Road Trip, Part 13

The Aspen House Restaurant was just down the street from the Ferris mansion. A former doctor’s office with additions tacked on to it every which way, it was a bit of a surprise, “specializing in Singapore and American cuisine,” according to the menu.

After we ordered dessert, the owners of the restaurant, Jim and Lena Dirck, joined us at our table. They were highly interested in who we were and where we came from. They were desperate for news from the outside, they told us only half-jokingly. Lena, a Singapore native, handles most of the work at the restaurant, and Jim teaches school during the day, in the direction of Medicine Bow. He told us he had only nine students that year - in all grades. And here we thought one-room schools were a thing of the past.

The Dircks held onto us as long as they could, taking us on a tour of the kitchen and then their living quarters. They were proud of their restaurant, which they had begun just six months earlier. A glance at the Internet shows that the Dircks still own the place and are still amazing passersby with Asian food in the middle on nowhere.

The treatment we received from the Dircks made Alice and I feel so special that night. That is the charm of unpeopled places, I guess, and perhaps the curse.