Memory Lane

The Looking Back Game

Posted on October 12, 2013 by Kami

Just a handful of my journals.

I play this game occasionally. It’s called, “What was I doing on this day x many years ago.”

I get out a few of my not too recent past journals and happy books and look up the month and day. Today I would look up October 12 in whatever year I held in my hands.

It’s a gambling game because the potential for happy memories is fairly high, but the risk that I’ll be reading about some low point is equally high. For that reason I have several years handy. If one years entry for that day is more than I want to delve into I can drop it like a hot potato and jump to the next entry quick and easy.

This morning I played the game with the idea that I’d find something muse-like to inspire me. Y’know, jog a great memory, remind me of a great day I could write about, or conjure people from my past. But like life tends to do, what I found instead wasn’t the thing I searched for.

Here’s a few things I found while playing this morning:

I realized I have led a weird life that makes little sense to an outsider and even to an insider.
My experiences don’t fit in a box. I’m a rectangle peg in a round hole world.
It’s a wonder I’m not completely nuts and committed and on heavy sedation.
Forgetting is a healthy thing.
Forgiving is even healthier than forgetting.
There has to be a higher power operating in my life or I’d have never survived some of the roads I’ve taken.
I’ve found beauty in the oddest of places and joy among ashes and destruction.
I don’t see things the way most people do, which can fall on either side of the good/bad spectrum.
I’m not always honest with myself even in my journals.
The truth wins in staring contests every time.
“Blessed” is too weak a word to describe my life so far.
It’s a good thing I didn’t know about the obstacles in the road ahead.
Looking back at those obstacles astounds and amazes me.
I don’t want to have a clue about what’s still waiting for me up ahead.

A page from a Happy Book.

For these reasons and dozens more, I’m extremely glad I’ve written down some of the stuff of my life. A review of the past like today’s little game makes me more determined to journal about the real, the difficult, the conversations, the laughter, the frightening and especially the love.

I particularly don’t want to forget a single person who’s been part of my days and hours. I want word snapshots of each one of them that, like a key, will unlock our shared time together in faded, but still clear nuances of smiles or tears, gestures, a certain look, words shared and sweet kindnesses.

The hard times give contrast and shadow to the softer ones and make me cherish the now, whatever that might bring. Honestly, reading about some of those struggles makes me pray all the more that I don’t have to face anything like it again. I’m done with difficult. Although, I’m pretty sure difficult isn’t done with me.

In journal writing or happy book writing, it’s not the historical details but the emotions behind those facts that really matter. As much as I’d like to forget at times, I really, really want to remember, too.

I think I’ll be a little kinder to myself today. I think I’ve earned it.

That wasn’t such a fun game as I’d hoped.

Categories: Books, Memory Lane | Tags: gratitude journals, journal, journaling, remember, remembering, the past, Writing | 2 Comments

Hot Pink Satin Heels

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Kami

My mother wore hot pink satin heels. I kid you not.

That image has been in my mind the past few days and won’t go away. So I’ll give it my full attention and then set it free.

Why would Mom wear hot pink satin heels? Because the shoes matched the hot pink satin dress she wore. And that matched Dad’s hot pink tie and cummerbund.

The two of them danced in a performance group when I was young.

The hot pink outfit was my favorite. The waist of that dress cinched in tight to Mom’s tiny tummy and then flared out in a wide swoop of flowing fabric when she twirled. There was some crinoline or tulle underneath to keep it fluffed and full when she wasn’t spinning.

Oh how I loved it when they got dressed up and ready to go out dancing. Seems like Dad wore cuff links and smelled like Old Spice. He tried not to smile, but it crept onto his face anyway. Mom clipped on round hot pink earrings as the perfect touch to her bouffant flip. The soft silky smoothness of the pink satin felt decadent and mysterious, luscious and exciting. They both glowed with something besides the reflection of the nearly fluorescent color. Joy? Fun? Anticipation? Relief at getting away from us kids? A night out alone?

Hearing the swish of her skirt and seeing the light in their eyes brought a sense of wonder and contentment with it. Why? I had no idea then. Now I know that those shared times, getting dressed up and going out together, were part of what got them through the tough days and often long nights of parenting and responsibility. Those brief moments of fun built a bridge over the difficulties of life.

