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"The Wondering Jew"

Mar. 12, 2005 - 18:44 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Rude

Yesterday the weather was as good as forecast, for once. A beautiful day dawned, warm, calm and reasonably cloudless sky. The clouds that were there were doing their thing which didn't involve crowding together and threatening to commit precip.

Some time ago Heather and I promised ourselves that we would hie ourselves up I-70 and catch the new road to Central City as soon as weather permitted. We saw that to "seize the day" was a good idea and having gassed the night before and bashing the alarm clock for interrupting my sleep, I got up dull eyed and bed-headed rather than the youthful "bright eyed and bushy tailed." Made the appropriate motions of dressing and managed to get my pants on my legs rather than arms. Trundled myself to the shotgun seat of the VUE and Heather put us in motion.

Doing the sightseeing bit, slowpoking along out West 44th Avenue we went to Golden so that I could see Table Mesas North and South, an inspiration to me as a child and still is.

We got somewhat serious and made it to I-70 West, stayed in the right hand "poke along lane" and poked. Past the Blackhawk exit, thence on to the huge new road, Central City Parkway said the sign above it. Two lanes each way it is, beautiful, nicely engineered. Heather and I saw scenery we had never seen before. Wasn't a whole lot different than scenery we had seen up around there for years -- but new it was. There were some nice views of snow capped peaks off to the west which are enjoyable sights.

We enjoyed the ride and dropped down into Central City, the old ghost town which refused to stay dead. Many of the buildings are the originals -- on the outside, but gutted and redone on the inside as posh gambling dens. That is hearsay on my part as I haven't and won't be in one of the durn things. At least I will say this for Central City, they havent moved mountains to build the garish buildings that Blackhawk has.

We slowly made our way through the little town, recognizing some of the old things and thence through Blackhawk to Highway 119. The new Central City Parkway was built to lure gamblers to Central City rather than lose them to Blackhawk, but the dollars were rolling up in buses at Blackhawk nevertheless, bumper to bumper cars and buses headed for the clatter of coins. So much for that.

Heather said, "Whatsay we head north and see if we can find the turnoff for Apex." My reply was, "Sure, why not, I'd like to see where we honeymooned in 1943." We had gone through there about ten years ago carrying some flat land furriners to see the Gold Rush country and thence up to the Forest Service Road going on down to where the trains came out of the mountains from the Moffat Tunnel. Then Apex was much as it once was. That little jaunt is noted for prematurely turning heads gray, wending one's way through, around and over boulders that might gag a Jeep.

Up the road we went and not too long before we saw a post with a sign, "Apex Valley." We whipped in onto a well graded gravel road with dwellings on each side. Grin.

In 1943 mining was not being done there, it was war time the able bodied were off to war. Apex when we were there in 1943 was about three cabins, a small store building and a two story hotel, all empty. The cabin we occupied was owned by a friend of mine and was in reasonable "rouging it" shape. There were usually showers in the afternoon and we would lay on the bed and listen to the raindrops hit the galvanized roof, if we paid attention. Once a hail storm blew over and the roar of stones hitting the galvanized metal was unbelievable. What a time we had there, hiking, playing in the nearby stream and learning to be a couple rather than just two individuals. No traffic. The only car we saw at Apex was Heather's brother's car which brought us there and came back for us a week later. Heather and I walked down to Central City / Blackhawk once, nosed around and bought some supplies at the grocery/filling station in Blackhawk by Highway 119 and hiked back to Apex. About a ten mile one way hike. Ah, we were young then and were ready for more, but it got dark.

Well, Friday the evergreens were still on the hills, the air was clear, temperature crisply cool and the scent of pines in the air. Each side of Apex Valley had dwellings of one kind or another, reminded me of Jaurez when we went there, palaces next to hovels. They were pretty well at the creekside level, with a few higher up where some one had built a road up, so there was still much scenery.

Disappointing to say the least but not unexpected after all, but what we had not counted on was that the geography had been changed around so much that there were no man made landmarks left in Apex Valley. We drove for miles and miles as the road narrowed and snow edged out a bit. The decision was made that we had long ago passed the place where we honeymooned, and a fairly wide drive to a cabin showed up making room for us to turn around. Which we did and headed back the way we had come.

Not being pushed by traffic behind us we moseyed along enjoying being away from the rush of civilization. Approaching I-70 Heather said, "Lets go on up to Idaho Springs to the A&W and have a root beer and some hot dogs." A place where we almost always stopped on the way up to somewhere or on the way back, sometimes both. Much like Apex, but with evidence, the building was still there and the "A&W" sign was, but the place was deserted. She said, I know a place we used to go, let's see if they're still there. We moved up the street a bit, rubbernecking and noting that things were pretty much the same old buildings, gussied up a bit and found the place we were looking for. Went in and discovered that they still had cabbage rolls. I remembered how good they used to be, a roll of hamburger, onion and rice, well seasoned, wrapped in cabbage leaves and baked. We each had a cabbage roll, broccoli, split pea soup and mashed potatoes & gravy and with coffee too. We took our time and several customers came, ate and left while we dilly-dallied and talked of old things.

Finally we sighed, paid, left and found our way to I-70 East, got in the right hand lane behind the tractor semi-trailer rigs which have to go slower on the downhill grades while the rest of the world flew past, the drivers disregarding the signs warning of 6 percent downhill grades and all but airborne. Didn't see any wreckage on the way so I guess they all made it alright. Although the terrain and infrastructure didn't live up to our expectations, the ride up the new road was fun and we made the trip through the rest of it in our memories, even so though, the awakening was Rude . . . . . . . . .

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