Having just returned from a quick trip to Colorado, I thought it appropriate to share a few pictures. At one time, our major airports were vibrant, living communities twenty four hours per day. That is not the case during this era, they are ghost towns. Arriving in Seattle just short of midnight and not being able to catch a connecting flight to Denver until 0630, I chose to spend six hours at the airport. That was my first mistake. With a ten minute notice, I can take a nap in just about any type of environment regardless of the noise level. That was not the case at Sea-Tac, I can now recite the security, parking, smoking, and unattended baggage warnings announcements by heart, they are broadcast in their entirety every 5.5 minutes, despite the fact there were only a half dozen people in the terminal. The only retail facility that was open was Starbucks, the two service employees that were assigned different shifts became close friends. The same thing occurred at the Denver International, however, there I was able to get acquainted with employees of Burger King as they were the only facility open between midnight and 6:00 a.m.

I had my lap top with me and it was my intentions to work on my blog sites since I could not take a nap, six wifi connections and all them were secured. However, for $19.95, I could connect for three hours. On my return flight, I got lucky and not finding a unsecured wifi site, I noticed a girl working on her lap top so I inquired as to how she got on line. She showed me a secret as to how to bypass and gain access. It was difficult communicating with her since she only spoke Spanish and lived in Denver.

In Seattle, after purchasing a cup of coffee, I walked out to a "polluted air zone" and was joined by a man of Asian decent. He sat down beside me and over a couple of cigarettes told he his life story. To some, it may have been boring but his story had me riveted to my seat. He was a former citizen of Cambodia. Following Vietnam, his family along with several hundred other Cambodians were taken from the city they lived in and taken to the country to work the government farms. Their type of farming was to produce or die by the hands of government firing squads. He and his family and sixty other Cambodians made an escape attempt to cross the border into Thailand. Upon reaching the safety of Thailand, only fifteen of the group had managed to escape, the remainder slaughtered by the hands of the Cambodian military. He was provided a sponsor and migrated to the U.S. Following his story, I encouraged him to write book of his life, perhaps someone in the U.S. would read it and not take our liberties for granted.

In Denver, I was notified by a TSA agent at the Security Check Point, that my drivers license had expired. I explained to him that it was April 8th and my license was due to expire on May 18th. I offered him other identification but he checked my license again to verify what I said was correct. He then asked my for my temporary license. Again, I explained that May 18th follows April 8th and there was no need to have a temporary license since the original had not expired. He finally accepted my explanation and as I left to go the through the metal detector, he reminded me to get a temporary license. I still not figured that out. The point being, airports can be very lonely places during the early morning hours. The two pictures below are at Sea-Tac at 3:00 a.m. in the morning. Looking in opposite directions, not a car, bus, or another human being in site. Surely do hope it is being monitored by security cameras.






Arriving in Denver, my bag was the first one out of the hole in the wall. Within 30 minutes, I was in my rental car with Denver in my rear view mirror. Although, I have made the trip from Denver to the Western slope of Colorado hundreds of times, I had never taken the time to stop at Lookout Mountain and pay my respect to "Buffalo Bill". His grave site is about three miles off the interstate on a bluff overlooking eastern Colorado. From this vantage point you can see the City of Denver, which is about fifty miles to the east.



If you want to learn a little more about "Buffalo Bill" and our government stripping him of his Medal Of Honor that was awarded to him, I did a brief history of him on my site American Profiles a year or so ago. In later years, his Medal of Honor was reinstated to him. You can learn more about William F. Cody ~ this link will take you to his story in American Profiles.

Herd of "Spring Mule Deer" in a Cottonwood thicket in rural Colorado. The western slope of Colorado remains as spectacular as it was when I was a youth growing up with the San Juan Mountains providing the backdrop. Main Street in the city of my birth is slowly dying, stores that were in business when I was a child closing their doors to business as large shopping centers and box stores of expanding the area south of town. It was sad to see, remembering walking the sidewalks and peering through the front windows of those same stores when I was a kid. The one highlight, the City of Montrose had never installed parking meters. They had a police officer walking the beat with a "chalk stick" marking tires to determine how long a car had been parked in a thirty minute parking zone. As I was looking at the businesses closing down, I could not help but notice the officer walking down the street with his "chalk stick", it was good to see that some things never change.