A Sort of Homecoming
This is long overdue, I know, but better late than never. This is the write-up of my trip from Laramie, WY to Dove Creek, CO to see my dad last weekend.
First of all, that Chinese proverb that says a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step is dead wrong. I now know from experience that it begins with getting in the car and turning the key. I drove 1,223 miles in two days and it would have taken one hell of a lot longer if I’d been walking. Those Chinese, they don’t know nothin’ ’bout no Interstate highways…
I got up semi-early on Saturday morning and headed south. My first stop was in the Big Thompson Canyon, about halfway up to Estes Park from Loveland. This was where my Dad’s restaurant The Covered Wagon used to stand, where he and I used to live when I lived out there in 1976, and where close to a dozen people died on July 31, 1976, just a few weeks after I moved to Los Angeles with the rest of my family.
The Big Thompson Flood was the worst flood in Colorado’s history, a “record” that still stands. This website talks about what happened that night. Click HERE for a Flash presentation about it that I stole from a local paper up there because I don’t know how long they’ll archive it and I know I will forever.
My dad’s best friend Martin Remsing ran the restaurant. He and his wife Frances and son Adam — my best friend when I first moved to Colorado — lived in the house next door, and were probably in the house getting Adam ready for bed that night. Adam was 8 — Zoe’s age now. Frances’ son Mike and his girlfriend were visiting for the weekend. The restaurant was probably just closing and all the staff leaving for home when the flood hit.
I wasn’t there because I had just moved to Los Angeles with my mother a few weeks earlier. My dad wasn’t there because he and his girlfriend had gone camping for his birthday. Yes, his birthday — my dad lost his best friend on his birthday. He still blames himself for it. If I hadn’t moved, we probably would have been there that night. I was only 13, too young to hold any sway over where I was that night and so too young to feel any guilt about it. But I feel guilty anyway.
I remember the panic I felt here in L.A. when I saw the news that night. I tried to call my dad but the phone lines were down. They were down for days afterward, so for days I didn’t know if my dad was dead or not. When he finally called and I found out that he wasn’t, I also found out that our friends were. I remember feeling numb. Just numb.
So on my way down to see my dad, I drove up into the Big Thompson Canyon. To see, to remember, to pay my respects, to just be there again. It was very emotional for me, going through the canyon again after so many years. Tears were welling in my eyes and my breath kept catching in my chest as I rounded the bends and saw landmarks long forgotten.
When I came upon the Indian Village, I realized that I was moaning a little bit: “Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god…”
The Indian Village was about 100 yards downriver from the restaurant. Adam and I used to work our way down there and back when we were playing in the river, trying to catch trout with our bare hands. Coming up the canyon, it has always been my landmark telling me the restauant is around the next bend.
But not now. Now, this is around the next bend:
I figure the telephone pole is right about where the kitchen used to be. Even that’s an improvement, though, because the last time I came through here — about 22 years ago — this area was still just a wide spot in the river. And as I took this picture I couldn’t help but think that Marty and Frances and Adam and Stannis and everyone else who died there that night would still be here if they’d just climbed up to where I was standing.
I stayed there for awhile, thinking and listening and remembering. I offered up a prayer and an apology, then I moved on.
I drove a lot further south before I finally got to my dad’s place around 9:00 that night. We sat up and talked for a few hours, then I went to bed and passed out. In the morning, I took him to breakfast before hitting the road back north to Laramie. We had a good visit, talked about some family things that have grown scabby enough to discuss, and I made him an offer I don’t think he can refuse. I’ll talk more about that in a later entry when he’s made his decision.
Here’s me and the old man. He’s getting really old, I’m getting really fat. We’ve each seen better days. I don’t know what the deal is with that rifle — I don’t think he’s been hunting since 1971.
Leaving Dove Creek, I drove another long, long, long time north to Fort Collins. Six hours in a rental car does things to you, and you find yourself doing weird things to pass the time. If you have a digital camera, you take lots of pictures … of yourself. I took nearly 200 pictures on my drive up to Fort Collins, and easily half of them looked like this:
A quarter of them looked like this:
And the rest were of random things I saw along the way and looked like this:
Me + driving for hours + a digital camera ≠ good photography.
When I finally reached Fort Collins, I met my sisters C & C for dinner. I hadn’t seen either of them in probably six or seven years, so it was a little awkward for all of us, I think. But we had a good talk — probably the best talk we’ve ever had — and I think some fences were mended and some doors were opened and some other cliches abused, and the end result is that I think we’re going to have more of a relationship than we’ve had in the past.
As we left the restaurant I corralled some stranger in the parking lot to get a picture of us all together … and the batteries in my camera were dead.
Pissed. Me. Off.
I took hundreds of pictures that day just to amuse myself, and the one freakin’ picture I really wanted to be able to take … I couldn’t take. So you’ll just have to trust me that A) they exist B) I was there with them. But I think there will be other opportunities in the future (see the opened doors above and the offer my dad can’t refuse even further up), so I’ll get a picture of them up here yet.
After dinner with the girls I finished my drive back “home” to Laramie, nearly running out of gas at the Wyoming border in the process.
All in all, it was a good weekend. Way more introspective and memory lane-ish and family-oriented than I normally do, but that’s not an entirely bad thing.
Like this entry’s title says, it was a sort of homecoming.