Other Colorado Musings

My cousins live in Evans, Colorado in a trailor park near the South Platte River, which goes on to serve the thirst of most Nebraskan people, pets, and crops.  The town of Evans has no logical reason to exist.  A quick look at the map shows that is simply a physical extension of Greeley and the larger semi-city could reasonably swallow its neighbor and establish the Platte as its natural border.  Ah well, the vagaries  of American exurbia.  Greeley's downtown is a hollowed out and depressing place, no more vertical or active than my hometown of North Platte's; which is a quarter of the size, but there is a university in the middle of Greeley with green grass and a human pulse. 

The advertising pressure on swing state voters is truly intense; I had never been in a competitive state during election season before; nothing but attack ads for a full hour on either side of the late local news.  There was even one night where my cousins and I watched a bumper on ABC channel 7 that said nothing but 'political ad break' and then just sat there on the screen for two minutes.  A ten year old girl from Westminster was murdered sometime in the days before I was there, and of course that's fucking horrible.  Though I did notice that coverage of her death received at least qudruple the TV news attention as a car crash that killed four members of a Hispanic family from Omaha just outside of Greeley.  The dead driver to be sure does seem to be at fault; but then those two dead kids are just as innocent as the murdered girl, and of course there's the simple fact that four are greater and more significant than one, and this is independent of any Just World bullshit.  But I suppose that I've already said too much on this matter and you may judge the rest for yourself.

There are some stereotypes; especially out on the Central Plains, that the Front Range is an endless strip city with one municipality bleeding into the other at random.  This is sometimes true, as with Evans & Greeley, but exaggerated in the main.  There is for the moment still plenty of open space and even farmland between Greeley-Ft. Collins, Boulder-Longmont, and the Denver metro proper.  What is lacking is truly open country as a Nebraskan would perceive it.  No protracted stretches of seeing nothing human save the road itself, no full quarter or half hours of being able to drive at 90 mph with nothing in one's way.  Even on the highways one is never more than three miles from a gas station or a traffic light.  The US 85 'expressway' from Greeley to Denver has long ago regressed into an overtaxed and mentally grinding industrial boulevard with nothing to recommend it.  I usually hate taking freeways as I usually have the navigation skills (and, admittedly, free time) to take the local low roads to get where I'm going while being able to see... things.  In this case though I must say that I-25 is very much the less depressing route into the city. 

Staying with my cousins did remind me of just how bachelor my bachelor ass is.   Simply eating the same meal as other people with them right there or watching and commenting on the same show was taxing and strange to me.  Solitude is whats normative to me and the companionship of even friends, family and lovers stikes me unfailingly as alien and false.  Not to concern you understand.  I'm not mentally ill or depressed, no more than everyone else anyway, and I do feel something like intimacy and warmth for my Nebraska college friends, but they're an exception that came about through several factors, and anyway I have perhaps revealed a little too much about myself.  Take care now.  Have a good Friday night!