Some days, when Mom was busy elsewhere in the house, I snuck into the closet and just let my hand run along the fabric as if I were petting a rare animal. I don’t remember ever trying on the shoes, although I can’t believe I didn’t. Wouldn’t you?

Somewhere, surely, there’s a photo or some 8mm film of the two of them dressed up and dancing. I’m making a mental note, and a written note, to see if I can find such sweet evidence of their younger dancing years together.

I learned early on to idolize, fantasize and dream of dancing as the most romantic of adventures. Little wonder that years later dancing swept me off my feet and into a whirling, silly, illogical relationship that became MSH.

Dad and Mom later joined a square dancing group. I’m sure they had every bit as much fun do-si-doeing and as they did waltzing. But for me, nothing else carried the mystique of their hot pink satin nights.

Categories: Family, Memory Lane, Relationships | Tags: ballroom, Dance, dancing, dancing shoes, Family, Heels, hot pink, parents, pink satin, shoes | Leave a comment

A Disturbance in the Force

Posted on June 27, 2013 by Kami

Did you feel it?

I’m sure I did. My heart did this fluttery, skipping a beat, then a rushing to catch up weird sensation earlier this week. Like a balloon deflating there was suddenly no energy in the room.

My cousin, Darrin Olsen, almost thirty-three years old, passed away.

Darrin lights up a room when he walks in. He’s one of those people everyone is so happy to have show up. The vibe around him is upbeat and pulsing with life and excitement.

Whether he’s telling a joke, goofing off in front of a camera, or playing Ultimate Frisbee, he is all in, one hundred percent going for it. Talk about infectious laughter and smiles! Just saying the name Darrin puts a smile on the face of anyone who knows him.

(Photo credit: coty creighton)

I’d like to think he’s had a nice visit with Grandpa and Grandma Olsen and a couple of other cousins. Then, I envision him on a phenomenal hike in the heavens with a view unmatched here on earth.

I’m thinking he’s figuring out if he can do an ultimate bungee jump from there to here, just for the thrill of it. He’ll be able to talk whoever is in charge into it, no doubt, with that charming smile of his. I can here it now. “Sure, Gumpers, for you, I’ll bend the rules a bit. Here’s the bungee cord. Have fun!”

Ah, Darrin, you are already missed so much by so many.

Get a team together for a game of Ultimate for the rest of us when we get there. It’ll be epic!

In the meantime, feel the love we’re all sending your way.

Categories: Death, Hope, Memory Lane, People | Tags: cousins, Death, dying, Energy, Family, grief, hiking, loss, ultimate, Ultimate Frisbee | 6 Comments

“It Has Its Ups and Downs”

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Kami

Elevator Operator.

How many people do you know can list that on their résumé?

I can.

Yeah, I know, totally cool.

Or Not. Depends on your perspective.

I was in college. The summer between freshman and sophomore year I decided to stick around campus, get a couple of part-time jobs, take a summer-sized load of classes (very few, but daily) and hit as many parties and social events as I could.

The copy/print shop job I really wanted went to someone else. I ended up applying for anything and everything that was left.

Summer Jobs

I got hired for two positions on campus. Not sure the first job had a real title. Basically I either rubber-stamped the glow-in-the-dark ink on the hands of students going into dances, or I held the fluorescent light that showed they’d already been stamped. Dances were always on the weekend. It kind of cut into my plans to go dancing myself, or going out much at all.

The other job I landed was elevator operator. There weren’t that many floors in any of the buildings on campus, but summertime brought out the bored students, the local teens and the let’s-make-out-in-weird-public-places couples. So they wanted someone maintaining control of the elevator. I usually only worked when there was “an event” in one of the restaurants in the student union center, or if there was a dance. Again, weekend hours mostly.

Fortunately, the elevator stayed busy. Surprise registered on most people’s faces as they stepped on board and saw an elevator operator.

It was a sort of dream come true for me.

Back in the Day

I remembered as a kid, only a decade or so earlier than this summer job, riding the elevator in JC Penney. The elevator operator sat on a small metal stool next to the buttons. He’d open the door with a button, and then manually push open the crisscross cage doors, and then we’d step in the elevator, my over-active imagination peering into the miniscule gap between floor and elevator, fearing for my life. When we were all loaded into the small metal box, the operator would lean out a bit through the open door and holler, “going up?” in a sort of question/statement.

