“That looks like fun.”
I am driving with Dario to the Grand Mesa, where we are going to look for—or forage, to use the professional term—porcinis and possibly golden chanterelles. He is gesturing with his chin across the highway where a cropduster is spraying phalanx-like fields of Olathe corn. The pilot is flying less than ten feet above the tops of the plants and taking the corners alarmingly sharp and tight.
It turns out that Dario, a former banker, derivatives salesman, waiter, and dog grooming business owner, has also been an aviator. He is Swiss-Italian and grew up on a farm with chickens and cows twenty minutes from Lake Como. Everyone in Switzerland does military service, and Dario trained as a pilot, starting at 15. To judge by the shine in his eyes, this takes him back.
It has rained all the last week—propitious conditions for mushroom hunting—and, as we begin to ascend the mountain with its endless switchbacks, we see south-facing aspen, just starting to turn, and above them…
