TRANSPORTATION (Good and bad) Next time I’ll rent a car!

The $30 shuttle from the Denver Airport to Estes Park worked great. A 1 hour 45 minute express to Park Headquarters (beats $275 to park a rental car at trail head for 5 days). I was out the door ten minutes later with permit in hand. Hitch hiking to trail head was a different story. I was just congratulating myself for getting a ride in only 9 minutes as a decrepit American station wagon pulled to a stop...

Peeling paint, rust, half patched dents, cargo area and rear seats overflowing with personal possessions, cigarette burns on the dash and split upholstery. Driver in mid-50's, weathered face, pony tail, dressed in dirty T-shirt and  greasy ball cap, shades; crushed, half smoked cigarillo hanging, unlit, from the corner of his mouth. I was in a rush. I wanted to get to trail head. I wanted to be in camp, 8 miles in and at 10,500 feet, with some time left to fish before dark. I got in the front seat.

The driver greeted me with, "Hello. Caleb, captured Israeli citizen." Caleb used to work for military intelligence. He was their expert on 2000 (B.C.) year old computers and automobiles. The military had milked him for his extraordinary I.Q. and he had solved all sorts of "problems" for them.  Caleb declined to go to the Pentagon with a 4 star general and instead took a job as a prep chef at a catholic monastery at the base of the Rockies. He was on his way to work there. Our speed varied erratically between 30 and 60 mph and we used both lanes, ours and the oncoming, as well as some of the shoulder. Going up a grade, Caleb popped the hood latch to allow more air in to cool the overheating engine. I heard a lot about survival and Caleb's knowledge of edible plants. (Perhaps he'd focused a bit too much on the peyote family.) Caleb owns a 200 pound backpack on heels that he can survive out of for years. The pack has tiny pills in it "that were all you needed for a day." (Amphetamines?) Caleb also knew a lot about the history of the Catholic Church. Every time he tried to tell people at the monastery about it they got upset so he'd stopped talking to them. I had a challenge to keep the conversation coherent and at least part of Caleb's concentration on driving.

Caleb dropped me in front of the monastery to continue hitching. Ten minutes later he rolled out of the entrance. It wasn't his day to work. He offered to take me the rest of the way. We stopped 300 feet short of the entrance station and Caleb said he'd wait while I took care of things at the booth. When I turned around he was gone. I guess he wasn't too comfortable about uniforms. Even park rangers.

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