Tricia and I have been so busy working on Pan American Dreams, planning for the Alaska trip next year, I had waited too late to buy an airline ticket to Denver to visit my family over the holidays. In December, the prices are much higher and reservations are difficult, so on a lark, I put an ad on Criagslist for a rideshare to Denver. That is how I met Todd, who runs a terrific non-profit organization called Mountain Journeys that helps at risk kids by taking them on snowboarding trips to Colorado. Their website is here.
Todd and his kids also work on donated cars and have a shop in Boulder, Colorado. The car donors get a tax write off and Mountain Journeys fixes the cars and resells them, teaching their kids a skill in the process. After Todd and I got to know one another, he asked me if I wanted to drive a 1988 Ford Bronco to Denver for Christmas. The Bronco had been donated by someone in Santa Monica. I agreed and picked it up earlier this month.
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On the brief drive of just a few miles back to my home, it stalled at every intersection, smoked so much that other motorists were yelling at me, and as a nice final touch, a heavy metal plate with a large wiring harness fell out from underneath the dashboard, hitting me on the shin and making it almost impossible to push the clutch in without pulling the wiring loose!
Amazingly, Todd and I got everything fixed with less than $100 in parts, fresh oil, duct tape and labor over the next two weeks! I simply taped the wiring harness back underneath the dash, and everything still seemed to work! The Bronco now ran perfectly and was in remarkably good overall condition. I was ready to hit the road.
I put an ad on Craigslist for riders and got a response from Mieka in Mystic Hot Springs, near Monroe, Utah, which is in the Rocky Mountains at the midway point between Los Angeles and Denver. Mieka's dad, "Mystic Mike," owns Mystic Hot Springs, and they offered a place to stay, a soak in the hot springs and lots of hospitality if I would drive Mieka's sister Denna and her boyfriend Orian from Los Angeles to the hot springs.
Mystic Hot Springs is an unusually interesting place, a completely natural volcanic hot springs high in the Rockies surrounded by tiny rustic cabins and a main lodge with a large dormitory and a few private rooms. The story of how Mike ended up at Mystic is fascinating in its own right.
Twenty years ago, Mike, Denna, Mieka and the whole family were on their way back home to Denver from a Grateful Dead concert in San Francisco. Their psychedelic bus (shades of Ken Kesey) broke down at Monroe, Utah. They had to spend the night. Mike fell in love with the area almost immediately, then to seal the deal, he discovered the resort at Mystic Hot Springs and noticed to his surprise that it was for sale. He sold everything and bought it. He has been there ever since.
You can read the full story on the Mystic website. Be sure to click on the link to the new website once you land on the homepage.
http://www.mystichotsprings.com
I called Denna. A flurry of text messages back and forth ensued. Orian, she and I finally met this morning at a Coffee Bean in Beverly Hills. She is adorable, and Orian seems like a great guy too. They live near the Coffee Bean, so it was right on the route to the freeway to pick them up in the morning.
We got along fine. I showed them the Bronco, which they thought was a cool ride because of all the room. Their last trip to Utah had been with five people in a tiny, cramped compact car! None of us knew that the Mystic Bronco did not have a heater!
We're leaving early tomorrow morning.
