Continuing the Great Rockhound Roadtrip in The Common Room

Still working on the album to help Husband remember.

West on Colorado 160, over La Veta Pass. Where my confidence is not improved by the roadside monument, alongside a set of spring fed water fountains, dedicated to a Greyhound bus full of tourists who went off the side. I’m glad to get through here without incident and already looking for a better way. Soon, we will learn that we do not like the main highways, which follow the ridgeline, but prefer the local roads, which follow the valleys.

We arrive in the San Luis Valley, called the highest alpine valley in the US. This valley is famous for its wonderful potatoes and for the hops grown there. On other trips, we will fall in love with this valley, but this time, we barely enter it at Alamosa, and then travel north on Highway 17 to Poncho Springs a wide place in the road where we stop in a city park for a sandwich from the box and meet highway 50. Crossing Monarch Pass, sleet clogs the windshield wipers, but the road is wide, if steep.

We are traveling the rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, which is more than impressive. Steep, sheer walls of black rock rise from the swift, white waters of the river. Here and there some walls have sheared off and fallen into the river, thrusting shards deep into the river bottom. White water boils around them. None of the breaks seems recent, but there is a feeling of menace. People white water raft here. I cannot imagine. I am almost entirely lacking in any spirit of adventure. The road is fine, but there is no place to pull off. I watch the rapids in the canyon and remember Aunt Fern (a courtesy aunt who has been Momma’s best friend from girlhood). A quiet, merry little person, Fern is also not adventurous. Water, to her, means fishing on a little creek in mild sunlight.

Fern’s husband, Clayton has friends at work who invite them to vacation in Colorado. Clayton, one of those men from The Great Generation, remembers New Guinea and the fishing there. Bad advice and eagerness lead to a near tragedy when the couples end up on the wrong part of the river, in a flat bottom boat. Long story short, the boat turns over. The other couple manages to hold on. Fern and Clayton go into the water - wearing life vests – Fern cannot swim. Clayton gets her to the edge of the river and kind of wedges her into a tiny cleft. Try as he will, he cannot climb up and, tiring, is swept away. He is picked up after a couple of hours and authorities are contacted. . A helicopter is dispatched for Fern , but has to go back for Clayton because Aunt Fern simply will not let go of the rock and get in the sling. “Claytie” had told her to hang on and not let go for anything. He would be back for her. Afterward, she told the authorities, “I knew Claytie would be back for me.” I have no idea whether she was naively unconscious of the possible consequences or whether she had a faith more absolute than any I’ve ever known.

Dusk sees us at Delta, where WE HAVE RESERVATIONS.

Last updated January 26, 2016