April 22 is Earth Day and my wedding anniversary. This year, however, the date is also marred with tragedy: after 69 years, America’s only Ski Train has officially ended its magical service from Denver’s Union Station to Winter Park Resort.
The Denver Business Journal announcement comes as a huge twist of syncronicity for me and my wife. We met on a volunteer project in Colorado’s James Peak Wilderness, in a patch of forest near the Moffat Tunnel, through which the majestic Ski Train passed.
On that volunteer project, Lisa and I built hiking trails and picked non-native ox-eye daisies by the thousands. The flowers, which are beautiful but invasive to this landscape, arrived here by way of a legend—a bride planted her wedding bouquet near the tunnel, hoping for good luck. The combination of philanthropic days and rainy nights made for an ideal introduction to my future wife, and whenever we can, we try to carry the ideals of our early relationship into our everyday lives.
That’s why, although old wedding tradition called for leather this year, I opted to buy my wife a solar-powered Citizen Eco-Drive watch for our anniversary. And, if weather cooperates, I hope we’ll get a little time on our tiny patio planting herbs, lettuce, strawberries and tomatoes.
I won’t however, dwell too much on the irony that VP Commuter Joe announced stimulus funding for Amtrak trains, calling them “an absolute national treasure and necessity,” nor how Top 100 Wealthiest Man in the World Phil Anschutz moaned and groaned about profitability for his entire 21 years of ownership, nor the fact that the Ski Train is sadly gone.
Time passes, things change. Fortunately, memories are immutable. Ski Train, you will be fondly remembered, and I can only hope that my marriage runs as long as you did. So it goes.
