Courtesy Atlas Obscura
Sing it with me: “On the road again / Goin’ places that I’ve never been / Seein’ things that I may never see again / And I can’t wait to get on the road again…”
The words of the legendary country crooner and cannabis activist Willie Nelson have been in the back of my mind while staying home for the past year, unsure of when I’d actually and safely be able to get on the road again. Now that a return to travel has commenced, I can’t wait to put my multiple itineraries made in Apple Notes during the pandemic to proper use.
The Aspen Times Weekly
Skiers line up around the block to load the Silver Queen Gondola to ski Aspen Mountain after a fresh 14 inch snowfall on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021. (Kelsey Brunner/The Aspen Times)
It’s a winter like no other, with the lifts spinning and skiers skiing through a global pandemic.
Playing out against a backdrop of spiking Aspen area infections, school and restaurant closures, rolling quarantines, global economic crises, the insurrection in Washington, a real estate boom here and an upside-down year on Earth, one of the few things that’s the same as ever is clicking into our skis and breezing down a slope.
The border wall, looking eastward from the Mexican side, toward El Monte Cristo Rey, a mountain where there is no wall, but the rugged terrain deters crossings. The Mexican soldiers who guard the border there, Smith says, sometimes have to rescue stranded or injured migrants. The painted signs attached to the wall read, in part, “Ni delincuentes ni ilegales”: Neither criminals nor illegals.”
Photograph courtesy of Morgan Smith.
The first time photographer Morgan Smith ’60 crossed into Mexico with his camera was during a Thanksgiving trip to see his sister-in-law in Tucson in 2011. Bored and restless during the long holiday, he decided to drive to Nogales, just over the border, where he found a taxi driver, “a really nice guy,” he says, “who kind of took me on a tour.” A retired lawyer and former Special Forces paratrooper who took up photography in his early thirties, Smith spoke Spanish and had been to Mexico many times for work and vacation, but this was a dif
Inauguration of James Garfield, 1881. Library of Congress
The coming inauguration will likely have a few footnote firsts, but the 1881 inauguration of James Garfield was the first celebrated in Aspen as it was the first presidential election in the town’s history. Unfortunately there was no newspaper for seven more months so we can only speculate about it.
The election of 1880 is still the closest in history for the popular vote with a slim .1% difference. The Electoral College vote was not close but was the beginning of a pattern that still holds today. This was the first election after Reconstruction and the beginning of a solid southern state vote (then for Democrats).
High Country
Puffco was recognized in Product & Service Innovation for the Peak Pro, a portable vaporizer with the largest ceramic chamber on the market.
Courtesy Puffco
Courtesy Clio
Superette, a Canadian dispensary chain with five locations in Toronto and Ottawa, won Gold in Brand Design.
Courtesy Superette
Editor’s Note: The photos that accompanied the print version of this article were incorrectly included from a previous column. The Aspen Times Weekly production department regrets the error.
When the venerable Clio Awards put cannabis on their short list of celebrated disciplines last year, it indicated a shift in the creative climate for the once-stigmatized industry. As the preeminent honors in the marketing world (the so-called “Oscars of advertising”), the official offshoot, Clio Cannabis, recently announced its second annual award winners