One more post about how I fell in love with the American West. I wrote more about this in the A - Z Challenge of 2013, posted in Pages above.
While in the Rocky Mountains, my friend Bill and I spent a day in Leadville. Situated at over 10,000 feet, Leadville is the highest incorporated city in the United States.
I don't remember anything about Leadville, but was pleased to rediscover the city in Wallace Stegner's marvellous and Pulitzer Prize winning book, Angle of Repose. The best book I've read about the Western frontier. Actually, one of the best books, period, that I've ever read.
My friend Bill was in his 60s, married to a friend of mine, Anne. His work frequently took him on business trips to New Mexico, so while there, he offered to take me on this journey across the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
We also stopped in Central City to see the city's famous Opera House. Bill and I were both opera fans, as was my soon to be ex who just happened to have an opera quality bass/baritone voice. With which he was always asked to delight fellow guests at the oh, so frequent Princeton dinner parties.
I could write an entire post, if not a book, about the dinner parties of Princeton, N. J. back in the mid to late 1960s.
As we approached Denver, we stopped at Red Rocks park, a stunning place, I actually still remember.
In Denver, I caught a Greyhound Bus that would take me to Salt Lake City, where I would change to a bus headed to Idaho Falls.
After seeing me off, Bill would take a plane back home to Princeton.
And thus begun my real adventures in the American West and my life as a grownup woman, responsible for myself.
Independence, indeed.
Thanks to my friend Jane for noting the serendipitous connection between Indpendence Pass and my own independence, which may well have started anew right there.
