Grand Junction, Colorado

From the outside, it appears to be a long, but otherwise nondescript, log cabin, set well off the main road and barely visible in a mess of pines. There are no signs: either on the approach or atop the lodge’s green-slate roof. The hitchhiker swears that he knows this place to be a great “stopin-off joint”, whatever that may mean, on the way into Grand Junction, the main city on Colorado’s western frontier. The hitchhiker’s enthusiastic endorsement should have been the first indication to the driver, if he needed any at all, that he would have been best served cruising right along and never going anywhere near this no-frills cottage.

There are several cars out front. Among them: a rusty pickup, a later model than the driver’s Chevy, but looking many years past its prime; and a brand new Cadillac that is so glistening with care and pride, that the exact shade of its canary yellow finish remains indeterminable. It makes the driver feel funny to admit it to himself, but the sight of a pickup truck –however much in worse shape than his own- parked next to an expensive automobile sparks some degree of comfort within him. It’s not that the driver has ever considered himself an egalitarian, but he has to admire a place that is able to attract a clientele –if that’s the proper term for it- that arrives in such a disparity of class-specific vehicles. That the hitchhiker, whose brief record on the road should disqualify him from any form of trust, is leading the charge up to the discreet-looking entryway concerns the driver nonetheless.

There are no windows, but at least it has an official-looking plaque. Sure enough, to the right as they enter, displayed at shoulder level, is a polished bronze square. It reads:

In this place
August fifth, eighteen sixty-eight the date
Settled a humble man
With modest dreams, of a simple plan
Up to the mountains of Conistock
And down the stream to Firth
He mapped the land
With a steady hand
Until founding this house of mirth

Now to share with you
Weary traveler or two
A place to relax your bones
You can sit and rub dice
With ladies so nice

That you may never wish to go home