During the cold winter months, probably not many people are taking off on road trips throughout Colorado. But this is an excellent time to do some armchair traveling and plan future trips.
“Reading Colorado: A Literary Road Guide” by Peter Anderson (2023, Bower House) will help you considerably. You will be amazed at how many authors, poets, journalists, and explorers Anderson found to illuminate the state’s geography.
Starting close to home, I was delighted to see that he included the late John Gierach of The Redstone Review, a Lyons newspaper.
Anderson included an excerpt from Gierach’s book, “Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers,” about trout fishing. Here is an excerpt from it:
“A good-size trout in any of these creeks will be around 10 inches long, with plenty smaller and a few larger. A 12- or 14-incher is a real nice fish and in the forty-plus years I’ve fished here I’ve landed a handful in the neighborhood of 16 inches, including one lovely cutthroat that almost brought me to tears and probably would have if there hadn’t been a witness present.”
Also included, of course, is Steven King of The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. The idea for “The Shining” came to King when he and his wife spent a night at the Stanley in the fall of 1974.
King describes the unsettled night he spent in Room 217: “I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed. I got up, lit a cigarette, sat in a chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of ‘The Shining’ firmly set in my mind.”
Anderson also includes selections describing our part of the state by Isabella Bird, Enos Mills, SueEllen Campbell, and John Calderazzo.
I was interested, too, in the authors he left out. He could have included, for instance, Kevin Wolf of Estes Park, whose novel “Trailridge” is set in Rocky Mountain National Park.
“Reading Colorado” is very dense, full of authors and history. I know Anderson couldn’t include everyone, but I wish he had left out some historical writers and included more modern writers.
Like Pam Houston of Creede, who wrote a memoir, “Deep Creek,” about her 120-acre homestead in the Colorado Rockies. I met Houston in Davis, Calif., where she taught creative writing for many years. I remember her well because I used to live in Davis, too. I had a radio show where I interviewed local writers. Houston is the only one who stood me up. She never called, and I never rescheduled.
Hey, but that doesn’t mean she’s a bad writer. No, she is a good writer who passionately loves her Colorado ranch despite harsh winters, near-fatal wildfires, and scorching droughts.
And I’m sure that if Anderson publishes a second volume, he will include Shelley Read of the Gunnison area’s “Go As a River.” Her best-selling novel celebrates peaches, Native Americans, rivers, and small towns, all in the name of love.
On my next road trip, I hope to spend some time at Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado, near Cortez.
“The Professor’s House” by Willa Cather describes a cowboy’s first view of the vertical stone city. He came upon the ruins by accident, having no idea what was there.
“In stopping to take a breath, I happened to glance up at the canyon wall. I wish I could tell you what I saw there, just as I saw it, on that first morning through a veil of lightly falling snow. Far up above me, a thousand feet or so, set in a great cavern in the face of a cliff, I saw a little city of stone, asleep.”
So, where would you like to visit this summer?
Pick a town or area and check out the literary figures who inhabit its history. “Reading Colorado” offers a new dimension of sightseeing.