Colorado and The Protocol of Nakedness

Thank you all for your concern. No, The Great Plotnik did not drown in the waterfall (though he DID phone The Great Dance-Nik in NYC to rub it in while she listened to the sound of a Colorado waterfall over the phone). And he did not succumb to Road Kill in White Sauce either. The truth is far more insidious: he LIKED the McDonald's Double Cheeseburger off the $1 menu at a Mickey D on I-70 where the kid who took the money had a tag that said "Alex from Kazakhstan" and the kid who leaned out the drive-through with the bag had a sign that said "Omar from Turkey." Neither spoke a word of English. Yosi asked for water and Omar said "Vadd-eh? No understand."

Plotnik also REALLY LIKED the hamburger and fries at the sports bar in Steamboat Springs where every TV was playing either tonight's Rockies game, a show about one of the Rockies or a video of last night's Rockies game. The IPA from Fort Collins, Colorado was tasty too, and Plottie would have enjoyed it a lot more if it hadn't been accompanied by a hard-line Israeli's opinions of Palestinians.

Of course, Yosi has had one brother killed in battle and the other barely survived after a torpedo attack which left him adrift in the Mediterranean for eight days. Yosi himself was stationed alone in a hut atop the Golan Heights for 35 days, which turns out to be the period of punishment in the Israeli army. Yosi is the only musician Plotnik has ever known who went AWOL to play a gig. You have to love a guy who has his priorities so right.



Plotnik LOVED the pulled pork sandwich with the soppy fries inside the sourdough roll at Sumpie's New Orleans Restaurant in Steamboat Springs, where you sit outside on comfy chairs overlooking the Yampa River.



He thought the coffee from Starbucks was very, very good, and the breakfast at the Creekside Inn (oatmeal, bacon and brought-in coffee from Starbucks) was delicious. It was helped in no small way by the sound of the creek and the singing of a zillion birds.



If you're gonna get married, you may as well have a backdrop like this one at the Devil's Thumb Ranch, from which point Plotnik stood and took this picture, a moment before he and Yosi played and sang "All You Need Is Love" as the bride and groom walked back up the aisle, next to the dog who had recently converted to Judaism for the appetizers.





The road from Winter Park to Steamboat Springs was pretty, but Highway 9 from Steamboat to Silverthorne is truly spectacular. Each bend in the road brought another "Yo! Yosi! Look at that!"













Monday night, Yos and Plot went to a local hot springs, which is clothing optional after sundown. Here's how it looked before the sun went down -- the creek is on the right and it gets heated up by natural rocks and sent into pools on the left where you see all the people in the water. Each pool varies from scalding to bathtub comfy.



The protocol is what confused Plotnik -- what exactly do you do with your bathing suit at sundown? I mean, you don't want to drop trou and then hold your trunks. So you have to get out of the water, stash your suit on a rock and get back in. And you can't scream YOWWWWW!!!!, like Plotnik did when he first got into the water and happened to step into the most scalding spot, if you're naked, right?

And where do you stand? Everyone can't wade around nonchalantly next to all the prettiest girls, because, honestly, there weren't that many, and the only ones who got naked were the women one would not necessarily want, I mean, well what I'm trying to say is, now don't take poor Plottie wrong here, because, of course, every human being is beautiful, in his and her own way, you see, and well anyway the college girls weren't about to give out any free peeks. And it was pitch black so who'd have known?

The water was wonderful, though. Massages on the deck, water therapy, and just plain soaking. What a state Colorado puts you in.