Day 6 & 7 - Goodland, KS- Carbondale, CO
Day 6
It’s surprising how easy it has been for us to wake up so early after such late nights. Day after day, we are rising with the sun (well, in Goodland, we rose with the roosters.)
At 7 am, Mike & Joyce Burk, our hosts in Goodland, prepared us a homemade biscuit and gravy feast that fueled us up for the 6 hour ride to Carbondale. We shared stories over breakfast as if we’d known each other forever. Their kindness won’t be forgotten.
One of my favorite parts of this trip so far is meeting and becoming friends with people we may have never crossed paths with in any other situation. It always happened to some degree when I’ve been out on the road in the past, but there is an intimacy about these house shows during this particular time in history that I’ve never experienced before. People are yearning for interaction and entertainment, and in these situations, we are nothing but people, together, searching for and finding the missing pieces of our new normal.
I briefly mentioned some difficulty clasping the front passenger side corner of the camper when loading out. This has been a quirk that has given us some grief from time to time and this particular morning in Goodland, we weren’t in a rush to get out so we did some troubleshooting. With my buddy Chris trying to help me figure out what was hanging it up, I noticed some scrape marks on the front corner lift arm that encouraged some investigation. We lifted the top back up (for the 30th time lol) and I contorted myself to take a look inside the shell and saw that there was a mount for the ground wire that was installed directly in line with the lift arm. Depending on how level our ground was at each stop was affecting whether or not it would hang up. Realizing how easy of a fix this was, Chris handed me his screw gun and I repositioned the mount 4 inches forward to avoid further contact. I’ve learned from Buddhist teachings that to know suffering is to know life. Now that our pop down suffering is over, we are ready to live!
The ride to Carbondale was mostly easy as we literally just drove I-70 west from point a to point b. Driving through Glenwood Canyon is one of my favorite drives. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t witnessed its pure beauty. I am still learning how to drive the rig ( the Subaru with camper attached) through the mountains for maximum efficiency and minimum wear and tear on the tranny. Step one, no cruise control. Step two, switch from automatic to manual. This is especially helpful on steep downgrades as to use the gears of transmission to control your descent rather that your brakes. Step three, don’t be in a rush. Even though the Subaru is rated to tow 2,700 lbs, It takes a little time to get up to highway speeds. Oh well, we’re not in any real rush.
Arriving in Carbondale was great. We pulled in just as our cousin, Michael, was getting home from work. After exchanging greetings and unpacking, it wasn’t long before we were mixing Manhattans. We laughed and cried as we caught up on all that has transpired since our last visit a year ago. Maggie and I lamented that we probably wouldn’t see Michael’s parents due to Covid concerns (though we would would see his mom , Aunt Bridgette, briefly.)
Cousin Michael and August get along great and share a love for creating electronic music. Michael has a beautiful home studio and He couldn’t wait to hear what August has been creating on Garage Band. It was then that we started making plans for the Carbondale live stream.
Sleep was inevitable, especially after putting down 3/4 of a bottle of rye at altitude. We retired to our suite to recharge for a day of exploring Carbondale.
Day 7
We slept late today (7:30am) which was nice. After after raiding the fridge for left over Chinese food, we made our way out. First stop, coffee, followed by a visit to a local outdoor sporting goods store for hiking shoes for Maggie and August. We went into Carbondale for some thrift shopping and decided we wanted to do a sushi picnic for lunch. We found a nearby sushi restaurant that would deliver our order to our car and we were off.
Rain started to come down so we decided to just go back to the house to eat when we realized we we had someone else’s order. Now, normally I would’ve been been quite peeved about this, but on my way back to get our proper order, the rain started to dissipate, and it looked like our picnic would be on! I returned with both our correct and incorrect orders and found a little pond nearby with a picnic bench. We enjoyed the pond and were surprised to see crawfish in it! Colorado crawfish! Who knew?
After lunch, we found a nearby trail that rimmed the Roaring Fork River. We hiked for a couple miles enjoying the terrain. We saw chipmunks and gray squirrels, yellow warblers (I think) and we watch on as fly fishers caught and released brown trout. We love Colorado.
We returned to our suite for a power down before prepping a steak dinner and setting up for August’s first ever live DJ set. Michael and a couple of his friends that he creates music with provided all the sound and video equipment to create a rave like environment for DJ Auggi D’s set. August was so excited about this and I was so happy for him to be in the spotlight and be appreciated by others who share in his love for EDM.
Augs set was fantastic! (Video up on Mike Doussan FB page) All of the music be played was 100% original and he had us all grooving! Seeing him dancing as he controlled the beat made me so happy and proud. He put himself to bed shortly after and here we are now, ready for Telluride.
It was great visiting with our cousin and making such special memories here in Carbondale, but the road goes on and so must we.
In the words of the ever inspiring Spencer Bohren, be good to yourselves and each other.
Mike