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70 – 45 1/2 – 65 – 92 – 133 – 82 – 70. Decoded – the highway route Denae and I took on a 2-day trip covering some of the Western Slope. For those non-number people who like to travel by town and city names, the route looked this way – New Castle, Parachute, De Beque, Cedaredge, Orchard City, Hotchkiss, Paonia, Marble, Redstone, Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, and back home.
We were looking for a quick Fall Break getaway, an opportunity to catch some of the last of the fall colors and enjoy the Grand Mesa. On top of the largest flat-topped mountain in the world, we hiked to pristine alpine lakes. We spent the night on the back side of the mesa outside of Cedaredge (not ‘ridge’ but ‘edge’ as it’s on the edge of the cedars) and had dinner at the only restaurant open on a Sunday night – La Familia.
The next day we stopped at Cedaredge’s Pioneer Town, Big B’s Fruit Stand near Austin (and picked up some of the last harvested local peaches), worked our way over McClure Pass, poked around Marble (eating at Slow Groovin BBQ – a close rival to Moe’s) and then headed home. The people we met on the Western Slope are salt of the earth – many committed to the same ideals as early American settlers in Colorado – agriculture, mining, tourism, etc.
And what does this musing have to do with VCHS? We travelled the southern route of the Western Slope – the VCHS athletic league – Grand Valley (Parachute), Coal Ridge (New Castle), De Beque, Plateau Valley (Collbran), and North Fork (Hotchkiss) to name a few of the schools.
As I write, our football team is 3-0 and volleyball team is
10-0 in the Western Slope League, and I’m grateful that our students have the privilege to compete against students from a large swathe of western Colorado. Yes, the travel times are long and oftentimes making for late nights for our student-athletes and their parents. But it’s worth it. Our students’ exposure to the western way of life and its people is an education all to itself and part of the overall VCHS experience!
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