Colorado Sunday issue No. 26: "A Texas-sized arrival"

Good Colorado Sunday morning, all.

I hope those of you who were affected last week are moving swiftly through the stages of snowmageddon — from “We need the moisture,” to “Oh my aching back,” to “Wait, is that the sump pump going on in March?” — with grace and plenty of self-care.

As I was watching the snow stack up in my yard, I couldn’t help but feel for motorists out on our interstate highways who were there because they had to be, or because they misjudged the forecast. I wondered how many would yield to a glowing beacon on the side of the road and pull over to top off the tank and browse merchandise — like regionally significant jewelry and microwaves that can run off the 9-volt port in your car — while waiting for a fresh pot of coffee to brew.

I’ve been there. Checking out high-end turquoise earrings at a spot in northwestern New Mexico, gaping at trucker accessories out on the Kansas border, leaning back to take in a view near Tucson perfectly framed by windows in an A-frame convenience store as a massive rainstorm rolled through.

And if I am honest, I will probably be there again the next time I drive north on Interstate 25. I know myself and though I am forever loyal to Johnson’s Corner, I don’t think I’ll be able to keep myself from pulling off at Buc-ee’s in Johnstown, the subject of this week’s cover story by Parker Yamasaki. There’s just something magnetic about a place bragging of bathrooms so clean that they win awards and brisket sandwiches so good that they have their own chant.

A graphic showing how much the ingredients in a burger have increased
A stuffed Buc-ee’s mascot perched on a table where new employees of the world’s largest convenience store received training on Jan. 25. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)

I’m fascinated by unlikely fandoms. Not so much by the people who make them up as the reason that they happen at all.

In 2018 I was asked by a magazine to write a story about an entertainment company called Rooster Teeth. The company started out as a video series homemade by four friends in the early 2000s and had ballooned into a multimedia production company with a warehouse-sized animation studio, seven podcasts, three feature-length films, endless web series and three global conventions. And of course, a very, very avid fan base.

The measures of their success kept piling up, but the reason was remarkably hard to pin down. Even the founders of the company kept addressing my questions about why with the same answer: I don’t know.

They’d struck on some strange formula involving luck, timing and — what I now believe to be the most important aspect of fandom —providing something people didn’t know they needed.

That’s kind of the only way I can describe Buc-ee’s: a necessity that people didn’t know they needed. On paper it’s a gas station and convenience store with a goofy beaver logo. But talking to its loyal customers, employees and various heads of departments, everyone agrees that it’s so much more. They just can’t really put their finger on what.

Over the course of my reporting, Buc-ee’s was described as: Disneyland, Disney World, “the happiest place on Earth,” an amusement park, iconic and “literally a way of life.”

But it is just a gas station, right?

What makes Buc-ee’s so successful, like Rooster Teeth, like myriad companies that kind of stumble into success, remains somewhat mysterious. That’s not to say it isn’t run by savvy business people, or that they never had ambitions for success. But pinning it down has less to do with the company’s major decisions, and more to do with their fans’ devotion. And that’s something you just can’t really plan for.

READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY FEATURE

In case you missed it, we’ve curated our own visual feed of reporting to catch you up. Here are a few of our favorite shots from all over Colorado that have connected us to the outdoors lately.

A graphic showing how much the ingredients in a burger have increased
Five-year-olds Maryn and Finley make snow angels at Ruby Hill Park on Thursday in Denver. After remote learning became a key educational tool during the pandemic, many wondered if snow days would become obsolete. Most districts on the Front Range, however, are still implementing snow days during big winter storms. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
A graphic showing how much the ingredients in a burger have increased
Tabby and Paul LeMaster, with their dog Marley on Thursday at home in Fairplay. The couple is leading a petition to stop the construction of an asphalt and concrete plant less than 100 feet from their property. They bought their home in 2020, and are concerned about air, water and noise pollution from the proposed plant. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)
A graphic showing how much the ingredients in a burger have increased
Chunks of ice flow down the Gunnison River toward Blue Mesa Reservoir during spring breakup Monday. The Gunnison River travels 180 miles across the state before joining the Colorado River near Grand Junction. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun)
A graphic showing how much the ingredients in a burger have increased
Nehemiah Mahobian, left, and Jonathan Langley ski on the revolving slopes at Snobahn in Thornton on March 8. According to CEO Sadler Miller, 30 minutes on the slopes at Snobahn can equal an entire day of skiing at a resort. (Chloe Anderson, Special to The Colorado Sun)
A graphic showing how much the ingredients in a burger have increased
A skier passes by the looming dark clouds Tuesday on Copper Mountain near Frisco. Areas of Summit County received over two feet of snow into Thursday. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)
Giant cinnamon rolls are always a backdrop to a meal at Johnson’s Corner in Johnstown. (Eric Lubbers, The Colorado Sun)

Before Buc-ee’s opens its doors Monday, we have to pay homage to an original Interstate 25 roadside attraction. The first “it’s so much more than a truck stop” truck stop in northern Colorado: Johnson’s Corner.

While Buc-ee’s is Texas-bred with a hometown hero style, Johnson’s Corner is all-Colorado and hometown humble. The gas station and diner was opened in 1952 by Joe Johnson, an entrepreneur who saw that spot — surrounded by fields with no I-25 yet in sight —as the perfect place for an all-day-and-night truck stop.

And maybe it could have been content as a beacon of warm booths and hot hash browns for weary travelers halfway between Denver and Cheyenne. Or as a Sunday gathering spot for locals to stop into after attending service at Johnson’s Corner chapel, a small, rectangular building across the street from the diner.

