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The O. Zone: Riding that train, high on disdain for Trump’s treatment of Ukraine
Glenwood Canyon from the California Zephyr on Monday (David O. Williams photo).
A little over seven months ago I was at my mom’s house in Birch Bay, Washington, when I wrote that President Joe Biden should step down, pave the presidential path for Kamala Harris and hope it wasn’t too late to defeat the man J.D. Vance once said may be “America’s Hitler”: Donald J. Trump.
A week or so later, as I was driving home to Colorado, Biden did pass the torch to Harris, who – at least in terms of the popular vote – then narrowly lost to Trump in November.
On my way to visit my mom last summer, I stopped off for a little work in Salt Lake City, where I covered the National Governors Association meeting where Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, passed the NGA leadership baton to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat.
A surprise guest at that NGA meeting, which was headlined by Matthew McConaughey, was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who gave a rousing and well-received speech to a room full of mostly Republicans on how critical America’s support is in defeating the brutal dictatorship of Russian President Vladmir Putin. First Ukraine, then the rest of Europe, right?
I was back in Birch Bay again on Friday when Vance and Trump flew into a childish rage after they tried and failed to force Zelensky to kiss Trump’s ring (Game of Thrones style) and then ridiculously blasted the Ukrainian leader for hating Putin too much.
First of all, Putin began his ill-advised reconstruction of the USSR by illegally annexing the Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, after Russia, the U.S. and the United Kingdom agreed in the 1990s to ensure Ukraine’s security if it got rid of its Soviet-era nuclear weapons stockpiles. Then three years ago Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that has led to tens of thousands of deaths. What’s not to hate if you’re a Ukrainian?
Trump and Vance have been shamelessly sucking up to Putin for reasons that have to be purely transactional and because they are clearly enamored with his strongman style versus the messy business of democracy. Their childish and bullying tag team of Zelensky wasn’t shocking, but it was truly disgusting and dangerous, making a mockery of whatever is left of American exceptionalism (news flash, not much).
Then on Monday night came news that Trump has paused all funding to Ukraine – an abject and shameful betrayal of a key Democratic ally. American promises mean absolutely nothing now.
Planes to ski trains
So if you noticed Real Vail has been a little light on original content the last week or so, my family trip to Washington over the Eagle County Schools mid-winter break is the reason why. While a lot of local families head south for some sun and sand, we went north to Birch Bay and Blaine for a Great Northwest beach vacation, bookending a couple of days skiing Whistler.
We like to use our Epic Passes as far and wide as possible, plus we wanted to show our Canadian neighbors that not all of us think they should happily become the 51st state. In fact, these days the U.S. becoming the 11th Canadian province is looking increasingly attractive, although there’s no way they want any part of the shitshow our country has become.
Regardless, on the way home, hoping Emperor Elon had retained enough air-traffic controllers to safely make it back, I decided I should put my money where my mouth is and try to train it back to Eagle County with my skis in tow, making some turns where possible (I write a lot about rail).
After flying back into DIA Saturday night (delayed, of course), I for the first time jumped the infamous RTD A Train down to Union Station. A half hour later I was schlepping my skis and bags to a nearby hotel and meeting up with friends for drinks. The next morning, we grabbed the Winter Park Express Ski Train and made it there early for spring-like turns at Mary Jane.
More on my personal ski train experience will be forthcoming in future articles, but the tragic yet unsurprising part of the story is a fatal, multi-car accident on U.S. 40 shut down the main route to Winter Park and Steamboat for several hours Sunday morning, leading to lengthy delays for traditional ski travelers who did not arrive by train.
Not content to head back to Denver on the ski train that evening and then drive home to EagleVail on the crapshoot of I-70, I jumped on Amtrak’s California Zephyr in Fraser Monday morning and am writing this while cruising smoothly along the banks of the Upper Colorado River, having just traveled through three spectacular canyons: the Fraser River, Byers and Gore Canyons on the Colorado.
My ultimate destination was Glenwood Springs, where I considered keeping up the ski train thing by taking a short shuttle ride to Ski Sunlight or a longer one to Aspen after maybe hitting the hot springs in Glenwood. But a return to the “reality” of Vail has me headed home instead.
Ideally, in the future I’ll be able to get off at Dotsero or Bond and take a train — or at least a bus — back east up the Eagle River Valley to Avon (kind of ridiculous we have passenger trains blowing right through Eagle County without stopping).
A local steering committee is pushing for the Polis administration to at least study reviving passenger rail on the Tennessee Pass Line from Glenwood to Leadville. For now, I’ll have to catch a ride on I-70 with my wife … if a semi hasn’t gone sideways in Glenwood Canyon.
Speaking of rides
Sure, our faux spring weather has provided some nice, slushy turns, raised our collective spirits in these dark times and layered on some facial tanning, but we need more powder days, more snowpack to fend off drought and wildfire season and just generally more soft snow riding to make life more meaningful in all our various ski towns as the spring season starts to wind things down later this month. Thankfully, the weather gods are listening to our powder prayers.
The forecasters King Elon hasn’t yet ousted (after he built a business empire by illegally overstaying a student visa and then reaping billions in federal contracts and grants) are calling for a return to snowy weather this week. Long live the National Weather Service!
“The warm weather is behind us, and we are heading back into a stormy pattern,” meteorologist Joel Gratz of Opensnow.com wrote Monday. “The first system will bring snow from Monday afternoon to Tuesday night, and the northern mountains should measure the most snow with 8-14+ inches and powder on Tuesday. Then, additional storms will bring snow on Thursday and Friday, around March 11-12, and around March 14-16.”
It was snowing quite heavily as we headed home from an early dinner in Glenwood Springs Monday evening, and by the time we got to EagleVail the first road closure alerts were already pinging my phone.
Editor’s note: The O. Zone is a recurring opinion column by RealVail.com publisher David O. Williams. Please read how you can help support this site by considering a donation or signing up for news alerts … or both.
David O. Williams
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