The French Bakery - a tale from U.S.A.
The French Bakery
An unusual name for a youth hostel in the midst of the Rocky mountains; an unusual siting for a youth hostel. The U.S.A. is not known for it's youth hostels, - few Americans are actually aware that there is such an organisation, much less in their own country, yet there are (were) some fabulous gems to be found, and this was one of them.
Apparently, in the summer, Silverton, Colorado is a tourist honeypot: according to the town's website today, (March 2007), over a quarter of a million tourists visit the town every year. Yet the permanent population is just around 500! There is a little railroad track that runs up to the town: the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Train, but it only ran in the summer. No more, take a look at this beautiful image:
Photo by Darel Crawford
BTW, I love this information for flagging down the train from the official website of the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway:
Flagging The Train:
Because Needleton & Elk Park are flag stops, you must flag the train to signal the engineer that you wish to board. The correct method is by waving your hands horizontally across your knees. When flagging the train in either direction, you must be on the east side of the tracks.
I was touring the USA in 1980, and seeking out budget accommodation wherever I could - of which there often seemed to be very little. I had been hitch-hiking since Denver. I had bought myself a Rand-McNally road atlas, and was making a slow trail from the Mile High City to Campbell, California, where my step-uncle lived. I was looking forward to the sunshine, but was enjoying every minute of the journey to get there. My only certain stop was to be the Grand Canyon: beyond that, I would just follow the trail of cheap backpacker haunts such as it was in 1980. I would hitch a ride in the general direction of the next haunt in my International Youth-hostellers guide. If Lady Luck should offer me an adventure to pursue, then so be it; otherwise I'd just doss where I could, as cheaply as I could.
I had never heard of Silverton, and didn't know of it's fame as an old mining town, although the name really should have given that away, (Silver-town). Anyhow, I knew nothing of it, not even that it was high in the hills. There was a mention of the town in my IYHA (International Youth Hostels Association), Handbook, listing the French Bakery as a good, reasonably-priced hostel, with good food and budget breakfasts, so off I headed.
The ride I got from the base of the hill gave me some idea of the treat I was in for: a long steady climb surrounded by beautiful snow-covered mountain scenery on all sides. It was early April: still plenty of snow, but not horrifically cold or anything impassable.
On arrival in the town, I couldn't believe my luck: this was just the sort of place I'd come to the USA to see. Firstly, I couldn't believe how small it was, a rare treat to find a USA hostel in such a wonderful little town. Its location: breathtaking! Set in a small valley in the midst of the mountains, the views in late winter on a clear sunny day were truly lovely. I'd arrived in late afternoon, so had very little time to see the town on the first day, but the scene had most definitely been set. It was like being cast back a century to the mining days of the town. I very likely wanted to be a little blinkered, but I couldn't see much more than the general store, a few bars and a restaurant on the one main street. The Real Wild West - albeit with a cinema (looking suitably ancient), and a gift shop! I decided that I had to go exploring later, which in the short days at this time of year, meant after dark.
Travelling alone has it's advantages and disadvantages. One of the most positive advantages is that you generally tend to have much more interaction with the people who live in the place you are visiting. The upshot of this is that you often get to share things with the locals - time, a meal, a conversation. You frequently meet people who will graciously take you into their homes. They will share a little of their lives with you: the best souvenir you could ever wish for.
I checked in at the French Bakery and was shown my room upstairs in a dorm of sorts. It was only called a dormitory owing to the fact that the room had to shared, otherwise it was just a regular room with (as I recall), two single beds and one double. To my eyes, it was perfect: the room from every western movie - upstairs from the sleazy bar, where our hero indulges in the pleasures of the bar-girl with a heart of gold. And as luck would have it, no other guests were staying in the hostel part of this guest house, (which was in any case limited to this one room), so I had the room to myself.
I went downstairs and bought a bowl of soup or something similar. I did get the impression that they weren't entirely used to the budget traveller round these parts, so a nineteen-year-old foreigner with no cash was a bit of an unusual guest. Still, the soup would see me through till morning and the cheap breakfast, when I could top up again.
The Shining
Now, don't get me wrong: I really like Jack Nicholson as an actor, it's just that prior to seeing two of his best-known (best-loved), films, I'd already read the books. And very, very fine books too. So fine that you can't help but come away from reading them with a very strong idea of your own about the characters: their looks, mannerisms, heck you even know what food they like. Having developed these characterisations in your own head, it is extremely rare to prefer the film over the book - you all know what I mean, right?
The two books in question were 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (of which, more later in another, Californian tale), and...'The Shining'.
Of course, if you have ever read 'The Shining' by Stephen King or seen the film starring Jack Nicholson, you will know of the setting: old rambling hotel; Rocky Mountains in Colorado; middle of winter. Finely staged by Stephen King, the location and atmosphere he creates in the development of the story has you quivering in your boots long before anything slightly scary happens. It is just so lonely and solitary...
So, full of soup, off I went for a post-supper stroll around town. Not a lot to see in the dark. The shops were all shut, (most seemingly hadn't even yet opened for the summer trade); I daren't start drinking in the bars - my funds were far too low; the cinema was only open at weekends. So I just took a walk around the back streets to soak up the small-town atmosphere.
There wasn't a lot to see, to be honest, and I was about to head back to my room when I bumped into a girl and we struck up a conversation. She was very striking: bright blond hair and sharp blue eyes - almost albino. I don't recall where she was from, just that she wasn't native to Colorado, much less this little town in the mountains. She was living in Silverton with her sister, and I guess they were there after the atmosphere and lifestyle that was so very far removed from what had been home.
She took me back to their house, and we shared some food and a beer or two, and talked. We probably smoked a joint or two as well. She was older than me, mid-twenties, I guess, and I remember thinking how much more mature, aware and experienced than me she seemed to be. I don't really recall too much of what we talked about, but our backgrounds; the differences in our lives; music, travel and literature would all have been there. We swapped recommendations, and as I was bookless (is that a word?!), she very kindly gave me some of the books on her list.
As an aside, and to give an idea of where she was at (sorry: I love that phrase!), her book list, (she wrote down what she couldn't give me), included 'Even Cowgirls Get the Blues'; 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'; 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test' and 'On the Road'; I think that 'The Catcher in the Rye' was there too. Oh, and music included Neil Young and the Grateful Dead. Twenty-seven years later and I still haven't read On the Road (Oh, the Shame!), and never managed to get into 'Cowgirls'. Before I die...
One of the books she gave me was 'The Shining' by Stephen King. I had already seen 'Carrie' at the cinema a year or so previously, and had jumped in all the right places, but had no idea that the author was the same. She told me that the book was scary, but very good, and instructed me not to read it at night. Well, as a teenager, I loved ghost and horror stories, so of course I was going to, wasn't I?
I left her and went back to my guest house. It didn't seem right to leave her, but somehow I didn't really know how to stay, if that makes any sense. I think that neither of us wanted to be alone, but both of us knew that it wasn't quite right. I should have stayed though; back alone in my single bed at the guest house, I knew that - a little too late. To distract myself from this, the type of error that would plague my life, I began to read the first of the novels she had given me, The Shining.
I only stayed in Silverton for two or three nights, but I managed to get though a fair bit of that novel. The film would never be the same after having read the book in it's original setting, alone, late at night...Phew! Gives me the creeps now. I got out of town before the hotel began to take a hold of me - I just knew I wouldn't be able to resist taking a peek in room xxx...
Tale last updated: Monday, April 5th, 2010