Madame Greenback

“Welcome back to Vail,” the familiar woman chirped through a cloud of thick perfume. Arms littered with precious stones then reached out and gave me an assertive hug. “I’ll bet you’re happy to be back in our little corner of paradise,” she grinned.

After an eight-month respite, the Sands family had piloted the Subaru back into Eagle County for Independence Day, the occasion being a little blow-out at my brother-in-law’s pad. And as expected, a close friend of the family – the over-the-hill woman who once told us, “Vail and Beaver Creek are on the cutting edge of the Colorado experience,” – was there waiting with a big Gore Creek Canyon welcome. This time, however, there was little talk of how the “village” – that random spray of high-end condos, big boxes, Ritz-Carltons and overpriced golf courses – is a “model for all of Colorado.”

No, something had shifted in our eight months apart. The woman once concerned only with real estate prices and tourist dollars had somehow transformed and was now the perfect portrait of eco-chic. Conservation has apparently become high fashion everywhere, even in the heart of the Vail Village, and at some point over that long, hard winter, the woman who lives for the Rumpletini got the big news and decided it was time to go green.

“The global time bomb is ticking,” our companion boasted as she sparked up a Dunhill. “It’s beyond time that we start doing something about it.”

Extinguishing the butt after a couple puffs, she pitched it into the can and ushered us out to her chariot for a Vail/Beaver Creek-flavored day of all-American revelry.

Punctuated with colored commentary – “The Chinese are really the ones fouling the global nest,” “I believe McCain has the clearest vision for fixing the climate” – our Independence Day then took the following course:

- 8:15 a.m. – Six of us pile into our host’s Toyota 4Runner (16 mpg city / 21 mpg highway). “I’m really pleased with the new car,” we are told. “The Excursion was great for business but just doesn’t make sense when gas in Vail is $4.39 a gallon.” I’m asked to sit in the way-back with the cargo but also told that I’ll be paying for the ticket if we’re pulled over.

- 8:22 a.m. – The first of several small bottles of Fiji water – a frosty beverage taken from a South Pacific aquifer and housed in plastic molded in the People’s Republic – appears and goes down the hatch. The 4Runner is left idling (“to keep the cabin cool”) as our eco-conscious friend pays a trip to the cash machine. Both the receipt and empty water bottle are pitched into the top of an outdoor ashtray.

- 8:40 a.m.– The silver SUV runs three laps around Vail’s fabled parking garage searching for the closest parking space to the Vail Village entrance. Our host briefly forgets that I’m in the way back but manages to ignite another Dunhill as we make for daylight. “I can’t wait to get back into the fresh air,” she says, taking a puff and finally opening the tailgate.

- 9:01 a.m.–We sit outside the Vail Village Starbucks as she “pops in for a Venti.” After waiting in an epic, all-American line, the green queen emerges with two giant machiattos, each in its own paper cup complete with carboard tube-top to keep her fingers cool. In addition to the drinks, she has a plastic bag containing three boxes of tea, a new mermaid mug and another plastic bag filled with Starbucks’ Caffè Verona blend. “One-stop shopping,” she giggles.

- 9:20 a.m.-1 p.m. - For the next several hours, we all sit happily in one of Vail’s favorite watering holes and watch as the Fourth of July parade – peppered heavily with advertisements – rolls by. Our tour guide starts the day early with a couple of Corona Lights (imported from somewhere south of the border) and then lays into her trademark Rumpletini (a concoction hailing from Ron Bacardi central in Puerto Rico, the Schweppes factory in Poland, and TreeTop’s Oregon plantation, among other exotic locales). Midway through the parade, cloud cover settles in, and she warms up with a DKNY frock (lovingly made by little fingers in Indonesia). A shrimp cocktail (imported from the overfished waters of Honduras) is washed down with another Fiji. Our guide sends up a loud whoop as a “John McCain for President” float rolls by.

- 1:15 p.m.–The parade draws to a close (shortly after the passage of “The Church Where God Rocks!” float and a well-aimed hard candy, which smacks me squarely in the “wedding tackle” and sends daddy down into his seat for the duration). Now too “Rumpled” to drive, our host makes the first sensible suggestion of the day and escorts us to one of Vail Transit’s hybrid buses. She hiccups her way back to the house in Avon.

- 2 p.m.–We arrive at the bus stop and hoof it to her “cottage.” In the now-empty garage, I pass three giant tubs full to overflowing with empty Fijis and dozens of dead tonic bottles.

Inside the house, the first of several surprises hits when I spy a form for carbon offsets from Renewable Choice Energy. Sitting on the table is a tattered copy of National Geographic’s Green Guide magazine. A bowl of cherries grown down-valley in Paonia then appears in her arms. As I pop a bing, it dawns that maybe I’ve been a little hard on Lady Colorado.

We all take our first steps somewhere, I tell myself, and I’m suddenly grateful that mine weren’t in a place where Land Rovers and Hummers are the only things that qualify as “free range.” For many residents of the Vail Valley, “warming” refers to the choice between fur or leather, not global climate change. And if that first leap means juicing up the noon-hour cocktail with a little homegrown organic, so be it. Tini steps are better than no steps at all.

– Will Sands