Chapter 3

Four motorcycles and one Vespa with a Hawaiian print helmet turned west at the junction of I-25 and I-70, better known by locals as The Mouse Trap. They continued toward the Continental Divide. At its highest, they would be at eleven-thousand feet above sea level. Luckily, they were on motorized vehicles and not walking under their own lung power. Another pit stop was needed. So Anya pulled over at the Loveland Ski Resort entrance where there was a visitor’s center so everyone could relieve their bladders and consume nicotine and water. Some might need more gas. Sure, why not? Better safe than sorry. In fact, her gut told her everyone should top off their tanks before they crossed the Continental Divide.

“You know,” Chris blurted as if they had been previously discussing this very topic and she just now had a chance to complete her thought. “In the late 1800s, potties were all outhouses, and a woman’s clothes were made such that they just lifted their skirts and parted their bloomers to relieve themselves.”

“We know!” Three women snapped. Anya just smiled as the others walked away to enter the visitor’s center.

Chris sighed happily, apparently unaware of the other’s annoyance. She and Anya walked into the little store. “It was such simpler times. I swear I was born a hundred years too late. What I wouldn’t give—”

“You want a soda or water?” Ash opened the wall of refrigerator doors and looked back at Christine.

“Oh, I’ll have a water.” Chris bobbed her head. “Nothing better for ya than water. Back in the 1800s they didn’t even have sodas.” She laughed. “Unless you count sassafras. Kinda like root beer today. Oh, maybe I’ll have a root beer.” She perused the other glass doors to see what they had.

Ash rolled her eyes and took out a large bottle of Core Water. “You know, according to my dig findings, back two hundred years ago, water was filled with parasites, and they preferred fermented juice to water from the streams.” She said loudly so Chris could hear her sarcasm.

A full-time and very successful chef, Ashley funded her own expositions to discover the history of culinary ways of life by the indigenous Coloradans - Ute, Apache, and Cheyenne Indians. Her partner-in-life and in-the-digs, who never popped the question, lived with her as long as she was willing to support him and their archeological discoveries. He had been escorted from her house by the police after she had all she could take from his bank-account-draining, leech-like lifestyle.

The final straw was when he published his paper, Culinary Cuisine of the High Desert Natives: Differences Between the Tribes, in the Archeological Times Magazine and received respected notoriety, without her name in the subtitles or as co-discoverer.

She had filed the claim for the area where they dug up the findings along the Arkansas River and paid all associated fees, bought the equipment needed, and paid to have their samples sent to the University of Colorado for analysis and carbon dating. That drove her over the edge. She asked him to leave the day she discovered the article. After two years of lawyers, restraining orders, and the embarrassing police escort, he was finally out of her life for good.