The Courage Classic is a bicycle race, or ride for participants to raise funds for Children's Hospital, it takes place every summer in the Rocky Mountains. As much as I would like to say I have ridden this ride, I cannot. It is a three day race that takes place at the Summit in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, it takes place near Copper Mountain and reaches to the town of Leadville and Breckenridge as well as other Ski towns in the area. The race takes place at 10,000 feet above sea level and abov,e with elevation gains in the hundreds. Hundreds of racers stay in Copper Mountain during the duration of the long weekend and usually camp on the lawn. Some are more into camping in campers set up in the ski resort parking lot and some stay in lodging. Now I volunteered one summer back in 2007 to help with the ride, and with no particular skills I was given an easy job of serving meals, breakfast at the Jack's Lodge, delivering sack lunches to the road crew that would supply riders on the course and then helping with supper again at the Lodge for two nights. Now this was a plush job, it was given to me with benefits of free lodging, a warm throw, and free food for three nights and three days. My days were free to do what I wanted, and the small resort of Copper Mountain is a pleasant place to relax, shop and eat. So the weekend began with check- in of volunteers on Friday afternoon, where a received a bag of goodies, a room key and the name of the person to be reporting to early the next morning.
Now you need to understand that the resort holds several events during the summer, and is a very busy place during the winter with skiing with a season of six months out of the year. The regular staff, persons that live in the area or have moved from other parts of the country, say Miami, to work at this resort in the Rocky Mountains have this place of serene and fresh mountain living to work and play in. The resort has mail service, recreation centers and all the staff that make this town function twelve months out of the year.
With a small mining town south, and about 1000 feet above Copper Mountain, the town of Leadville has a school, post office and 2,595 residents. Mostly families and miners, with Henderson, Climax close by. You would think that mining in this area would be silver or copper, but it is actually molybdenum, and Henderson is the largest primary mine of molybdenum in the world with 21,000 raw ore per day and an expected life of about 20 more years, at ten million tons a year that makes Henderson one of the top ten largest underground mines in the world. An area in the Rocky Mountains surrounded by the Arapaho National Forest. Other mountain passes in the area are: Harris Mountain, Red Mountain, Vasquez pass,,,, and small town like Kremling, Urad, Leadville, Idaho Springs, Silver Plume. With copper and silver also mined in the area this is a community of generations and generations of miners, nestled in the area there also two small towns that are host to casinos and restaurants with lodging and parking for the gambler's at heart. Central City which was once a small mining town with stores, restaurants and homes for mining folk, and Black Hawk settlement founded in 1959,another small town of the same just minutes away, now a metropolis of casinos, and lodging.History of these small town tells a wonderful mining story, the City of Black Hawk in the census of 2010 had 118 people making it the least populas city in Colorado. You would never expect that in December, when the Christmas lights are up and the large Grey Hound Buss lets off another 100 people that will spend several hours or the next couple days gambling in casinos like Ameristar, Isle, Lady Luck, The Lodge, and more. Central City found in 1959 with a census in 2010 of 663 residents most populas muncipality of Gilpin County.
Now with the tourist coming to the Rocky Mountains more families and singles are finding there way out to Colorado looking for employment in the Resort towns. I spent the weekend in Copper Mountain that summer of 2007 and had the pleasure of meeting a young man from Miami that was now living and working in the resort, he may have had more that one job there, I found him attending Jack's Restaurant needs, servicing the area and not minding that he had so many tourist swarming around him, I don't know what he did before he came to Colorado but he and I shared the responsibilities that weekend and had a time taking care of hundred of bicyclist that were there for a short time, mulling around, recovering from a long hard ride and would be doing so for the next three days. We talked a bit, and worked that weekend together. Peter was his name and that was where he spent his time, living in Colorado, in a quite town in the middle of the mountain town.
Suppose I should explain my interest in this particular person, now he reminded me of a good friend of mine from my home town Evergreen, not more than an hour away.