Seeing no one, he’d pull the gate closed, and then push the button that closed the solid metal doors. Then he’d ask, “Which floor please?” To which each person would reply with a number and a “please.” Going down offered the basement level as well. I’d wait for that swooshy stomach feeling as the elevator pulled up to the next floor or dropped down a level. I loved/hated that feeling for its mixed sense of excitement and dread.

I always wanted to push those buttons, make them light up, be the one in charge of the numbers over the door as they changed. I thought it’d be a great job to have. It came in a close second to candy counter salesgirl.

Dream Come True, Sort of

I wasn’t lucky enough in my new job on campus to have a stool to sit on, or a gate to pull shut. Everything was automatic. I did get to ask which floor, and push the buttons. By time I was in college no one said “please” or “thank you” when they requested their floor, or when they exited the elevator. I earned some spending money, met tons of people, learned to make small talk in a brief amount of time, and became comfortable being around strangers. It was a good experience.

Very Punny

There was one perk to that job that I really liked. When my roommate or a friend would ask how work had been, I could reply, “Oh, you know, it has its ups and downs.”

I could never resist a pun, good or bad.

What’s the most unusual or interesting job you’ve ever had?

Categories: Memory Lane, The World | Tags: buttons, College, Elevator, Elevator operator, jc penney, part time jobs, summer job | 3 Comments

Summertime

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Kami

School’s out today for the next couple of months. No more national anthem wafting across the park every morning at 8:45. No more a.m. and p.m. traffic as parents drop off and pick up their littles. No more playground noises, of tether ball chains against poles, kick ball, swings squeaking, girls screeching, boys in mock battles, girls piled up in little cliques like so many fall leaves blown into a pile.

Ah, the summer freedom of children.

Months stretch out before them in a vast sweeping prairie of waving grasses, unexplored trails, toes in cold streams, popsicles dripping, and entire days spent swimming.

Oh wait, that was my childhood. Do kids still do that?

There’s still a sense of freedom, but I get the feeling that it’s only a pale shadow of the freedom I enjoyed.

I took off running by ten every morning to my best friend’s house. From there the two of us would race to the park, with its open grass fields, a swampy tadpole pond, a meandering creek, a cottonwood tree-filled valley, ivy covered hills, rusty barbed wire fence lines. We spent most of the day there roaming, dreaming, romping, hiding, in imaginary wars with other kids who also played there.

Completely unsupervised.

Yes.

Not an adult in sight. Can you imagine it?

It was a different world. An innocent time. A protected, sweet existence.

A small pocket of pure perfection.

Categories: Memory Lane, Nature, Outdoors, The World | Tags: child's play, children, freedom, nature, Outdoors, play, play time, school's out, summer, summer time, summer vacation | 1 Comment

In the Clutches of Independence

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Kami

Nearly sixteen.

Sweet.

That meant getting a driver’s license. Which meant learning to drive.

Which meant learning to drive the vehicles my parent’s owned.

Dually or Van?

Parked in our driveway was a dual-wheel Clydesdale of a truck that had, in its former life, been a flatbed hay-hauling workhorse. Dad painstakingly and lovingly sculpted that behemoth into a very useful vehicle with a bed that contained the dual wheels within it, not jutting out like most trucks with four back tires. It was brown and big and serious.

Then there was the VW van. Classic. Red, with a skiff of white along the roofline, it was like driving a putt-putt car. Lots of room for all us kids, cold in the winter, probably got great mileage. The heater on it was pretty much useless in the snowy below-zero temperatures we had all winter long, so Dad had installed a small gas heater that vented to the outside, just behind the driver’s seat. Clever, that Dad of mine.

The Sweet Spot

Both vehicles had one thing in common. A stick shift, also known as a manual transmission. That meant understanding the workings of the combustible engine just enough to know when to push in the clutch with my left foot as I eased up on the gas with my right foot, wrangled the long shaft into the mystically correct position for the next gear up or down, and miraculously moved forward. Reverse, ironically, was the easiest gear to find. Finding the sweet spot of the gear I needed was usually an exercise in frustration.

Add in that we lived in the foothills, so that nearly every road was at an incline and learning to drive was adventurous, to say the least.

The Ins and Outs and Ups and Downs

Geared so low, I had to start that truck out out in second gear, even on hills. Memorizing the position of the gears, what pattern they lay in was not easy. Then manipulating that long stick into place to actually be in a gear was another trick. The truck required less finesse than the van. In fact, it almost needed a kick, like a horse to get it to settle into the correct gear. I sat at more than one intersection, engaged in a fight with that stick shift, often nearly in tears.

