OK, I cheated. There are still two weeks left of the second third of the year. I cheated, too, in that the story begins on December 22, 2019. That was the day that Greg, comatose, was airlifted to a Denver hospital. Sean stood on the ground, watching the helicopter leave Glenwood Springs, not knowing if she’d ever see her husband alive again. I wrote about it two weeks later in this blog
Greg recovered. Jadyne rode with him four hours in the ambulance that brought him back to a rehab center. He improved enough after a couple of weeks to come home. But he’s not there now. He and Sean are currently staying in the Hotel Denver, a $250 a night hotel by the hot pool in downtown Glenwood Springs. I took this image two years ago of the hot pool and the pure. blue, sunny sky above Glenwood Springs, a view looking towards No Name. The Hotel Denver is off to the left but not shown.
That was then. This is now.
The brownish building off to the left is the same building in the first photograph, but the pool is closed, as is everything else.
Last Monday someone saw smoke in the median of I-70, the main thoroughfare through Glenwood Canyon, a major artery for east-west traffic of any kind. The Grizzly Creek Fire began just east of No Name and grew quickly on national forest land, not threatening any structures, but expanding dramatically in the hot dry August heat. It’s six days later, and the fire has consumed 26,000 acres and is 0% contained. Firefighters are protecting people and structures. One of Greg’s neighbors in No Name took this photograph one-half hour after the fire started, packed his bag and left his house.
Before Greg and Sean were evacuated Greg took this image from his driveway.
For three or four days Sean and Greg, then living with friends in Glenwood Springs, read reports as the fire spread towards No Name, the smallish community that they and about two hundred other neighbors, call "home.” They tried to prepare themselves for the very real possibility of losing their house and their entire neighborhood. They knew that firefighters, unable to stop the flames in the forest around them, would do everything they could to save structures. The fire advanced to the edge of No Name, stopping on the eastern side of No Name Creek, a few hundred yards from their house. There firefighters made a stand. Although the fire has burned right up to the edge of No Name and has jumped the Colorado River, their house still stands.
So now they’re in downtown Glenwood Springs. The owner of the Hotel Denver lives in No Name, and with no tourists in a heavily touristed town, he has provided their room free of charge. They have no cooking facilities, and we believe that the local restaurants are closed, perhaps open to the 625 firefighters that have made Glenwood Springs their home for the indefinite future. We gave them a gift card to the hotel coffee shop. The air is so smoky that even with an N95 mask Sean couldn’t make it two blocks to the grocery store, turning back to escape the smoke. They don’t know when they’ll be able to return to their house or when the interstate will open. Electricity has been out for four or five days, so opening the refrigerator will be an unpleasant task. Knowing them, though, they’ll be so delighted to know that they still have a refrigerator to open.
When we first told Jason about the fire, he, in the middle of a divorce, forced because of the pandemic to live under the same roof as his soon-to-be single spouse, responded “Fuck this year.” We second that.
Oh, did I mention that after Greg returned from Denver last winter he was told that the drugs he’s taking leave his immune system compromised? That we couldn’t visit? That he shouldn’t leave home? Oh yes, and there’s also that nasty Covid-19 thing. Fuck this year.