I had the pleasure of hosting a 5^th grade classmate of mine that I hadn’t seen in over 30 years. Rick had spent some time in Steamboat shortly after High School and has always wanted to come back (boy, how many times we have heard that). It was interesting seeing Steamboat through someone else’s eyes, particularly someone who hadn’t been back in over three decades. As I was playing tour guide and pointing out all of the great things that we, as a community, have accomplished and how we did so through the spirit of cooperation, it amazed even me what this community is all about. I thought he may criticize the density around the base area but instead Rick appreciated the effort to keep the valley floor open. After Rick and his wife, Connie, took a trip to the top of Rabbit Ears pass then down through Stagecoach and Oak Creek they remarked how special it was to see open land and unobstructed views, not at all like the Vail valley of Aspen. We spent the evening recalling old times and they were intrigued by my tales of how the community got together to build the initial playgrounds at the elementary schools and how we were able to accomplish the funding and construction of our core trail which parallels the Yampa River. How diverse groups compromise to achieve a world class fishing habitat coinciding with a kayak slalom course and several play holes. That the citizens of Steamboat had the ability to see and fill the need for an indoor ice rink and a world class tennis center with six indoor courts, even an eighteen million dollar addition to the Yampa Valley Regional Airport without having to go to the voters. His assumption was that our property taxes must be daunting but found out it was about half of what they pay in the Seattle area. As the Ellsbury’s left to journey back home Rick looked at me and said “you know, it’s great to see a place where things are done right!� I couldn’t agree with him more!

This entry was posted on Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 11:28 am and is filed under The Steamboat Lifestyle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.