My fascination with Colorado continues. The population has so many parts. One part native American, another tough mountain crowd, one part ski resort employees, and supplementing that part, are the resort attendees. Then, there are the granola cyclists that weave throughout all these parts, welcome or not, sometimes welcome.
I don’t know if my fascination with Colorado is really a fascination with the US. I also don’t know if the following encounter is due to any of the above Colorado population parts or other influences such as the altitude or marijuana consumption.
“The orange building across from Amanda’s Cocina.”
The Air BNB instructions were simple enough. “Amanda’s Cocina” was not exactly chain restaurant for which I might be at the wrong one. Once I spotted the lodge-style Mexican restaurant, inspired by Amanda, I looked across the street and thought I had found the Air BNB. Easy way to end the day after a flight and few hours of driving.
As I turned right into the parking lot, the building was a little grungier than I anticipated. The parking lot was made of small orange rocks that crunched underneath the wheels of my rental Chevy Malibu. The grass grew long over most of the parking spots. The building was one level, motel-style, with purple painted doors.
The rooms did not seem occupied. I circled the lot a few times, is this it? There weren’t any cars in the lot. I pulled out and circled the rest of street, driving down the ally behind the buildings. There was a series of gray/green motel-looking apartments that went from numbers 1–20.
I think the description said orange though. I pulled next to the taller apartment building adjacent to the orange building with purple doors. The taller building was a gray color. I saw a little girl peering out the top window down at me. I circled in the parking lot again to see if maybe this building did not have have the right number apartment, but there they all were, the orange building apartments went from 1–20.
In the corner of the grassy overgrowth, was apartment number 15, the number listed on the BNB app. It had a lockbox on the doorknob, rather than a board nailed in, like some of the other apartments. Here’s another Colorado adventure, I thought. The last time I stayed in an AirBNB without knowing the town, I was outside a federal prison.
I got out of my car, looking around. A man in a somewhat worn white tank top walked out from behind the fence that framed the tall gray building with the girl in the window.
“Are you Dustin?” I asked, hoping he was the Air BNB host.
“No, I’m Dan.”
He didn’t say anything further and he walked back inside the fence. I walked through the weeds and over to motel room number 15 and tried the lockbox combo I had been sent through the BNB app.
The combo didn’t open the lock box. I tried the buttons again. Nothing. Thank God. The dilapidated motel with orange walls and purple doors wasn’t the right place.
But where was the right place? I was directly across from Amanda’s Cocina at an orange building. I was at a loss and I was tired. Sitting in the car with the doors locked, I messaged the host, unsure how long I sure sit in this vacant parking lot.
“I just got to the area,” I wrote, “does the place have doors painted purple?” I asked, hoping to at least eliminate this abandoned motel as an option.
“No, we’re on the corner,” the host replied, “we’re between blue and gray buildings.”
The apartment where the man came out was a gray building. The motel with the purple doors was on the corner. But they told me that wasn’t it.
“It’s on the other side of the parking lot,” the hosts said over the messages. The other side of the purple door motel parking lot? I circled the overgrown pebbled lot again wheels crunching and the little girl still glaring from her window. After driving around in this lot and checking the lock box, I only had one more chance to drive it again before I was sure Dan would have more words with me and the girl in the high up window would send signals for help that I would feel obliged to involve myself with.
“I don’t see a blue building, can you send a photo?” I was annoyed with myself for not being able to find the place on my own. If they were giving me such basic instructions, it must be easy to find. I figured that once I found it, I was going to look like an idiot for asking so many questions. However, it had been a long day and I couldn’t find this place. I drove out of the motel lot and across to the Cocina parking lot for a better view.
The next message that came my way was an image that said, “More land marks,” and gave me a picture of a tree with part of the roof top of the buildings.
Were they messing with me? I knew from that photo that I was now on my own in finding this place. There were a few gray buildings and also orange buildings on this block. Many of them had apartments numbered through 15.
“On the corner…blue and gray building…other side of the parking lot…” The hosts were some combination of high, clueless, or simply not good with giving directions. Perhaps, they were hosts with an American looking photo, but were actually located in China and desperately looking up and sending me screen shots from Google Earth’s street view.
Maybe, I thought, I was on the wrong street entirely. Maybe even in the wrong part of town. From my Cocina vantage point, I looked up and down the street one more time. I saw High Country Lodge, Timber Lodge, and a hotel named, “Mecca.” The hosts hadn’t named any of the neighboring hotels and motels, whose signs were clearly a legacy to the area. There was an RV park they hadn’t mentioned either. I must be in the wrong area.
Closer than the RV park, however was a gray-ish building. It had a big green plus sign on the outside that you couldn’t miss. Modern Botany. I gave the hosts one last try.
“Is it by the Modern Botany shop?” I asked before diving deep into google maps to figured out where a street with the same name might have been.
“Yes,” Dustin replied.
I pulled out of the Cocina and hesitantly drove in next to the dispensary. I still did not seeing an orange building with a porch that had a “view of the mountains,” as the booking page described. I did, however, see a few parking spots and one that was taken, meaning that people were present and this might be the place. The orange building came into view. I parked and walked around to the front door. 15.
Now for the lock box. I tried it once and it got stuck. I entered the code again and it opened. Thank God. I guess. I still wasn’t sure about this place, but at least I had the key before it got dark outside. I unlocked and opened the crisp white door and inside was a cozy, southwest-style, orange and turquoise decorated, renovated apartment that was clean and even included coffee with its coffee maker. All was good.
I walked back out to the porch that “faced the mountains” that could be seen above the RV park walls. It was alright and it was Colorado.
