In the Moment...Blog

Going with Mercury’s Flow, Part Five

Thursday brought rain, giving us a perfect opportunity to visit the Denver Art Museum. We started with the small but interesting collection of European and American painting, sculpture, and furniture; then toured a special exhibit of Amish and Mennonite quilts; and ended up on the ground floor for a special show of quilts from Gee’s Bend, Louisiana. After lunch of gourmet macaroni and cheese (whole grain pasta with a sauce made from four kinds of cheese), we entered the Asian galleries, where we stayed until closing. 

Statues of Vishnu, Shiva and Parvati, Ganesh, and other deities greeted us in the India section. Later on, we communed with several Buddhas and then immersed ourselves in the inkwells, tables, paintings, and other accoutrements of the scholar’s tradition in China. Just before leaving, we came upon a gallery devoted to objects from the Han Dynasty, which ruled China from 206 BCE to 220 CE. The sculptures there enchanted me with their simple shapes and flowing lines. A prancing horse stood out from the other pieces thanks to his swaggering stride and enormous lips pulled back to reveal large teeth and a mischievous smile. 

On our way home we stopped for a treat at Bonnie Brae ice cream parlor, justly famous for the many flavors it makes. In the evening, we dined at The Fort in Morrison, which specializes in wild game and preserves food traditions from the days of the Santa Fe Trail. Although the menu offered rocky mountain oysters, rattlesnake cakes, and other delicacies, my altitude-weary system made do with nothing more adventurous than a bison filet with lobster tail. My husband, however, tried the wild game platter, which presented a bison steak, elk chop, and roasted quail. We both enjoyed the prickly pear cocktail. While eating at our window table, we watched the sky darken and turn blue and then indigo as the Sun set and the city lights north of us began to twinkle against the sky and the mountain peaks. Afterward, we wandered through the restaurant’s courtyard, admiring the adobe architecture and the scent of the outdoor fire. 

The next day was our last in Colorado, and we opted to see downtown via a walking tour. At length we found the Brown Palace, an elegant old hotel that brought back memories of my stay there on business many years ago. After admiring the ornate lobby, we made our way to “Lodo” (lower downtown) for lunch with the daughter of a friend; our conversation ranged from travel and art to reincarnation and Atlantis, and suddenly three hours had passed and it was time to part. That evening, we took in a baseball game between the Rockies and the Milwaukee Brewers; Milwaukee led most of the way but Colorado began to score in the late innings and emerged victorious. 

The next morning, we got an early start for home. The time and the miles seemed to pass quickly, and by early evening we were deep into Iowa. In a final homage to Mercury’s retrograde, we scrapped our original plan for a two-day return journey and opted to drive straight through. We reached Chicago around three the next morning, pulling up in front of our house to the sound of birds chirping. Our two cats were confused yet overjoyed to see us and joined us on the bed when we finally turned in around 4 a.m. 

- Friday, June 20, 2008

Going with Mercury’s Flow, Part Four

During day two of our drive west, the words “Cripple Creek” had caught my eye while scanning the atlas’s map for Colorado. In a flash, my mind made the connection with Linda Goodman, perhaps the most famous astrologer of the 20th century, whose 1968 book, Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs, became the first astrology book to make the New York Times bestseller list. Goodman went to Cripple Creek on the advice of a guru, and the diary she kept while there became the basis for her book Star Signs. She later returned to the town, where she lived until her death in 1995. 

Immediately my heart longed to visit and see the surroundings that had inspired Goodman’s most mystical writings, but our queries about making the journey met with discouragement, as Cripple Creek is at least three hours from Denver. It seemed too long for a day trip, but something in me held on to the idea and trusted that if it was meant to be it would happen. 

On Wednesday of our vacation my altitude sickness had passed, so we rose early, had breakfast, and drove due south out of Denver. We missed the main exit for Garden of the Gods, our intended destination, so we drove into Colorado Springs and stopped at the visitors center to get revised directions. After asking the staff about Cripple Creek, we learned it was just an hour west…and suddenly a trip there seemed not only probable but fated. 

