Surreal Ice Cream Dream

We drove into a new chapter of the community of Buena Vista that was still under construction. The colors were bright and vibrant and you could tell that the paint wasn't cheap. In order to get to this new neck of the woods, you first had to drive through the old and weathered Main Street. The colors were dull there, yet still full of developed character that had been established over a hundred years earlier. We drove by the old courthouse that had been transformed into an uninteresting museum with few prospects. Our kids were hardly impressed and more concerned with their own conversations then the old architecture. However, the right turn off Main Street onto a freshly graded dirt road changed that. The kids stared out the window like we were on the movie set of Edward Scissorhands. Even I was impressed with the uniformity disguised as "a new way of living." We parked the car in front a field and I ordered some pizza. We played games in the warm afternoon sun and climbed around the brand new bouldering rock. The river was right there, and kayakers were using it to its fullest potential. Frisbees and footballs flew across the sky while we waited for our food to come and life was good. A group of fifty people rode by on classic bicycles decked out in fifties gear! This is miraculous considering the town only has a few thousand residents and it was an idle Thursday afternoon. I felt like we had warped through time and the mood confirmed this. The bikers began to play games of their own for a brief break before they were on their way again. But before they left, they offered a box full of goodies for us to use. They said we could leave it out when we were done and they would retrieve it the next day. They weren’t afraid of it being taken and I realized what this new section of town was being built around; trust and community. It seemed too good to be true, but apparently it’s not... it’s just expensive, that’s all. All in all, it was a great experience, Buena Vista that is. Good people, beautiful landscapes, and a comfortable town, both old and new, that just happens to be the home of K's Diner, boasting the best Oreo freezes this side of the Mississippi!

Time Fly’s And Then It Just Stops!

you never know ahead of ...time, when this change is going to occur. And when it does, time is the last thing on your mind. I was a recent stowaway on a river trip on the Arkansas River near the town of Buena Vista, CO. It was a great trip full of the usual fun and adventure that accompanies white water rafting, till we reached the end of pinball rapid in Browns Canyon. We floated around the bend cheering and laughing only to come across a scene of confusion and chaos. There were three boats full of somber faces that had pulled ashore river right. Just downstream was a river guide with a rope thrown across the river. We weren’t sure what he wanted us to do, so we tried to ‘eddy out’ river left to get out of his way. He, very sternly, told us not to stop and to push on downstream. Just in front of us a raft had been pulled out of the water and up some twenty feet of the embankment onto the abandoned railroad tracks that ran parallel with the river. The raft was on its side with six people around it. As we passed it I looked back fully aware that something was seriously wrong. A man was on his knees pumping another’s chest over and over. Not one of the kids on our trip realized what was going on. When we finished our trip, I was told that the CPR was not successful, and the stranger I knew nothing about died right there on the side of the river. It was a day of both physical and mental extremes, a day that will stick with me for a long time to come.