We stayed busy over the weekend in Cortez, Colorado, then things heated up! On Friday night, we went to the fairgrounds a few miles east of town for the Ute Mountain Roundup – the rodeo! Donna ordered five tickets and had reserved seats for us all – front and center! We’ve enjoyed a number of rodeos since we hit the road eight years ago and this rodeo ranks right up there with the best. By the way, you can read about my first rodeo experience back in 1976 here.
Saturday morning Donna and I played in the pickleball Shootout – it’s a local tournament with a round-robin format. Unfortunately for me, I was scheduled in a group that was totally mismatched. We had two players that could play at the 3.5 level – me and another guy – and two players that weren’t up to par. This led to uneven play and lopsided scores. Donna had a better matchup and held her own in some tough competition.
Mike and Jodi Hall came out with their granddaughter, Swayzie, to watch and enjoy Centennial Park. For such a small town, Cortez has a large number of beautiful, well-maintained public parks. After the tournament, we went to the farmers’ market and got there about 20 minutes before it closed.
We took a break and had some down time before we met up at WildEdge Brewing Collective for a couple of cold ones. Mike picked up the tab – thanks for the brews, Mike! We said our goodbyes until fall as Mike and Jodi were heading out of Cortez Sunday morning.
We had a lazy day on Sunday. We decided to forego the pickleball social at Montezuma’s in Dolores – we had just eaten there on Friday. Meanwhile the thermometer steadily climbed each day. We had upper 90s Saturday and Sunday. Monday was near 100 degrees and Donna was called off from going to the Ower’s farm to weed. She ended up going on Tuesday, after pickleball in the morning although the temperature reached 101 degrees.
I had an interesting afternoon on Tuesday. My Facebook feed showed a video ad for Curt Mangan guitar strings. I clicked on the video and watched how they make round core nickel wound strings. What really got my attention was their small factory – it’s right here in Cortez, Colorado! I looked at their website and found the strings were available at a music store in town. I drove to the store to get a set of these strings to try out, but it was only open Wednesday through Saturday.
I looked up the factory location and drove there thinking they may have a retail outlet. I found an unassuming metal building set back about a quarter of a mile off Mildred Road with no signage. I parked and checked out the building – it wasn’t open to the public. As I stood there by a screened, large loading door, a voice called out, “Can I help you?” I peered inside and saw it was Curt Mangan. I told him what I was looking for and he said he didn’t sell retail onsite, but invited me to come in. He asked what strings I wanted – I told him I was after a standard 10-46 set. He said, “Follow me.”
We went into a room that was obviously a packing and shipping area and he checked a shelf and found an empty box. He said, “Wouldn’t you know it – no 10-46 sets. Come with me.” We walked into another area – I would say the metal building covered nearly 5,000 square feet – and he started pulling individual strings packaged in white paper. When he had a complete set, he put them in a colored package and then inserted the whole thing into a plastic sleeve which he sealed with a machine. Then he handed me the set of strings!
Then we started talking about guitars. I told him my first “good” guitar was a Fender Stratocaster that I factory ordered from a music store in Longmont, Colorado in 1976. I said I never really bonded with Fender guitars and now I play Gibsons. He laughed and told me everyone needs a Strat or a Telecaster – they’re the foundation of electric guitars. Then he told me he had the Fender franchise in Longmont in 1978!
I told him a story about finding the receipt from Longmont Music for the 1976 Stratocaster and showing it to my guitar teacher about 10 years ago. I paid $425 for the guitar. Jeff, my teacher, asked me if $425 was for a made-in-America Strat. I laughed and told him that all Fenders back then were made in Fullerton, California. Today, you can buy a Fender made in Corona, California for big bucks or a cheaper version made in Mexico or Squier-branded one made in Asia. I checked an inflation calculator online and found $425 in 1976 is equivalent to $2,000 today – about the low end of a made-in-America Stratocaster, so they haven’t changed all that much unless you get into the Custom Shop variants that can cost upwards of $5,000 or more.
We had a nice talk, then Curt asked me if I had time for a tour! I could hardly believe it. He took me through the manufacturing process and showed me the machinery they use and how they make strings. He has a small workforce. I’m not sure how many employees he has – most of the workers were gone for the day. He told me at this time of year, they start early and knock off around 3pm due to the heat.
Curt told me he got out of the retail music business after a few years – he said it’s super competitive and hard to stay profitable. He went to work for the Ernie Ball Corporation in their Music Man guitar division. Ernie Ball is another guy with a great rags-to-riches story, but that’ll have to wait for some other time. He stayed with Ernie Ball for about 15 years and while he was there, he learned that musical instrument sales were cyclical – they went up and down. But strings seemed to be in steady demand. He studied guitar and bass string technology and, in 2004, he started producing strings.
I changed my strings a couple of weeks ago, so I won’t try out the Curt Mangan strings for a while, but I’m looking forward to trying them. If I like them, I can order direct from them online.
Curt’s notion of every guitarist needing a Stratocaster or Telecaster guitar stuck with me. I’ve been kicking around the idea of putting together a Strat-type guitar and doing research on the project. I bit the bullet and ordered a custom body and neck from BYO in New Hampshire. They’ll build the body and neck to my specifications – I went for a swamp ash body and maple neck with Indian rosewood on the fingerboard. With their lead time, it should work out for me to have the parts when we return to Mesa in September.
We left Cortez around 10:30am on Wednesday. The ongoing road work had moved past the La Mesa RV Park entrance and we had no trouble getting out. I made a quick turn into the Maverick station to top up our tank with diesel fuel. Diesel was $3.39/gallon – at this time last year we paid $2.21. Thanks, Joe – I see inflation rearing its ugly head.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the temperature in Cortez reached 101 degrees. We had the generator running to power the roof air conditioner as we drove. Our route took us through Dove Creek and into Utah where we hit US191 in Monticello. From there we went north through Moab. Seeing what happened to Moab is a bit heartbreaking for me. It used to be a funky, cool little town that was a gateway to great hiking, biking and off-roading. Now they’ve over-developed it to the point of making it into a Disney-like tourist trap.
We arrived in Thompson Creek off of I-70 around 2pm and checked in for the night. We needed a 50 amp hook-up, it’s much too hot for dry camping. Today we’ll move on to Vernal, Utah and spend the night at a state park with electric hook-up. Friday we’ll go to Rock Springs, Wyoming. We didn’t plan to go there originally as we’ve been there twice before. But when searching for festivals, Donna discovered that this weekend is the Brews and Blues Festival there and we want to attend. We did it once before and it was a hoot with surprisingly good bands.
It should be a little cooler there, but we can still expect daily highs around 90 degrees.
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