UNSTUCK IN THE MOUNTAINS

Reflection, Rumination & Rhetoric from the Road

On our 33rd day of crossing the country (and back again), we ascend to the Rocky Mountains.

Hotel rates in Aspen these days are astronomical ($1600-plus) so we opted for its cousin down the road: Basalt.

Turns out, so have a lot of folks who once called Aspen home but are not thrilled by what it has become: Beverly Hills in the mountains.

Because strolling Aspen’s streets is not unlike walking the high-end consumer gauntlet of Rodeo Drive: Louis Vuitton, Prada, Lord Piani, etc. (Uninspiring to photograph so, sorry, no pics.)

The kind of place where folks leave the price tag on their minks.

An art gallery owner in Basalt who was in Aspen for decades is now comfortably ensconced in Basalt and its sister community, El Jebel. He diplomatically puts it down to “changes.”

Opines a Neil Young lookalike at the bar in Heather’s, a local hub with live music: “Basalt is like Aspen used to be.”

But at The Hoffman, a brand-spanking new Basalt hotel, the bartender (who raised a son in Aspen), says the same is happening here. “New York and California want to move in. So everyone who owns property is selling to them and moving on.”

So where will the old-time mountain men and women go?

“Much further away.”

She’s aiming for Austin, Texas.

When the Basalters depart, because they cannot afford it anymore, there goes Aspen’s labor force. The mega-wealthy will have no one left to serve their preciously pampered selves.

Same as I witnessed in Crested Butte three summers ago. Major staffing issues. Those who work for a living simply cannot afford the escalating rents—if any are even available! And they are not, because hedge funds have being buying up rental properties and repackaging them into high-priced vacation homes.

Here is what’s happening, folks:

The Great Divide is not about Biden versus Trump, Republicans versus Democrats, freedom-loving individuals versus transgender-loving/race-baiting Globalists.

The Great Divide is much more steeped in human history. We are reverting to a medieval feudal system where very little, if any, middle-class exists. Human existence in Western civilization is devolving to masters and servants.

Our grotesquely mismanaged cities are already becoming dystopian cesspools with inner-city populations that resemble the proles in George Orwell’s classic, 1984.

Most American small towns are in decline, will further decay and ultimately be abandoned as China is given a green light to buy American farms after already having replaced American elbow grease with slave labor, allowing Globalists bigger profits while the Chinese Communist Party strengthen its military muscle.

This is the true face of Globalism, which is really just capitalism on a global scale and not benevolent do-gooders improving the quality of life for everyone: Masters in their ultra-secure palaces in places like Silicon Valley and Aspen; the impoverished in the cities.

And what about the middle-class that traditionally toadies to the masters?

From what I can discern traversing the country, those who can still afford it are buying into new communities not too far from the masters but a good distance from large cities.

As for myself, I rediscovered the joy of scraping ice from a windshield.

And I found that the folks who reside in snowy mountains are generally (not all) as cold and dry as their climate in comparison to Florida’s panhandle where southern folk are cheerful, welcoming—and as warm and moist as their own clime.