The van seemed easier to get the stick into place, but required more gas and quicker left foot action to get the clutch to engage. I was more confident driving that van. More certain of being able to get to where I was going without killing the engine, without grinding the gears, without embarrassment. It was a much easier car to drive. Sometimes too easy.

(Photo credit: kenjonbro)

Not long after getting my license I was bringing a couple of “Icee” slushes home from the Seven-eleven when one tipped over on the floor. (No cup holders back then.) I leaned over to pick up the spilled cup, while the van was still in motion. Not a smart move, ever.

When I looked up a mailbox was coming at me. I swerved, just clipping the mailbox pole and ended up, luckily, settling the two-thousand pound hunk of metal I was driving into a bushy fir-tree, thick to the ground with soft branches and needles. I had knocked the mailbox off the pole. I got out, set the miraculously undamaged box on top of the pole, checked for damage to the van, and seeing none, drove home. I was lucky. Never told anyone about that. Until now.

I’m pretty sure the statute of limitations has passed by now

After that I was a fully engaged, eyes-on-the-road-at-all-times driver. Careful, aware of the scary amount of weight and potential destruction I sat perched on.

Since those two vehicles, I haven’t had the chance to drive many other manual transmissions. It’s a skill that’s extremely handy. I can drive either automatic or manual and I’m proud of it. Relatively few people know how to do that anymore.

There’s something very freeing, controlling the rate and timing of the gears shifting in a car you’re driving. It’s a race-car kind of sensation. The sense of control, speed, and power is exhilarating. That car sound little kids make when they play with their toy trucks is the sound of a car shifting gears. RRRRRRRRRR….rrrrrrr….RRRrrrrr. That’s the sound you’ll hear on a race track.

To a sixteen-year-old driver that’s the sound of freedom.

Categories: Memory Lane, Traffic, Travel | Tags: driver's license, dual wheel, dual wheels, Gear, Manual transmission, stick shift, student driver, transmission, Truck, van, Vehicle, VW, vw van | 2 Comments

It Was a Wonderful Life!

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Kami

Yesterday I got the chance to watch the second installment of home 8mm films that my Dad has transferred to DVD. If something like that doesn’t fire up the old neurons of memory, then nothing will!

Ben Lomond Peak (Photo credit: OwnUtah.Com)

I was the opening shot, well, me and Mom. I looked extra adorable in my frilly bonnet and chubby cheeks. Mom looked stylish as she always did and does. There followed scenes of my older brother in various stages of helping Mom in managing this new little sister he had.

Loved seeing Dad do his famous tricycle riding trick. He’d kneel on the back and pedal with his hands. That’s not an easy feat to pull off, but he could do it with a grin.

Ah, they were so young! The world seemed new and young. Life was new. For me, that is when the world began. (Insert a long, audible sigh here, if you would please.)

I cheered my baby self on when I lifted my head, crawled, walked and fell down. I watched, amazed, as I saw myself grow from a baby to a five-year old in less than twenty minutes. Looking back on my life, sometimes that ‘s about what it feels like. Yet, my childhood had a timeless quality about it that felt as if I’d always be a child. I was protected, provided for, well-loved, and given a wonderfully varied exploratory life filled with fun and adventure.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A trip or two to Yellowstone National Park was a highlight and a memory I still cherish. The bears ran as freely and as abundantly as chipmunks. Even without the film memory jog, I still remember the fishing bridges there, seeing fish thick in the water. Nothing can erase the memory of the smells of Yellowstone, the sound of footsteps on the wooden walkways, the feel of my hand in Mom’s hand.

I watched as we enjoyed breakfast picnics in the mountains, trips to Bear Lake, camping trips, hikes up Ben Lomond. What child could ask for more? Not me. I was happily allowed to explore my world, taken out and about often to see the wonders that this life has to offer. I think I fell in love with it all at a very early age because of exposure to so much abundance. I haven’t been able to narrow in on one particular favorite. The world is full and rich and I have tried to take in and be a part of as much of it as I have been able to.