We drove the short distance into Garden of the Gods and felt the requisite awe at its massive red rock formations jutting jaggedly out of the earth. The day was hot, so we decided against hiking and instead drove slowly through the park twice to drink in the scenery, enjoy the sunshine, and take pictures. By then we had agreed we would make the trip to Cripple Creek, so we headed west. 

In a few minutes, we saw a sign announcing “Cliff Dwellings” and, in keeping with the spirit of Mercury retrograde (and serendipity), we decided to stop. When we pulled up, young Indian men clad in colorful garb were entertaining a small crowd with ceremonial dances. After watching a while, we explored the nearby pueblo; built on a mesa and inhabited until 1984, it now houses the Manitou Springs Cliff Dwellings Museum filled with tools, pottery, and weapons. Afterward, we strolled over to the cliff dwellings that the Anasazi Indians carved into the rock centuries ago and enjoyed the self-guided tour that led us through window-size openings, up and down wooden ladders, and through cool, dark passages connecting the dwellings’ many rooms. Peering out from the pueblo revealed a spectacular view of the nearby mountains and evoked deep feelings of peace and connection with the people who settled here so long ago. 

Leaving the cliff dwellings, we made our way down a steep road with several switchbacks into the town of Manitou Springs, where we drove the bustling and picturesque main street and stopped at the Stagecoach Inn for lunch. Returning to Highway 24, we passed several towns and Pike’s Peak before taking the mountain road that leads to Cripple Creek. The way grew steep and narrow as we climbed higher, with the mountain’s bulk and the lane for oncoming traffic to our left and the edge of the road and a sheer dropoff (and no guard rails) to the right. As we drove, the elevation—and our anxiety—increased, and aspen began to outnumber the other trees.  

When we finally arrived, our first sight of this small city of just more than 1,000 people was one of its nearly two dozen casinos. Just up the street, we found the Cripple Creek & Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad, where the next tour aboard its more than century old team train was departing in ten minutes. We bought tickets and on board we saw a young engineer in the locomotive shovel coal into the firebox to heat the boiler that produced the steam to power the train. He also drove the train and gave the four-mile, 45-minute tour, telling Cripple Creek’s colorful history as a gold mining town, how it grew to nearly 50,000 inhabitants, how it survived floods and fires, and how underground mining gave way to today’s pit mining, which still extracts millions of dollars in gold and silver every year. During the trip, two antelopes in an aspen grove to the left of the tracks looked up at us before bolting away. On the other side of the tracks, the town stretched before us, a tiny flatland tucked away in a lonely corner of the mountains.  

Back at the depot, Laura, one of the young women on staff, sought us out. When we had bought our tour tickets, we’d asked if anyone knew where Linda Goodman had lived; Laura said her grandmother had been one of Goodman’s best friends, and while we were on the train she had driven to the house to obtain precise directions for us. So it came as no surprise when we learned she was a Libra, a sign famous for its hospitality. 

With the afternoon waning, we hurried to Hayden Street for a glimpse of the house. On our first pass, we drove right by it because it sits below street level and a mass of trees shields the structure from view. Reaching the end of the road, we made two left turns and found ourselves on the next street over, where we could spot the house easily. It was set into the hill perhaps two or three dozen feet above us, a two-story house with a one-story section to the right holding a pool and enclosed with windows to provide a panoramic view of the town below. We drove back to Hayden and parked; my husband waited in the car during my expedition to the house. After only a few steps, the elevation of nearly 9,500 feet had me breathless and gasping for oxygen. The entrance nestles in a nook along the house’s front, the trees at the roadside adding another barrier and increasing the sensation of a fairytale cottage enveloped in mystery. My mind’s eye imagined Goodman there, walking through her front door carrying groceries and setting them down before going into the pool area to gaze out her windows and feel the depth of No Time, or what she always called the Eternal Now. 

Her brash Aries spirit still seemed to permeate the area, and something inside me felt her snap, “I’m not here!” to me (and to anyone else making the pilgrimage to this place). Yet her personality dominates the house, with its stained glass windows filled with images dear to her heart: St. Francis with an angel and rainbow, the annunciation, and the nativity. Walking to the side of the house and looking out at Cripple Creek and the ridge of mountain tops far beyond it helped me see what brought Goodman to this magical, haunted, “slipping off the time track” town. 

