As some of you know this weekend was a big event for the Colorado MG Car Club.
It was our 50th annual Glenwood Rallye. For those of you who don't know
Glenwood Springs is located about 150 miles west of Denver, just past one of
the most beautiful stretches of highway in the US. There have been may PBS
and Discovery Channel shows about the building of I-70 through the canyon, and
I can assure you it's fantastic.
Friday morning we left from the Denver area for a scenic drive through the
back roads, making it about an 8 hour topless drive in my boyfriends' B (his
v8 conversion isn't quite finished, and the bugeye lost the coin toss). It
was beautiful and quite hot. Friday night when we finally arrived in town
there was a sock hop at the brand new community center.
Saturday morning we got up early and drove in the rallye through the
surrounding areas. (We split the driving- the first time I've really even
driven the B for more than a few feet- though we didn't do too well.) After
some fuel pump overheating issues we head back to the hotel early to take a
shower and get ready for the big banquet.
Upon arriving at the hotel and washing the car James and I noticed some smoke
peeking up over the top of the mountain across the highway and Colorado River
from us. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching the smoke grow, and
eventually the fire peek up over the hill. Many photos were taken of this as
I have never seen a forest fire before, despite growing up in an area where
there are so many. A lot of the members of our group packed up and left for
town- many people drove for several days just to get to this event, and
brought special and one of a kind cars just for the show that was to take
place on Sunday. We stayed for the banquet but packed up because it was
becoming more an more obvious that we weren't going to stay the whole night.
The fire was rapidly moving toward town, and it's movement could be seen with
ever gust of wind. We went to the banquet, though I spent most of the time
sitting on a guard rail with my camera talking to some of the locals and
watching the fire grow, and yes many of them had cameras as well, so no one
seemed to be offended by the presence of mine.
When I went back into the banquet it was just being announced that most of the
town, including us, was being evacuated. James and I grabbed our stuff and
headed home. As we were some of the first in our group to leave it wasn't too
bad, but I've heard that the lines of cars were pretty bad after us. We could
see the fire for a few miles, until a sharp bend into the canyon, but could
smell the smoke all the way through Glenwood Canyon (30+ miles) and could see
the smoke seeping in.
This fire started about 1pm but was no mention of it on the 5pm Denver news
last night. It apparently was started by a coal seam that had been burning
for 100 years. By midnight when we got home there were tickers on several of
the channels, and another fire elsewhere in the state had begun. At this time
the fire had consumed about 7000 acres and is 0% contained. A trailer park,
which was one of our landmarks on the rallye is pretty much gone, and the
K-mart we went to in the morning for supplies is rumored to have been burned
down, also that beautiful community center is completely gone.
It was quite an adventure, though not one I want to repeat any time soon.
I'll post my pictures soon, they were taken in today as I don't have a digital
camera, and if anyone is interested in more info there are some links below.
This fire isn't the worst, the other has now burnt over 25,000 (that's not a
typo) acres and was started by a campfire. Be careful this summer, much of
the country is in drought conditions and these things spread quickly.
Patricia
http://www.9news.com/storyfull.asp?id=3636
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/den/news/stories/news-150339320020609-110652.
html
http://news.excite.com/article/id/242568|top|06-09-2002::19:06|reuters.html
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/main.html?SLUG=WILDFIRES
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