8-19-2010 1930 Lost Angel Road, Boulder CO.
Our first approach to this overlook of the Sugarloaf Basin was last evening, and my immediate first impression was arrival at a farm in The Shire, Middle Earth. Although the road, just graded by Roland, probably driving Melissa with her 14 foot blade, was much more than any hobbit could ever wish for. Melissa is only one of the several graders in the machinery yard here, hidden behind the hill. In the foreground are a collection of small buildings, several built into the earth, and one, a root and battery cellar, completely underground. That structure survived the fire 21 years ago that cleared out all the timber. In the minds of our hosts, the tree squirrel family that built a nest within earshot of the marine clock, the shade and the plants that grew there, and the security of living under the big trees is still a bright reality. The new reality, huge green views and vistas, is pretty good too.
What looks like middle earth is the small buildings, stuccoed to resist any future fires, large enough for their needs and not any larger than needed. One building for watchmaking, one a studio for body work, one for laundry and bathing with a sleeping loft, another the outhouse and then there is the machine shop and several sheds thrown in.
The electricity is solar, and everything except the printer runs on DC 24 volts. Roland on the subject of AC electricity as a convenience only to the big producers is one of the many positive talks that I've heard. Makes sense; had solar generation been available, perhaps we would have grown a world of local electricity production. Now we have 'the Grid', with all of its problems, plus big hydroelectric, coal fired power plants, and all the vested interests that will make it harder to ever make the conversion back to local DC.
We arrived here in paradise after a really pleasant day travelling from Green River Wyoming to Laramie then past Cheyanne and then South to Boulder. Yes, and Green River is the home of the Green River Ordinance, used to banish door to door solicitation. From Green River we took Wyoming 53 up into the hills East of town, and had 26 miles of high speed dirt road worth of wild horses. Beautiful animals, several herds with foals and a group of mixed gender teenagers hanging out around one of the viewpoints, clearly wanting to bum cigarettes and get in trouble. And antelope as well. And miles of rolling sage and other low vegetation. For Wyoming, there were almost no wind, bright blue sky, and a lot of silence.
And on to Laramie. Because of the name(given to a child by friends long ago) , because of Matthew Shepherd, and the brutality of what can happen in a beautiful college town (like Kent State) when our internalized oppression suddenly is given free rein, and because we needed to stop for gas. Laramie is a university town, but its also a town without a very secure attachment to the economic events that are sweeping towns like Boulder forward into the age of informatics. The houses in Laramie are small, and look somewhat needy. Hey, they look poor. The downtown is being regenerated with antique stores, and shops selling outdoor equipment to students. But the Salvation Army store stock is pretty thin and pawed over. And theres no sign of the kind of growth that we saw 100 miles down the road.
In Laramie, the construction looks to be Title 8. In Boulder, the construction looks to be condominiums for people who got their job through the internet, and will be staying maybe 8.9 months. The farmers market Betty took us to today was full of fresh vegetables, artisan youghurt, and multiracial families out shopping. The intersection where I pulled over to GPS the Whole Foods Store was Tek Storage and Tape streets. Whole blocks of newly sodded corporate yards around new buildings with imaginative single word names. The party we were taken to could have been in Marin..or Palo Alto...or maybe more likely outside Sonoma. Somewhere prosperous anyway.
And I don't mean to belittle Laramie; I like the looks of the town, and they are clearly working hard to make it even nicer. Its as far ahead of Lee Vining as Boulder is of Laramie. And I dont even know if I want more Boulders. But it sure is impressive to see a community that seems to be inventing itself in a big way.
So...from the small scale beauty of Lost Angel Road, where our friends live in a energy footprint sized to their liking, to the burgeoning success of Boulder as a whole...its quite a contrast to the relative neglected poorness that we've seen in many towns on the way here.
Tomorrow...on towards Madison WI...but theres a lot of Iowa between now and then.
I promised to write about 'infirmity'. Weak, feeble, uncertain or vascillating of mind...decrepitude brought on by aging. Well, I think as good as any a way to describe whats happening to me.
Oh its not any one major thing. Just stumbling a little more, forgetting a bit more, not leaping up from sitting on the floor, and being careful navigating to the bathroom at night. It all adds up to becoming infirm. And looking ahead, since we are constantly provided with great examples of where we are going, all of these things clearly will become more and more a fact of daily life. If we are fortunate enough to have one. I remember Sybil in response to my question as to whether she every was resentful about lugging cold water, chopping wood to warm the house, and doing dishes in a pan, smiling and saying 'well, I think of the alternative'. Today I met a young woman whose spinal infection has resulted in constant chronic pain and legs so weak she can walk only a few steps. 'Well', she said in response to a similar question about coping, 'most of the time I get by and sometimes i feel like shooting myself'. Age, accident; events that produce infirmity produce major branch points in lives that hitherto may have seemed to be difficult, but suddenly are clearly 'you ain't seen nothing yet!!' But, well, I think of the alternative.
greetings from paradise
alan
alan
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