By then, the sky was darkening as a storm gathered, and we had just enough daylight to get back down the mountain in the light. With a last look at the house and a silent thanks to Goodman for luring me there, we left for Denver. This time, our journey took us on the mountain side of the road, where our car could hug a reassuring edge bolstered by a mass of granite. We made it down the mountain before dark and reached town by dinnertime. Goodman always used to say, “Expect a miracle,” and even in death she’d granted me one with our unexpected journey to Cripple Creek.

- Thursday, June 19, 2008

Going with Mercury’s Flow, Part Three

After our high altitude adventures on Sunday, we decided to stay on the city’s flat plain for a while. On Monday, we drove downtown to the Denver Botanic Gardens, where we spent most of the day. Our good fortune and good timing became apparent immediately when we saw how much of the garden was in bloom. 

The lilac garden offered up abundant color and fragrance, thanks to more than 80 varieties at the height of their blooming. More than 200 kinds of iris also in full bloom sported nearly every color imaginable. As we walked, waterways throughout the gardens brought cooling relief and soothing sounds to fortify us against the intense heat. In the Romantic Gardens, climbing roses and small cottage-style structures evoked a fairytale world while the Victorian Secret Garden took us back more than a century to the age of tropical plant collecting. 

We ate lunch at an outdoor table in an area shaded by trees and bordered by the Kitchen and Herb Gardens on one side and the Monet Gardens on the other. Afterward, we explored the rest of the plants, from the Rock Alpine Garden to the Western Panoramas to the Woodland Mosaic. My favorites included the Japanese Garden, with its koi pond and carefully pruned pines, and PlantAsia, whose serene walk featured a little wooden pavilion, a gentle stream, and inspiring quotes. At the end, we went to the top of Anna’s Overlook, an earth pyramid planted with ground cover and native grasses, to rest and survey the many kinds of gardens we had just experienced. An insistent breeze cooled us as we marveled at the botanic gardens’ placement in the heart of Denver’s downtown amid highrises, low-rise apartment buildings, numerous churches, and an old neighborhood of single family houses. 

The next day took us to Boulder, where we walked tree-shaded Pearl Street, shopped, and enjoyed lunch at an outdoor café. Our first stop was Boulder Book Store, where my husband browsed books on politics and current events and where my intuition led me upstairs to the metaphysical section and a pass through the astrology books. At the end of the day, on our way to the car, we came across Lighthouse Bookstore, which specializes in all things mystical and metaphysical (or as my husband laughingly and lovingly calls it, “mumbo jumbo”). He set off to put more money in the parking meter and left me in the store to browse; about an hour later, while resting on a bench, he saw me emerge with a bag of books and other inspiring goodies along with tales of delightful conversation with the proprietor and his assistant about Chicago and its renowned hot dogs and pizza. 

That evening, we headed to the little mountain town of Morrison, south of Denver, for dinner at a Latin fusion restaurant, where we sat outside near a small waterfall whose splashing kept us company as we dined and seemed to become a murmuring part of the conversation as we talked. Driving back afterward, enveloped in the darkness and the mountains, my soul felt merged with the surroundings and completely disconnected from our usual routines in Chicago. Although we did not know it, the following day we would enter even deeper into the local territory and step even farther outside of time…  

- Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Going with Mercury’s Flow, Part Two

Driving through Nebraska on the second day of our vacation took us past farms, all lush and green in the bright sunshine against brilliant blue skies, thanks to recent copious rains. Despite Nebraska’s great width and mostly unchanging scenery, we found the landscape soothing and restful—just the medicine we needed after months of intensity in our work lives. Also, being from the Midwest, the sight of a flat landscape feels familiar and comforting, as do farm fields, cattle, and barns. All of it reminded me of the 1992 film O Pioneers!, which was filmed in Nebraska and based on Willa Cather’s 1913 novel of the same name. 

