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Spend an hour or two on of our scenic mountain highways,
and it's hard to believe that there's any kind of energy
crisis
in this country.
There will be protracted caravans of gas-guzzling spewts
(my own among them from time to time, I must confess).
Interspersed among the kayak- and bike-toting spewts will
be long-wheel-base one-ton or larger pickups, many of them
towing fifth-wheel camping
trailers of domicile
dimensions. Other pickups will be towing or carrying
off-road motorcycles or all-terrain vehicles. What you
see appears to be the exact opposite of an energy shortage.
Indeed, it appears that Colorado is holding a contest to
find the most frivolous ways to waste gasoline on weekends
because the metro-area weekday commuters just aren't
burning enough, and we'll all drown in the stuff unless we
create new ways to burn it. The weekend travelers are
hauling all this stuff into the mountains to recreate, but
sometimes I have to wonder how much longer this will
continue. The mountains seem to have less and less to do
with modern recreation in the mountains, and eventually
Coloradans may find a way to get what they want
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