Wilson Koewing

With the heat wave blistering Denver things were stranger than normal so I drove up to Dowdy Lake pulling the ’61 Airstream. The campground was deserted when I arrived. What distinguishes Dowdy Lake are rock formations that jut out of the water in smooth, circular stacks and appear as though they could tumble over at any time. Intricate. Like the hands of something bigger than us constructed them. I set up my camp rocking chair, cracked a beer and listened to classic rock.

While driving from Denver to Telluride we stopped off at Orvis Hot Springs in Ridgway. Ridgway was a certified dark sky community and though it wasn’t quite dark, you could already see the Milky Way starting to bruise the blackening sky. I parked the truck and the ’62 Airstream along the side of the dirt drive. There was nothing around out there, and the jagged Rockies in the distance resembled giant arrowheads shot through the middle of the Earth.