I’ve got family in some very high places
ONE of my brothers lives in the US, and he’s invited me to go out for lunch when I’m next over.
His suggestion for a meal is in a fairly rustic place, but the food apparently comes highly recommended. Specialties include a lamb curry burger in a brioche bun, with waffle fries (search me) and a garden salad for $32.
The only trouble is the restaurant is situated at around 10,000 feet in the Colarado Mountains. Plus, you have to hike, snowshoe or ski up the last 1.5km, up an elevation of around 100m.
But it kind of looks worthwhile, and it has the bonus that not many restaurants in, say, Dublin or Belfast offer. Should you dine or imbibe too heartily, you can stay overnight in one of the yurts.
The restaurant, the Tenesseee Pass Cookhouse (pictured above), is part of the Nordic Center between Camp Hale and Leadville.
Despite its name, Leadvile’s game was silver. A former silver-mining centre, it lies among the headwaters of the Arkansas River within the Rocky Mountains at a height of 3,096m, hence its nickname, the Two Mile High City.
And you thought it was called that for some other reason, didn’t you?
But no, It is the highest city in the US, surrounded by gigantic peaks.
Oddly enough, Oscar Wilde — of all people — made a visit to Leadville to give a lecture.
I mean, you’d maybe expect the likes of Ernest Shackleton, or maybe even Tom Crean, but come on, Oscar Wilde?
Oddly enough, about that time the town had a Limerick man, Mart Duggan, as sheriff. He was a tough, harddrinking, quick-shooting nut, and I wonder did Oscar and Mart meet up to chat about the ould country? Sadly there is no record of this.
Oscar appeared at the Tabor Opera House during his 1882 American Aesthetic Movement lecture tour. A Kansas newspaper said that ‘no disturbance took place’. Evidently the authorities, or the media, had anticipated some sort of demonstration which never came to pass.
It all sounds an interesting enough, so I think I’ll probably take up the brother’s offer. Probably go by snowshoe the last mile. I know Oscar would be proud of me.