I worked in the Recreation Center in town and making friends as one does with the people you work with I made an acquaintance with a young man by the name of Perry. He worked for the Gas company when I last set eyes on him, though he was just a janitor for the Recreation Center when I met him. He had several hidden talents and his most attractive one was dancing. Now I grew up dancing, ballet classed at five, then gymnastics and tumbling all through school, then jazz and modern dance and more ballet again at 17 at the rec center where I worked, there we met, and I didn't find out till three years later that Perry could Ball Room dance, and man he was good. He could turn, promenade and flip me on the the dance floor. I had never had anyone help me with this kind of dancing, and now I found someone that was willing to teach in private and get me into the dance clubs. We became good friends in the years that pasts, I worked the restaurant and dance club as a Hostess, my brother was a waiter and my girl friend played the piano in the piano bar. Sunday morning Champagne brunches and the three of us enjoyed working. Now when Friday night and Saturday night rolled around the large dance bar would open and locals would crowd the floor and the music would play and people would drink, and Perry would take me out and we would go dancing, the Cactus Rose was the place and made a good business for a while, then like every restaurant before it, the financial strain closed it. We all enjoyed working there and good friends were made, I got a couple jobs out of it. I watched some of the other employees children, and I made pies for the restaurant. The cook and I became good friends and he invited me out to his beautiful home to watch his son a couple times, he had an A frame in the mountains that had the most beautiful view. After the restaurant closed we soon left the small town, my family packed up the house and made our way north to the Panhandle of Idaho, and I said good bye to Perry and other good friends that had made in the last twenty years, and I haven't Ballroom danced since.
After leaving my home in 1984 I moved around quite a bit, from Idaho I moved to Orlando Florida, shortly after that I was stationed in Georgia. We left Kings Bay and went south to Passcagoula Mississippi where we were stationed in dry dock for almost two years. We spent time is ports at Charleston South Carolina, Gauntanomo Bay Cuba, then some time at school in Illinois till I decided I had had enough and shortly after school I left and returned to Sandpoint Idaho, only to work a time before moving back to Colorado, where I started a small family. I occasionally go back to Evergreen, I have gone sailing on Evergreen Lake, I have ridden my bike 25 miles on the bike paths, I have hiked the trails and mountains and recently I spent time in a Bed and Breakfast there, the Bears Inn which was the Philharmonic Lodge when I was growing up, where musicians from around the country would come for the summer to practice and play together in the Symphony.
I go there when I need to get away from the City noise and the holiday crowds, and I recently spent Saint Patrick's Day there, enjoying the peace and quite of the small mountain town. That Sunday I wondered into town to get a bite to eat and shop for an hour while I killed some time before heading over to the High School to see the school musical. I went to a small coffee and sandwich shop where I ordered a bowl of soup and a roll and a drink. While I was there a ran across a young man that reminded me so much like my good friend Perry, and when I asked him his name he said it was Paul. Now he could have been my good friend from so many years ago, the same hair, body type and and I don't know what I would have said if it had, but the point of this story is the young man in the ski resort restaurant, and the man reading in the coffee shop looked just like him, just know there is someone out there not far from where you are, that looks like you and acts like you and you could have so much in common with that you don't even know.
I have enjoyed common ground with other men and women alike, and it makes me think of Perry when I see someone that is so similar in appearance to him that it makes me stop and smile, we are all so different yet so similar. I look forward to the next person that I see in public that reminds me of my friend and wonder if he to is still in Colorado or even close by. I do think I may have seen him once in Downtown at a summer concert, he was hanging out with a couple friends enjoying the music. I was trying to get home through the crowd and didn't really plan on staying to listen to the music, as I pass through the city center while commuting home. It was probably him and it was the one time I didn't go up and ask him his name.
If you the reader gets anything out of my wondrous story I hope it is that Colorado is a beautiful state. If I get anything out of writing this I hope it is; that is time for me to get back out there and go Ball room dancing.
