August 2021
I am writing my second book of tall tales and adventure. The book will be similar to The Rats of Plainville: Tales from the Heartland, only the new stories will take place in the Rocky Mountains. The first story is in editing and takes place in the small town of McCoy, Colorado. This past Sunday, I decided to visit McCoy.
As the story explains, McCoy is a small town. Very small. Wikipedia says there were 43 people living there in 2019. When I drove through, I saw exactly zero people. Maybe they were all worshiping in the McCoy Community Church. Or perhaps they were engaged in the making of antler art. Whatever the reason, as I drove through town and into the surrounding hills, I met not a soul.
The drive out was nice, once I jumped off of Interstate 70 near Wolcott. I-70 can be tiresome and way too busy for my liking. I didn’t experience too much traffic heading west though. Once on Colorado State Highway 131, the number of passing cars thinned. Between McCoy and Toponas, I saw maybe five cars total. And once I turned east on Highway 134, I encountered more cattle than people.
Rural roads in Colorado are wonderful. Highway 134 travels through the Routt National Forest. I passed through thickets of pine trees and by small streams and rivers. They eventually flow into the Colorado River; the waters making the long journey from Grand County, Colorado to the Gulf of California.
Highway 134 eventually dead-ends at US Highway 40, near Wolford Mountain Reservoir. I drove south and east on Highway 40 past Kremmling and Granby into Fraser. To my delight, there were two good breweries in Fraser; the Fraser River Beer Company and Camber Brewing Company. I didn’t have my best brewery adventure buddy with me (Linda was visiting her daughter in Michigan), however, I decided to give them a try. I was not disappointed.
I eventually finished the day, driving south on Highway 40 through Winter Park. I merged back onto I-70, and hit terrible traffic back into Denver. Not liking the flow, I exited onto US Highway 6 into Golden, up Coloroda Highway 93, and made it home in the afternoon.
