Bumbling About

It is a long drive from Sturgis to the Routt National Forest, but we made it yesterday with daylight to spare.  The route we took was decent and took us through the tiny town of Cowdrey. 

Going past Cowdrey, we continued on towards Steamboat Springs, CO.  We didn’t go the whole way, but found a nice forest service road to lead us to a logging road high in the forest.

The custom camper and single tent even fit in the little dugway road we found off the forest road. The air is crisp, clean, and the temperature perfect.  A quick hot fire with beer brats sealed the deal. It all made a great days end.

As for today, we coasted into Steamboat where it was surprisingly busy.  The breakfast place was a comfortable slow, but it felt good to be in the Colorado sun. 

Our ride for the day started towards Steamboat Lake and Hahns Peak. Sadly I forgot my little tracker in my tent, but if you’re familiar with the area, this will be easy to follow.  I lead Dan and Dad up to Steamboat Lake, but riding to the lake was lame, so we went onto Hahns Peak Lake further up the road. Some of the gravel was loose, but the ride was pleasant. From there, into the town(…town?) of Columbine.  I blinked and missed the single building and cabins of Columbine as we went onto another gravel road.  This forest road just kept going and going. I didn’t have a map but I was hoping to find a road to loop around Hans Peak and back to Steamboat… I failed.

Well, that was nice, take a picture and move on. The next place to lead the group was to Hayden then to Oak Creek. As a stretch-stop, we stopped at one awesome bar in Miller.

At the bar, we met the owner, Dom. The owner had one heck of a story that we didn’t exactly get the whole start to finish of what brought him to Miller Colorado.  He grew up in Chicago, went to Aspen and met a girl. From Aspen he and his wife got bored and purchased a house for $3,000 in Winter, Wisconsin sometime around 1973. His wife worked at a nursing home and his only job was in a band that played on Saturdays. At one of the shows, Dom was smoking a joint with the other band members when the mayor approached him and mentioned federal funding for a police department. 
So the mayor says, “want it?”.
Dom replies, “want what?”
“To be a police officer” he says.

As a new member of the town, Dom had no relatives or relationships to cause a bias. So, Dom became the police chief at $400 a month.

When the federal funding ran out, he continued as police chief, ambulance driver, and bus driver.  His only ticket he wrote happens when he was driving bus. While stopped, the bus was illegally passed by a car.  Later on, he served that driver a ticket.  Before the court date, the driver calls up Dom and asks, “are you going to court?”
“Well, yes.”
“Uh, my car broke down so I can’t make it.”
“That’s okay, I’ll pick you up”
Dom picks up the driver at his house while wearing a red plaid shirt with his badge pinned on.  They walk into the courthouse where the judge and the D.A. are waiting.  The judge mentioned this being the only case, so if everyone is ready, they would start.
Dom and the driver both say they are ready and the judge asks,
“Well, who are you?”
Dom replies “I’m the officer and this is the driver”
“Oh, so we’re just waiting on the bus driver” says the judge.
“Oh, that is me too”
After hearing this, the driver goes, “that was you?! I plead guilty!”
Case was closed and all four of them went to lunch.

What a great story, I hope I told it well enough. Dom started telling us how he went from Winter on to living on a sailboat for 6 years, but another guy came in and we were lost in other stores.

What made this bar stop important was this. We were asked where we were headed which prompted the response of, “can’t, the bridge is out”.  Turns out they scheduled a bridge replacement project and closed the road.  We saved a lot of time by not wandering to the nonexistent bridge and having a beer with Dom.