The Trip of a Lifetime

While in the ICU waiting room, I thought about the many happy memories that I've shared with my dad. I would tag along on wrecker runs or just hang out at my dad's auto shop & he never once complained about me being in the way. There were many wonderful vacation trips that were always punctuated by my dad stopping to help some stranded motorists.

As an adult, one summer trip stands out in my mind. In 1992, I was fortunate to take a Colorado vacation with my dad. It was just the two of us. We were heading to Dad's favorite spot in southwestern Colorado, specifically Ouray. I wanted to see other parts of the southwest such as Arches Monument in Utah (having just read Ed Abbey's "Desert Solitaire"). Dad was more than happy to oblige my "little" side trip. He had always loved going to the mountains ever since our first trip there as a family in 1972 when I was just nine years old. For this particular trip, we'd haul a pop-up camper behind his four-wheel drive Blazer. Dad loved to take to the backcountry jeep trails & he was fond of taking four-wheel routes whenever possible. My mother would be staying home to help my dear grandmother get along. My grandma was not getting around nearly as well as she once did & needed the extra help. The thing that sticks in my mind, to this day, is that we were leaving town but I did not get a chance to stop by grandma's to say hello like I'd always done before this time.

I had driven up to my parents house from San Antonio, where I was living at the time. We then left Comanche, Texas, for a camping area near Levelland, Texas, then from there we drove on through New Mexico & into Colorado. These were the days before cell phones in every ear, so we had to call from payphones to check in at every other stop or so. Upon arrival in Ouray, Colorado, we set the camper up at the Four J's campground. Dad made his call to mom, only to learn that my grandmother had suffered a stroke with my mom at her side in the grocery store. She was hospitalized & her prognosis was not good. My dad and I began the debate about whether to simply turn around and head back or to continue onward. My mom, ever the optimist, reasoned that we were already there, we could check in frequently and, if we were back home, our presence would not make grandma's situation any better any more than our absence made it worse.

Dad would call to get updates & we would reassess our planned trip as it progressed. Unfortunately, it's planned progression was suddenly dictated by the transmission in Dad's Blazer. It bit the dust before we could go on any trails and it forced my dad in the awkward position of needing someone to repair his own vehicle. Not wanting to incovenience my trip, he insisted that I stay in Ouray to hike & take photographs while he took the vehicle to the nearest town for repair. He had to drive from Ouray north to Montrose with the transmission stuck in a low gear. Once there, he left the Blazer at an auto shop, rented a Jeep & headed back to Ouray.

We were able to go on the Jeep trails & enjoy the next few days while his vehicle was being repaired. Meanwhile, my grandmother's situation in Texas remained stable. The only mention he ever made about someone else working on his own vehicle was that it was hard to put it in someone else's hands. We continued to make the most of our trip & visited Black Canyon on the Gunnison (pictured above), Blue Mesa, Lake City, and many jeep trails.

Once the vehicle was repaired, we travelled to Colorado National Monument & then on into Utah. We took a long route to Moab & had a blowout on the camper trailer somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, we had a spare & were able to change it & make it on to Arches. It seemed our trip was marred with disaster after disaster. I felt bad for making dad travel so far away from his beloved mountains just to quench my desire to see more of the desert.

Flash forward to the hospital bed & my dad's final hours. I sat close by with my hand on his, cherishing our time together. I told him that I had been thinking about our trip to Colorado & Utah. It was so special to me that we shared that adventure.

"Remember how I just had to go see Arches?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said quietly, "I never knew you could drive so far & see so little."

I added, "And everything that could go wrong, did go wrong."

"Yeah," he smiled that crooked smile & added, "it was worth it."