fan of Ford trucks and rode to the cemetery on one he restored.
It is hunting season in Colorado and we saw lots of hunters. We also saw scores of deer hanging around Craig, CO (pop 5,000) where they are safe. No dummies, those deer.
The weather was perfect and the roads dry. My sister took the longer route via I-80 through Wyoming. Twenty minutes longer per map programs, no mountain passes, and fewer stupid flatlander drivers made for a relaxing trip.
Banner, the dog, came along. After the cemetery service, the Maybell Women’s Club served a meal at the City Park (outside because of COVID). All the small, and not so small, children swarmed him. He took it all with stoicism.
Across from the park is the old Victory Hotel.
http://www.victoryhotel.info/home.html
It is for sale. I hope someone buys it and keeps it going. Both my sister and I have stayed there but not this trip.
12 comments:
Condolences on his passing.
Just looked at a map, and that's a ways out there!
Don't think SLW would be interested in the Hotel. She thought Wellington was "desolate"!
drjim
That part of the world is miles and miles of miles and miles. Think Bakersfield to Las Vegas.
Condolence.
And this post reminded me of the funerals I've done in Texas over the last decade, many in country graveyards. It's quite a thing, pronouncing old English words of scripture, comfort and blessing out in the Texan countryside.
There you are, dressed up like a ghost from the 1650s and there they are, cowboys, equally from a different age.
You'll forgive the self-centered reverie!
RIP to your friend.
So it's pretty much scrubland? Or is it more like a desert, like Eastern Washington/Oregon?
drjim
West of the Continental Divide much of Northwest Colorado, away from streams and rivers, is sagebrush covered rolling hills with occasional mesas. I'm comfortable with the area and find much of interest. When the sagebrush is removed the tall native grasses come back and the land will support a lot of wildlife and/or cattle. The Native Americans practices selective wildfires for just that reason. It isn't as bleak as, say, I-70 Salina, UT to Grand Junction, CO which you drove when you moved to CO.
LSP
Psalms were read by a lay minister at the graveside. The local church cannot support a full time minister. As to the reasons his children decided how the service would be conducted I'm not privy; there as a spectator/mourner if you will.
Glad it was a safe trip, and sorry that it was necessary.
OldNFO
Thank you.
OK, that's about what I meant when I called it "scrubland".
I enjoy seeing it all. We stopped for pictures several times on that long, bleak strech through Utah. I should have filled up before we took the turn-off, though. We had something like three gallons left when we hit the first gas station!
In my world, 1/2 a tank is "empty". That was drilled into me by my Dad.
Sorry for your loss ~ so many funerals these days. :-(
Thank you.
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