(Photo credit: moirabot)

One thing I found particularly fascinating in this DVD that I’d hardly noticed in the first one was the backdrops in each scene. There was the beautiful hexagon shapes in the Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt on the bed my brother and I were playing on. The cars that drove past were classics from the 50’s and 60’s. The television was vintage, the furniture now collector’s items. Even the drinking glasses were particular to that era. What I wouldn’t give to own a set of aluminum colored drinking cups now! The piano I learned to play on, the one destroyed in my parent’s house fire, made an appearance. Changes in the landscaping of the yard, neighbor’s houses I haven’t seen in decades, the up close view of the mountains that surrounded my childhood home all served as key elements in the background to this trip down memory lane.

Feeling very nostalgic today. Wishing for a time machine to visit those innocent, sweet days of love and learning.

Thanks Dad and Mom for the DVD, for the amazing childhood, for a wonderful life!

Categories: Family, Love, Memory Lane, Nature, parenting | Tags: Bear Lake, childhood, children, classics, memories, nature, Outdoors, travel, vintage, Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park | 1 Comment

The Unmatchable Pleasure of Puddle Jumping

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Kami

The rarity of rain in the desert brings out the oddness in some of us dry skinned, somewhat parched critters. Today’s downpour, complete with a bit of surprising lightning, reminds me of some delicious memories.

We don’t live in a rural area, but we have rural patches of neighborhoods in the landscape of our town that haven’t been incorporated into the city. This leaves wonderful one and two acre lots with farm animals, irrigation, bumpy roads without curbs, traditional on post mailboxes out front of the houses, and best of all, a sense of the history of this former farming community turned big city suburb.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I used to drive my youngest daughter to fifth and sixth grade, usually taking a short stretch of county road. On rainy days the water would flow haphazardly on the edges of the road in huge muddy puddles. At the time we were driving a well-loved older model Jeep Cherokee with four-wheel drive.

Did you know if you’re going just the right speed and hit a puddle at a certain spot you’ll get a wide arching wall of water that can shoot out a good twenty feet? My daughter and I discovered that one drizzly morning.

Rainy school mornings took on a whole different feel for us. The anticipation of knowing we’d get to splash and spray our way to the school motivated us so we were usually ready to go earlier than usual. We called these mornings puddle jumping days.

Fortunately no one was ever walking the muddy shoulder of the road on rainy days. Approaching a glistening pool of brown water filled us with excitement. The sensation of tires hitting the edge of the puddle was answered with a marvelous shower and spray of water propelling outward and upward in an artistic chocolate sweep. Sometimes, depending on the depth of the puddle and the angle the tires hit the water, we’d end up covering the jeep in a deluge of mucky water. Fortunately I usually had the wipers already going due to the rain pouring down.

Child enjoys a puddle in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

Does this look fun, or what? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We aimed for puddle after puddle all the way down the road. I’m sure any onlookers thought we were high school troublemakers raising havoc. The goats and sheep looked on in bemused silence. We left behind emptied puddles and chaos.

Ah, we laughed our way to school those days.

I still can’t resist a puddle on the side of the road, whether I’m walking or driving. I want to make a splash, soak everything in sight then look behind me at the mayhem.

Today is gonna be a great one!

Categories: Joy, Memory Lane, Outdoors | Tags: four-wheeler, making a splash, muddy puddles, Outdoors, Puddle, Rain, rain in the desert, rainy days, random fun, silliness, transportation, water | 4 Comments

Keeping the Past Alive and Well

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Kami

My parents sent me the first of five DVD’s they’ve made from our family 8mm films. We loved watching these flickering gems as kids. There’s nothing else like seeing your very own past play out on film, even if it’s a past you don’t remember.

Bell & Howell Regent home 8mm film projector (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This one opens like a major motion picture doing a flashback. There on my screen was romance and nostalgia that a filmmaker only dreams about creating. Yet, it was simply real. And mesmerizing!

Most of the early shots are of Mom, since Dad was the one holding the camera. She was so young, and such a flirt in front of the camera. That surprised me, though it shouldn’t have. Dad shows up building one of his famous snowmen. This one had on a flannel shirt and had arms. Try doing that yourself sometime. It isn’t easy.

When my older brother shows up as a newborn, so do my Grandparents. My heart skipped a beat or two at this point since I haven’t seen the four of them ages. I still have a kind of achy feeling banging around in my chest, a combination of love, heartache and homesickness. So much of who I was, who I am, is wrapped up in memories of my Grandparents. I was glad they visited today.

