REFLECTION, RUMINATION & RHETORIC FROM THE ROAD: CRESTED BUTTE

5. The Sound of Silence

So I roll into Crested Butte, one of my favorite towns in the world, and I’m bummed to discover it is off-season and all my favorite restaurants—Wooden Nickel, Elk Avenue Prime, Sunflower—are closed until Memorial Weekend or beyond, yet I’ve pre-paid a cozy yellow cottage for several nights.

And I’m thinking, to hell with this, bail and roll north to Aspen, where folks leave the price tags on their mink coats but at least most places stay open off-season. And that’s my intention. But first a good night’s sleep.

And then upon awakening I can’t get motivated to leave, plus I have a new road-warrior rule: A minimum two nights and a full day at any given destination, give body (and aching back from hauling baggage) a chance to catch up with soul.

So I amble over to Camp 4 Coffee (the world’s funkiest cafe) and order a latte, oat milk—and, with no queue amid the sound of silence, I grow into an off-season quiet and stillness.

My dear friend Rolland Smith wrote this about silence:

“I know that science has learned much from the music of the spheres in the cacophony of the heavens. I know that religions promote silence to reach the unreachable.

”What I didn't know until I experienced it was the joy that silence gives the soul, robust laughter needs no sound, and God needs no dogma. The thoughts you think are yours are God's. He talks to all of us, as us, in the stillness of life.”

I realize being here, right now, off-season, is a blessing.

And by the time I hit McGill’s for a bowl of their hearty beef stew…

…I am as enamored by this colorfully authentic wild-west town as when I first visited in September ‘20 and got caught in their first blizzard of the season.

A walk up and down Elk Avenue, the main drag, produces a shop called Mabuhay (a Filipino greeting that means Live), which I’d not noticed until now although the owner, Blake Woodward, assures me he’s been here 30 years—and today is the first time he has opened his door for biz since March.

So as usual, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, with Blake telling me how he trips around Asia scavenging for whatever remaining antique Buddhist and Hindu artifacts can be found.

These precious relics have become scarce—and prices driven way up—due to Thailand’s strict laws and severe penalties governing the exportation of such artifacts from their country.

Over three decades, Blake has made the contacts necessary for ensuring that everything he purchases with cash money in Burma and Nepal derives from private collections with proven provenance and a stamped approval from the authorities for export.

Blake Woodward

Poking around Mabuhay I uncover the prize I’m here to possess (or it to possess me): A 200-plus year-old Nepalese statuette of Nang Kwak.

Blake’s wife, who is Thai, tells me that shopowners and merchants in Thailand all display a statuette of Nang Kwak on their premises to bring them good luck—much the same way ma & pa shopowners in this country tape their first dollar bill to the wall.

With my favorite restaurants and bars closed I’m pushed to try out new places I would not otherwise have experienced, having already found a comfort zone at my previous go-tos. And I am delighted by the result.

For instance, Montanya distills their own brand of craft rum—and at their bar I settle into a sampler flight of their various elixirs, warming body and soul.

And then around the corner at Marchitelli’s: Elk Scaloppine with marsala, wine, basalmic, garlic and bell pepper sauce with penne pasta.

(A portion preserved for Lulu earns her highest-ever rating of approval.)

One day I’d like to spend two months in this magical town, meet all its characters, learn all its stories, its secrets—and write a book I’d title Butte Tales, with chapters such as Butte Wiped (on the slopes), Butte Wind (a blizzard blowing through) and Butte Babble (local gossip, which lately focuses on two local billionaires competing with one another to buy up all the restaurants and other commercial property, pushing up prices and causing debilitating staff shortages because the young adults needed to work in restaurants and bars and shops can no longer afford to live in CB—or even 27 miles away in Gunnison, home to Western Colorado University.

So what happens when the wealthy of Crusty Butte no longer have anyone to serve them?

This leads to a larger question that should concern us all as Western civilization devolves into a renewed medieval structure whereby the middle-class ceases to exist and 98% of the people become enslaved as serfs (these days it is called “mortgage, car financing and credit card debt”) by the 2% elite.

History repeats itself, repeatedly.

Meantime, Mount Crested Butte witnesses the ways of humanity and whispers to the wind, “And this too shall pass.”