After Mystic Mike and I said goodbye, I drove to the little general store and gas station on the edge of town, filled the Bronco with gas and bought a big cup of coffee, a local newspaper and some snacks for the road.
The store was the local morning gathering spot, with about half a dozen older men sipping their morning brew at a table near the coffee machine discussing the local goings on and swapping opinions about the news. Anyone who has ever lived in a small town knows this scene.
The drive through Utah and Colorado to Denver was magnificent. There was very little traffic until I got to Vail, and the terrain ranged from the multi-colored buttes and mesas near Moab to the gorgeous and snowy Rocky Mountain valleys through which the Colorado River and then Rock Creek rush alongside the road. I made a pit stop at Vail and responded to an email from a friend I had not heard from in a while, then drove the rest of the way into Denver on snowpacked roads.
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I arrived in Denver about 6 pm Christmas eve, just as it was getting dark. I'm staying with my niece Melissa and her adorable two year old daughter Jordan, whom I had not yet met. Jordan was one year old when I left for Argentina.
Melissa and I had fun talking, getting caught up, playing with Jordan and laughing for a couple of hours after I arrived, then when Jordan went to bed for the night, we shared a large bowl of pasta and a bottle of red wine, talking late into the night.
Melissa is a senior at University of Colorado finishing off a double degree in psychology and Spanish. The past couple of years, she has discovered politics in a big way, and she worked on the Obama campaign in Denver, training volunteers, hosting receptions at her house, doing door to door canvassing and more. As a recovering political wonk, I could relate, and it was fun listening to her campaign stories, her relationship stories and more.
What struck me about Melissa's political activism was the deep longing for hope that she shared with so many others in her generational cohort after the last eight years of failed national realpolitik. But as a flinty and independent single mom working her way through university by running her own business, her political actions had a tough edge to them. She was fed up and determined to do something about it, not willing to stand aside while people she vehemently disagreed with defined her daughter's future.
This impulse to roll up one's sleeves and pitch in, to take matters into one's own hands, is a deeply ingrained habit of mind in the United States, even if we think it is waning. We may see much more of it in the coming years.
In the morning, I noticed an interesting handmade Christmas card stuck to Melissa's refrigerator with a magnet, and the story behind this card led to an interesting trip to Boulder a few days later.
I spent Christmas with my sister Dalene, Melissa, Jordan and my other niece Shannon.
