Travelogue—Episode One: Glen Haven

On Monday I was driving up Big Thompson Canyon to Estes, and I decided to go through Glen Haven instead of taking the direct route. I was glad I did, as it was narrow and winding and full of trees (mostly aspen and white poplar) and glimpses of river (in any wetter state it would have been called a creek) and odd houses in various stages of dilapidation and/or eccentricity. I passed a sign informing me that it was Open Range and I could expect to encounter Livestock On Road. Disappointingly, I did not. However, I came around a particularly delicious curve and saw, set back and down from the road, a house that (based on appearance) had sometime within the past decade retired from a career as a barn. On the gate was a sign that said, "COWS NOT MINE."

A few curves later, I encountered a driveway leading in a winding sort of way up a treeless, rounded hill, upon which another sign read, "WELCOME HOME JESSICA". At the time it did not occur to me to wonder why I ought to welcome her home, but I wondered how those neighbors got along and whether or not they knew each other. What an interesting place to live, I thought. Rural mountain communities seem almost by necessity to congeal into their own little worlds. I could now waste a sentence or two wondering if 'congeal' is really the word I want right there, but I think I'll leave it hanging and ramble onwards.

My car rambled on as well, and gradually upwards. I went with it, since I didn't have much else to do. I came around a curve (there was a lot of that going on) and saw several very pondersome things all at once. My first glimpse was of a house—but not just any house. It was small and low and smothered in trees and other greenery, and was very unmistakably purple. The yard was pleasantly cluttered with all sorts of fluffy new-age-y objects and trinkets, and wooden butterflies of various colors had fastened themselves all over the house at intervals. I had only the briefest impression of this before the curve bent my gaze from west to north and a rather pedantic sign told me in no uncertain terms that I was Now Entering Glen Haven, and would I Please Observe the Speed Limit. Underneath someone had tacked a small sign saying, "NOT DRAKE". Drake is, of course, the town farther down the mountain at which the road for Glen Haven departs from Highway 34. I wondered if the Not Drake person had ever met the Cows Not Mine person, or if they were one and the same. Perhaps mountain living breeds crotchetiness . . . but then there was the purple house. That was anything but crotchety. I glanced back at it, and saw that the inside was no less cluttered than the outside. It looked rather like one of those trinket shops that fill themselves up with all manner of interesting froufrou that you can spend hours looking at and trying not to break every time you turn around. Maybe it in fact was one, but I saw no sign. Just more butterflies.

About that point I decided I should probably look at the road, so I stopped looking at the house and faced back west (the road, as per its habit, had curved again) and found I was looking down the entire length of Glen Haven proper, which I believe could be set in its entirety inside any decent football stadium. A general store on the right, a fascinating-looking inn on the left, an inn on the right, a coffee shop (or something?) and riding stables on the left, a few houses . . . and then a sign for the benefit of traffic in the other direction, which I craned my neck to read, informing them that now they, too, were entering Glen Haven . . . by which I inferred that I must be exiting it. They had the same injunction not to speed, but not a word did I see about whether or not it might really have been Drake. Maybe they assume it's only flatlanders who are confused about such things. Being a flatlander myself, I have no way of knowing.

Shortly thereafter, I encountered two wonderfully steep pairs of switchbacks, which I was rather overpleased to find my car capable of negotiating. I allowed the euphoria to pass, however, in light of the next pressing problem: whether or not I should wave to the driver of the Hostess delivery van now bearing down upon me. I decided not to, and then got lost in a reverie on what it would be like to deliver papers, which eventually begged the question: what paper do mountain-dwellers read? That was answered shortly thereafter by a handy newspaper box: The Denver Post.

I could go on . . . well, I did go on . . . but that was the most interesting part.