But in 1998 Travel & Leisure placed Johnson’s Corner on its list of the best breakfasts in the world (and the only winner in North America that year) — in large part thanks to its scratch-made, plate-sized cinnamon rolls, which it still cranks out daily, and now distributes to other convenience stores around the Front Range. That said, locals will tell you the Johnson’s Corner cinnamon rolls from 7- Eleven aren’t nearly as good as the ones that roll straight out of the kitchen and onto the table.

Johnson’s Corner was sold to Travel Centers of America in 2014 and became Petro Johnson’s Corner #0399 in the TCA network. As with any ownership change —especially from a family-run business to a corporation —people worried that Johnson’s Corner would lose its charm. But as far as anyone can tell, Travel Centers of America has all but left the place, and its world-famous cinnamon rolls, alone.

EXCERPT: The 1960s were a tumultuous time in America on many fronts. Author Ruth M. Alexander reminds us that even the country’s national parks were not immune to the seismic shifts in environmentalism and racial justice. In this segment of “Democracy’s Mountain,” she explains both the broader issues in play as well as the implications of the fascinating race to conquer Longs Peak’s most challenging ascent.

READ THE SUNLIT EXCERPT

THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: Alexander grew up in New York City’s East Harlem neighborhood, where her understanding of racial, ethnic, class and gender inequality took root. In her 30s, after she’d moved to Colorado and embraced the outdoors, she began to understand how the advantages she took for granted weren’t available to everyone. Here’s a segment of her Q&A:

SunLit: Place this excerpt in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole? Why did you select it?

Alexander: This excerpt is from Chapter Six, in which I focus on the history of climbing on Longs and the history of Rocky and the NPS during the 1960s. This was a decade of dramatic change in the nation, as Americans rose to challenge myriad flaws and hypocrisies: poverty amidst plenty; constraints on liberty in a democracy; rich natural resources despoiled by “industrial progress”; interventions abroad that hastened autocracy not liberation.

The nation’s citizens demanded a reckoning. It’s easy to think that the unrest unfolding in cities, the rural South, and university campuses had no impact on national parks. On Longs, the climbers who opened the peak’s forbidding Diamond Wall in 1960 seemed untouched by the politics of the day. And yet, their ambitions and climbing achievements were shaped by the politics and culture of the day.

READ THE INTERVIEW WITH RUTH M. ALEXANDER

A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.

With nine years and three months under his belt, U.S. Rep. Ken Buck has had enough of Congress.

🌞 It was a big week in the 4th Congressional District. Sitting U.S. Rep. Ken Buck quit, saying he’s had enough of the dysfunction in the House and that his last day is March 22. This threw a bit of a wrench in the district’s primary process because a special election is required to fill the seat until Jan. 1. U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who was elected in the 3rd Congressional District but is running in the 4th, said she won’t throw in for the temporary gig because it would require her to leave her seat in the 3rd. She also accused Buck of engaging in a “swampy backroom deal” in an attempt to gum up her campaign to replace him. No surprise, Buck said that’s not true and that he’s moving on to advocate for election reforms that would improve the caliber of candidates up and down the ballot. It’s a lot of plot twisting, we know, but Jesse Paul and Sandra Fish are keeping up.

🌞 This story is only here because Vice President Kamala Harris went home with a six-pack of orange beer from Ratio Beerworks and Sandra Fish was there to witness it.

🌞 ICYMI, it snowed hard in Colorado last week — so hard that a couple hundred vehicles were trapped on Interstate 70 in the mountains. The stalled included a bus carrying 50 women home from a ski trip who sent out an SOS to the governor once their provisions ran out and the on-board toilet filled up. Jennifer Brown detailed the 20+-hour adventure. CDOT blamed semitruck drivers who violated state law and didn’t have chains on their tires. Olivia Prentzel learned 12 of those drivers were ticketed as their rigs were towed out of trouble.

🌞 And if you were wondering, no, online learning deployed during the pandemic did not kill the snow day for school kids. Erica Breunlin went sledding Thursday with kids and their parents and learned some lessons about the value of an unexpected day off.

🌞 The gloves seem to have come off in Colorado River negotiations. On Monday, plans for managing the river were submitted by the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin. The Lower Basin — that’s California, Arizona and Nevada — suggests that the belt needs to be tightened basinwide. Colorado’s chief negotiator described that idea to Shannon Mullane as an existential threat to communities and economies in states where the water originates.

🌞 Denver still is wrangling with how best to help Central and South American people bused to town by Texas. Jennifer Brown summed up six important things to know about the situation. She also talked to Yali Reinoso, an attorney who arrived in Denver from Venezuela three months ago with her husband and daughter and quickly began helping others fill out complicated forms to apply for asylum and work permits. Reinoso also was part of a panel about the migrant crisis convened by The Sun, which you can watch on our YouTube page.

🌞 Could Colorado get a piece of the Sundance Festival? No one is saying it out loud. But the whisper network suggests to Jason Blevins that a case is being made to move it here.

Thanks for hanging out with us today, Colorado Sunday fam. We are grateful for your support for news coverage produced locally — especially as we see other local and national outlets struggling. But a bit of good news in our circle: A press has been purchased to print the two dozen suburban newspapers produced by our friends at Colorado Community Media starting in May. It’s a lifeline that will be extended in the summer to other small publishers across the state, too.

— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun

Notice something wrong? The Colorado Sun has an ethical responsibility to fix all factual errors. Request a correction by emailing corrections@coloradosun.com.

Type of Story: News

Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

This byline is used for articles and guides written collaboratively by The Colorado Sun reporters, editors and producers.