Coming into Colorado

Paul Price’s plane from Atlanta landed in Denver 15 minutes after mine from Houston. We found each other at the baggage carousel and through a combination of cellphones, horn honks and intuition, found his parents and their Jeep Cherokee a few minutes later.


I first met the Prices last summer in Italy: a father, mother and son traveling together on the same Italy at Leisure tour as my mom and me. The first few days at Lake Como were miserable, cold and rainy, and this might be why I was drawn to them from the beginning: after a particularly nasty afternoon on the lake, Faith clambered onto the tour bus looking like she’d just been through a maelstrom. “Sorry I’m late,” she drawled in her Georgia accent. “I was having my hair done.”



Faith and Everett are retired doctors from the South who've lived in Colorado for the last 13 years; Paul is an English teacher in Columbia, SC. We had a lot to talk about with each other, and among other things, my mom and I rode in a funicolare with the Prices, and ate gnocchi and drank Chianti with them in Tuscany. I even shared a gondola with them in Venice.


It was only fitting that a year later I would be heading for an Italian restaurant with them - this one in Colorado Springs. We drank Pinot Grigio and ate entirely too much Venetian chicken salad and linguine before heading into the mountains to their home near Guffey.


If you don't know where Guffey, CO is (population: 35), don't feel bad. Even people who live there aren't certain. After our big meal, Paul did the driving and the twilight faded quickly into blackest night. Faith said about their home for the last 13 years, “You remember how to get there in the dark, don’t you Paul? Because we surely don’t.”


Faith and Everett also aren’t big on street names, preferring the landmark method of finding their way. “Somewhere up here is a sign for the Thunderbird Inn. Go slow when you see it and veer left.”



“Is there a highway number I could be looking for?” Paul wondered.



“I’m sure there is. But I don’t know the number.”



After successfully veering past the Thunderbird, the directions turned more specific. “Up here in a little while there’ll be a llama farm and then you’ll turn right. Of course you won’t be able to see the llama farm in the pitch dark, so you’ll just sort of have to go on instinct.”


Eventually we pulled onto the long and winding road that led to their multi-level home at 9,000 feet. The house, designed by Paul’s brother Charles, has panoramic mountain views from even the bathrooms and comes complete with a turret, 396 acres of rolling hills and two llamas. Because of all the dire warnings about dry mountain air, altitude sickness and accompanying insomnia, I drank three glasses of water, slathered my body in a thick layer of lemon verbena lotion, and slept like I only seem able to do when I am on vacation.



The next morning, after strong coffee and wholesome whole grain cereal, we seven (counting Gussy, the 15-year-old golden retriever and the llamas) set out on a hike from the Prices’ back deck. We climbed 360 Mountain, where Paul had built a cairn three years ago and left a log on which to sign in and post comments (just like at the summits of Everest or K2). We admired the bone tree, a creation of Paul and Faith using the bleached bones of something-or-other wired like Christmas decorations to its branches. We touched the fox tree for good luck, posed for photos at Lookout Point, resisted pushing over the Will Power Stump and then drove into town for lunch at Rita’s, the only restaurant in Guffey.



I can’t decide which part of this so far is giving me the most pleasure: Is it the stunning vistas and unique architecture? The warm welcome of new friends that I feel like I’ve known forever? Is it being in wonderful Paul’s company again, with his witty banter and appreciative, loving remarks?

Or is it the waking up and not having my first thought be, “How many dead cockroaches today?”