Chapter eight

VIII.

If you haven’t called your parents lately…

“The plains ignore us,

But these mountains listen,

An audience of thousands holding its breath in each rock”

-Ted Kooser, “Visiting Mountains”

“I think we should go for it,” I announced, blowing the cigarette smoke out of my window. We argued for a few minutes, while I pulled off the road for the necessities to make a night of our driving.

It’s not like we didn’t have options for a place to stay. I had a cousin who was living in Colorado at the time, who would have gladly housed us for the evening. Regretfully, I never got around to making the phone call to let him know I’d be in the area. He probably would have implored us to stay with him, or at least warned us that we may not want to traverse the roads.

Truckers stopped and stared as we entered the truck stop. The time was fast approaching 10 o’clock, and even with the entrance into the Mountain Time zone, we seemed to be facing a daunting task. Both Marisa and I had dedicated ourselves to driving, so we loaded up on caffeine pills and a couple of large, strong coffees. Marisa took a seat behind the wheel with me sitting beside her in the passenger side. Eric sat in the back of my car, trying to position himself comfortably so he could get some rest. Marisa and I caught up on what was going on with each of us. She drove for about four hours before we stopped for gas and a snack. There definitely should have been a warning sign upon entering the highway, letting us know we were in for the worst few hours of the trip so far. If we weren’t too blind to consider the signs God was giving us – the winds, the flurry of falling snow, the altitude – regular roadside signs would have worked fine.

In the movie “Dumb and Dumber,” the two imbecile protagonists head westward to Colorado in order to return a lost suitcase to its’ beautiful owner. However, on the way there, one of the characters, played by funnyman Jim Carrey, accidentally veers in the wrong direction, leading the two into the plains of Middle America rather than their mountaintop destination.

Upon waking in the flat landscape of Kansas, Jeff Daniels’s character muses, “I expected the Rocky Mountains to be a little rockier than this.” To which Carrey replies, “That’s what I was thinking. That John Denver’s full of shit, man,” remarking on the late singers’ tune paying homage to the fabled mountain range.

Throughout the trip, even as we entered Colorado and started to roll up and down hills, we continued to make this joke. I think we may have angered the mountain gods.

After the rolling hills through the city of Denver, a lull of highway is laid out, giving a driver their final option to pull off. It’s kind of like a girlfriend taking a deep breath in an argument; you have just a moments notice for a reprieve before the real problems to begin. The skyline jetted upward in front of us despite the darkness.

My preconceived notion of what mountains were suddenly withered away compared to what I was looking at. The rolling hills of my youth were suddenly just memories, memories I had to shake for the moment as I buckled my seatbelt, repositioning myself upright as I ascended up the mountains.

I couldn’t even see the top, as the peaks of the Rockies were hidden by the most ominous looking clouds I had ever seen. Drivers well-traveled in the area sped by me, as I looked incredulously at the terrain. We navigated through tunnels, all the while driving straight towards the clouds. The rain began to fall, mixed with the already swirling flakes of snow. Around every corner was something new, but I looked in utter amazement as the signs displaying the altitude passed me on the right and on the left.

5,000 feet.

7,500 feet.

Finally reaching 10,663 feet at the Vail Pass Summit, where I almost felt like I should get out and take a few breaths of the cleanest air my lungs would ever taste – God knows I needed that - and knowing I may never be this high above sea level ever again.

When hikers reach the summit of Mt. Everest, the lack of oxygen at that altitude limits their mental capacity down to that of a ten-year old. Those successful enough to reach that point have stayed there for fewer than 15 minutes. Looking out upon the Himalayan Mountains, on top of the entire world, even the most articulate and intelligent adventurers are literally at a loss for words, rendering months of arduous climbing and adventure seem as climactic as meeting a rude celebrity. For the most part, they just desire to be back at base camp, safe from harm, and free to coherently collect their thoughts.

Jon Krakauer, a favorite writer of mine, and the author of two of my favorite books, Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, in the opening words of the latter novel, wrote about reaching the summit of the world,

I understood on some dim, detached level that the sweep of earth beneath my feet was a spectacular sight. I’d been fantasizing about this moment, and the release of emotion that would accompany it, for many months. But now that I was finally here, actually standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn’t summon the energy to care.

On a much smaller mental and physical scale, this is how we felt, yet we just sat in silence, the radio turned all the way down, not a cigarette was lit. Mentally strained from the voyage up the mountain, the descent should have been a coast for us. As we turned the corner atop Vail Summit, we realized that the voyage down was to be as onerous as the trip up, if not more so. The first sign we encountered asked drivers who might be doubtful to pull off and check their brakes. Soon after, we were warned of falling rocks, animals on the road, and slippery conditions. We mustered up jokes that the Colorado officials should have put up another sign at the peak, suggesting, “If you haven’t called your parents recently to tell them you love them, you should probably think about doing it now.”

The driving was slow down the mountain as snow and rain pummeled the windshield. I road the brakes the entire way as well-seasoned truck drivers sped past the tiny Camry inching its’ way forward. The three of us sat upright, our eyes attached to every detail of the road in case something went awry. I clenched the steering wheel tighter than ever before, my heart raced, and the only words out of my mouth were to inquire whether or not my passengers has their seatbelts fastened. Eventually, after almost an hour of driving, my brakes began to smoke and I could smell the burning brakes pads.

We hadn’t even reached the bottom of the mountain when we pulled off to a gas station. Once the air was clear enough to navigate, we exited I-70. The weather was violently cold for mid-September, and we decided to re-evaluate our decision to drive straight through to Vegas. Even Eric, who is never reluctant to take credit when he is right, was drained enough to remain mum on his assertion.

Once the fear had ceased and complete control of the senses was regained, Eric finally did speak up.

“You know who is definitely NOT full of shit?” He asked.

“John Denver,” the two of answered with a genuine laugh.

#

It was almost three in the morning, and being in the heart of the tourist communities would make it difficult to find a place to lodge for a few hours on our budget. I drove around in the snow, and we found a bed and breakfast with the lights on. We parked and readied ourselves to bunk for the evening, but no one was awake at that hour. We entertained the idea of crashing on the couch, but left, fearing the consequence of the owner awakening early and finding three complete strangers, who reeked of an 18-hour long car ride sound asleep on the couch.

Eventually, we found a Holiday Inn, where we swindled the female clerk down a few bucks, claiming I was a Toyota employee out on business, a fact I asserted by showing them my warranty card on my recently purchased family sedan. Since Toyota was one of their accounts, she gave me their cut rate. I’d be long gone before anyone from the company realized one of their “employees” used their discount.

The snow and the cold really started to hit us, as we crossed the courtyard for our room. It was 4:00 in the morning, and all we really wanted was a couple hours of shuteye. We turned on Sportscenter and stretched our legs out on our beds. Each of us smoked the day’s final cigarette and drifted very quickly to sleep.