Thanksgiving at the Como Springs Resort

If you're west bound on the Eighty, the last town in Wyoming is Evanston, home of the Whirl Inn. Their motto was, "Whirl Inn, and stumble out". As you proceed west past the Utah scales, a rather nice canyon takes you to Echo Junction. A place where the Reed/Donner party made the fatal decision to follow the advice of a tinhorn, and turn to the left. That route today takes one up to Park City, Immigration Canyon, and on into Salt Lake City. The right hand way follows the Weber River down to Ogden. A few miles past the junction on the left is the little town of Morgan. In 1978 it was the largest mink farming center in the US. It also was home to the Como Springs Resort. A place that had see much better days, but with a charm that was appealing never the less. The fall of that year it was the base of operations for Mountian Geophysical. A company that I had hired on with in September. My friend Lewis, had been driving a truck for the lumber yard at Estes Park, Colorado, when one day he up and disappeared. After months of no Lewis.... he shows up in the Wheel Bar, drinkin' Michelob with a thousand dollars in his jeans. Over the jukebox's blaring David Bowie's "Fame" I said, "Lewis, what you been doin'"? His reply, "Robert I'm jumpin' outta helicopters in Utah, and scarin' the shit out of the wildlfe". That's how I found myself at the Como Springs Resort that Thanksgiving of 1978. That fall our crew worked 75 days in a row, cause the weather was clear and crisp. I really didn't give any thought to Thanksgiving other than the idea of sleeping and callin' momma. When I woke up that afternoon, it slowly became apparant that everything was closed. I mean everything. The crew had split for all points on the compass, and I was alone. I read a little, but as the day moved on I became more and more hungry. Laying on the bed reading, I reached up to the headboard, and fumbled for the little plastic bear that contained the only food in the room.... honey. I stuck the nozzle in my mouth and squeezed out a shot of the stuff. Now, I knew that honey, if it sits will sometimes crystalize, so the crunchy part in the stuff didn't bother me on the first go round. The second time however, I stopped reading and looked in the bottle. There, floating in biblical food were 3 flies, who had met their end along with the 3 or 4 I had just had for Thanksgiving dinner. And that boys and girls is how I had flies and honey for Thanksgiving in 1978. colorado bob Nov 24, 2005 -- 05:58:21 PM EST