Watching my older brother get chubby and independent was priceless. Then came my other brother, who looked so happy and was so loved for his short few months of life. I wish I had met him. Seeing him bouncing around, laughing, being hugged by his big brother, made him more real, more alive, more mine. What a gift.

Just before the DVD ended, I appeared on the scene, dressed in a white dress and a white bonnet. It seemed I ought to be able to remember that day, that dress, those feelings of being so welcomed and so loved.

There’s a joy of having the past recorded. I felt for a short time as if I’d climbed into a souped up DeLorean and went back to my past.

I can hardly wait for the next few installments. Even if they probably contain embarrassing scenes of me attempting ballet.

Life revisited. What a joy!

Life. What a blessing!

Categories: Family, Memory Lane | Tags: 8 mm film, babies, DVD, Family, Film, Grandparents, memories, siblings | 8 Comments

Acrophobia Anyone?

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Kami

High places terrify me. Having an overly active imagination I envisioned myself plummeting down a cliff face in an out of control car countless numbers of times. I’m not sure this is normal. Probably isn’t.

As a child we often took the mountain pass from our side of the valley over the mountains to camp, canoe, fish, ride motorbikes and go sledding. Every trip up from our side of the mountain we had to take the lane on the outside edge of the mountain. I swear I held my breath for the entire ride up and all the way down until there were scrub oak thick enough to catch our car should it suddenly veer to the right off the side of the mountain.

The ride back home wasn’t as breathless since we were on the inside lane hugging the mountain. It felt safer, although still plenty scary.

The other option to get to the fun side of the mountain was a narrow winding river road with both sides of the canyon closing in on top of us and cars racing toward us as if in a time trial. After surviving that gauntlet we’d then have to drive along the tiny razor edge of the dam and the winding roads along side the reservoir.

Either road left me exhausted before we ever got to the “having fun” part of the day.

Dead Horse Point and the Colorado River – NARA – 545787 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In my teenage years we went as a family to visit the Grand Canyon, Arches, Bryce Canyon and Canyonlands. You’d think the Grand Canyon with its precipitous drop-offs would have given me palpitations. The truth is I was so captivated with the beauty and magnificence of the place I forgot my fears, for the most part.

Fear came later. Total, paralyzing, utter terror.

We took a shortcut off one dirt road to another dirt road while towing the camping trailer in Canyonlands.

Can I just warn you now, in case you ever think you’re smarter than a map, that there is NO SUCH THING AS A SHORTCUT in Southern Utah or Northern Arizona. What looks like a little quarter-mile jog off the side of the road is, in actuality, a cliff face, or an impassable road, or a road cut into the side of a mountain shored up by a few railroad ties.

Which is what we found ourselves on.

By time we realized there was no pass that cut through the mountain, but instead only switchbacks up the side of the cliff for an eternity, it was impossible to turn around, especially with a trailer in tow. Our only option was forward, or rather, upward.

Each hairpin turn required a two steps forward, one step back movement, repeated endlessly. Dad would ease the truck and trailer through the hairpin as far as he could go, then back up while cranking the steering wheel, then forward a few inches, then back up a bit, then forward a few inches, until he negotiated the turn. Fifty yards of straight dirt road or so later, he would repeat the process.

A couple of times Mom had to get out and direct Dad, letting him know how close the trailer wheels were to the edge. Meanwhile, us kids were in the back of the pickup under a camper shell, huddled in blankets, chewing our nails, trying not to watch and praying our little hearts out.

I was sure we were all going to die out there in the middle of nowhere. I had already replayed the scene in my mind countless times before we were even halfway up the cliff. If and when park rangers ever found us, we’d be an unrecognizable heap of burnt metal and glass and broken bodies flung all over the red sandstone cliff. There wouldn’t even be a funeral.

After two eternities and a stint in Hades, we reached the blessedly flat top of the cliff. If Dad would have let me, I’d have gotten out and kissed the ground.

Our destination was Dead Horse Point, which is itself a dizzying narrow-necked mesa. After what we’d been through to get there, it was easy to gaze out over the edge of nothing to the tiny river below.

I can look back now and say, “What an adventure!” I’m glad I lived to tell the tale. But, no thank you to any more high rise exploits in my future.

Categories: Family, Memory Lane, Outdoors | Tags: Arches, Canyonlands National Park, cliffs, Dead Horse Point State Park, Driving, hairpin turns, heights, nature, Outdoors, shortcuts, switchbacks | 7 Comments