At midday, we stopped in North Platte at Valentino’s for lunch, in homage to friends of that name. Back on the road, we revisited our childhoods by getting gas at a Sinclair station and admiring the dinosaur logo. Once in Colorado, we visited a rest stop in Sterling, which ranks as perhaps the cleanest of its kind, with the friendliest staff. We lingered a bit to enjoy cookies and conversation; on the way out, we admired Metamorphosis, an enormous statue featuring a caterpillar at the bottom and an emerging butterfly at the top. 

By late afternoon, we arrived in Denver. The next day, friends took us up to Rocky Mountain National Park, where the elevation exceeds 8,000 feet at the entrance and climbs sharply from there. Once inside, the park’s abundant wildlife became evident immediately via the elk grazing close to the road. We headed up to Bear Lake, where crowds of people in shorts basked in the warm sunshine while hiking about on the foot of snow that had fallen the night before. Coming through a clearing, we gasped as the lake came into view, its cold, clear mountain water partly covered in ice that sparkled in the brilliant midday light. After a brief walk, we left for Sprague Lake, where we found a shady spot to eat our sandwiches and cookies and then strolled the trail around the lake. In the water, a guide wearing waders was teaching two younger men how to fly fish. 

Afterward, we drove Trail Ridge Road, which affords breathtaking views of the park from dizzying heights of more than 12,000 feet in some parts. By then, it had become evident my body is one of those prone to altitude sickness, so my activity thereafter consisted of breathing deeply in the backseat to get oxygen into my system, drinking water to thin my blood and relieve the sickness, and exiting the car cautiously at each viewing area to look around (but not too close to the edge of any cliffs) and take photos. The sights we witnessed made up for my physical discomfort, however. The higher we drove, the deeper the snow, until the road was fenced on one side with a massive, high wall of white, with the other side open to the scenery (and steep drop) below. At the Continental Divide, snow covered most of the ground, except where someone had dug out the explanatory sign. During the journey, we watched the terrain change from high desert to alpine to tundra, and we saw the trees shift from pine to fir and aspen and then to nothing as we drove above the treeline. At the highest part of the road, we got out to witness other visitors throwing snowballs; by then, the altitude had me breathless and staggering. On the way down, we looked out over alpine meadows, natural waterfalls bursting forth and streams gushing in a frenzy, fed from melting snow on the mountain tops. At a lower altitude, we passed moose grazing with their young. 

Sated visually from so much spectacular scenery, we followed Trail Ridge Road to the end and left the park. On the journey home, we found a New Orleans style fish place and stopped for dinner. Now full in every possible way, we headed back to Denver and an early bedtime for me.

- Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Going with Mercury’s Flow

The next-to-last day of May found us driving westward for a vacation in Denver and surrounding areas. Knowing Mercury would be retrograde throughout the trip, we gave up making any firm plans—with the exception of our ultimate destination and the dates of our departures from Chicago and from Denver. Instead, we carried a few thoughts for things to do and places to see but allowed ourselves to surrender to the flow and let our spirits and our fluctuating energy levels guide our choices each day. The result was a journey filled with unexpected pleasures and free of the stresses and frustrations that typically accompany any kind of travel in this era.

On the first day, we stopped in Iowa City for lunch, but a wrong turn on the main road put us back onto the highway before we could get to any of the restaurants there. We took the incident as a message to press on, and presently we reached the Amana Colonies, where we pulled off and enjoyed a sumptuous family style lunch at an Amish restaurant. My beverage choice: a creamy Millstream root beer, made locally. Although we were full, when we heard that the servers double as pie makers each morning, we had to sample one of their creations. So we split a piece of fresh rhubarb pie that sported huge chunks of fruit, a perfect crust, and a tangy flavor just the right mix of sweet and sour. 

On our way out of the park, we gazed again at Path to Omaha, a monumental statue of four young men in baseball uniforms whose positions echo the shape and arrangement of the Iwo Jima Memorial. The statue commemorates Omaha’s role as home of the men’s NCAA world series since 1950. Then we ambled back to our hotel, where we turned in and slept soundly. The next day we were on the road before 8 a.m., anticipating new adventures in Denver…

- Monday, June 16, 2008