Beau Jo's of Idaho Springs, Colorado

When I was in the Air Force, I had driven down to Idaho Springs and enjoyed truly memorable Colorado-style pizza at a pizzaria in an historic clapboard building. When I mentioned this to my Colorado brother-in-law John a couple of years ago, without hesitation he said, "Bo Jeau's."

Memories are funny things.  I remembered many details of that night long ago, but not the name of the pizza parlor.  I had dressed in my new navy blue ski outfit, put my skis in the back of the Chevy Vega station wagon I'd recently bought off a used car lot in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and took off for Colorado believing I could sleep in the back of the Vega in a sleeping bag to ski early the next morning.

About the time I hit Idaho Springs, I was hungry and tired, so I pulled off the freeway and stopped for a pizza sign.  When I walked in, I found an authentically old interior, as opposed to some shabby chic immitation, and a woman sat behind a piano in the corner belting out jazzy songs in the style of Fats Waller.  I've always loved music, so this was perfect for me.

I ordered a pizza and pitcher of root beer, settling in for the evening.  At one point, I asked her to play "Cry Me A River," though I don't remember why.  She said, "You probably mean the Joe Cocker version.  I do the original Ella Fitzgerald version." 

I put a dollar in her tip jar and said, "Sounds good."

And it did.

I stayed in the warm restaurant until it was late, and then went to bed in my car.

If you've been to the Rocky Mountains in winter, you understand exactly how naive I was to think a 1970s Vega that was built out of tin foil would provide shelter from the cold.  No matter how much I rubbed myself in my sleeping bag, I couldn't stop freezing.

I didn't have money to get a hotel room AND ski, so I decided to skip them both, hitting the road for the three hour drive back to Cheyenne about 2 in the morning.

Believe it or not, a car purchased for $1000 on a Cheyenne used car lot isn't as reliable as you may think.  About an hour into my drive home, the engine threw a rod, and I sputtered to the side of the road somewhere north of Denver in the middle of no man's land.  Since this was before the age of cell phones, and traffic at that time of night was sparse on I-25, I had no choice but to climb back into my sleeping bag and shiver.  Somehow, I fell asleep, and a policeman rapping on my window with his flashlight awakened me.

Horse back riding at F.E. Warren AFB

I explained my situation, and he not only called a tow truck for me on his radio but dropped me off at a bus station.

When I returned to the base on Monday, Sergeant Briggs, a nice, somewhat effeminate married man who didn't strike anyone as a tough guy, advised me to contact the car lot and threaten to get them blacklisted with all base personnel if they didn't fix my car.  It worked, and I drove that car with a rebuilt engine for the next year or so, although almost immediately after I got it back from the mechanic, while trying to load armloads of Christmas presents in the car, a gust of wind (and in Cheyenne, we're talking 90 miles an hour or so) opened the door up so wide that it broke the hinge and bent the metal.  I was able to get the door closed, which was good on that cold night, but I could never open it again. 

Air Force buddies Joe Schneberger and John Willetts

That was the first time it occurred to me that General Motors might be declining in quality while trying to meet government regulations for fuel efficiency standards.  I sold that car to Air Force buddy John Willetts, who was okay with the bad door and may still be driving it around his home town of Boston, probably never having fixed the door but complaining about it every day.

Anyway, back to this summer, the second event after fireworks that we had planned for our Colorado trip was white water rafting, which is something we always enjoy, whether in guided rafts or just intertubes we hauled up the rivers ourselves.  We made reservations at Clear Creek Rafting, since it would be closest to John's house.  I'll get to how much fun that was next time.

It just so happens that Clear Creek runs next to Idaho Springs, so I would have a chance to return to Beau Jo's Pizza, or at least to see if it was the same place. 

Julie and I rode with John in his flex fuel Ford Expedition, with my niece Bree and nephews Brett, Brad and Jered filling the rest of the seats.  John took us on a quick driveby tour of Denver before heading into the mountains west of there, and I marveled at how much it had changed.  When we pulled into Idaho Springs, I began to doubt whether Beau Jo's was the place I had enjoyed years ago.  I remembered it being on the right side of the road, not the left, and I actually remembered it more as a single street doubling back through a canyon.  More significantly, there was no piano in sight.

Julie and I were still full from breakfast, having not become accustomed to the elevation or time change yet, but John ordered two Mountain Pie pizzas for the table: 1 pound Pepperoni and 2 pound Specialty Hamburger and Sausage Combo.

We were finally convinced by a combination of the aroma and coaxing to split a piece of the combo, which the kids only ate when the pepperoni pizza was gone.  It was fantastic. 

It was so good that on our last day in Denver, Julie and I drove back to Idaho Springs after walking around Red Rocks Amphitheater, where lots of locals apparently work out every Sunday, using the steps as an aerobic studio. 

Following the lead of the kids, we ordered a one pound pepperoni pizza, but it wasn't nearly as good as the specialty pizza.  It was the fact that they piled up all of those great meats and vegetables with cheese on a thin crust inside a thick rim of curled over pizza dough that made the combo pizza pie so great.  By the way, they give you honey to put on the outer crust ring at the end for dessert.

We sat by Clear Creek and enjoyed our pizza.  We possibly would have time to go to the nearby Garden of the Gods, but it's just as well we didn't, as a combination of me searching for my flip video camera (which I never used) and our iPhone GPS malfunctioning pushed us to a later than expected airport arrival anyway.

Oh, and by the way, if we had taken the second entrance into Idaho Springs, we would have found Beau Jo's on the rightside of the road doubling back through a canyon.  It certainly has become a lot more popular over the years, with a well-deserved reputation for quality, and muliple locations, but if you're in Colorado, visit the original.