The Trip Home
I guess it’s time to relate what happened in Colorado. On Day 1, I did a back flip in my wheelchair and hit my head. I didn’t think anything of it. I was wearing a helmet and I have a hard head. It didn’t even bother me until the afternoon of Day 2 when I got real tired. I skied like a rookie and made some rookie mistakes. I had to ski from the top of the mountain all the way down but I made it with some rest stops. That’s when I figgered I had a concussion. Didn’t ski the next two days and the last day, I hung out the Do Not Disturb sign and slept all day.
It snowed that night and when I got up they had shoveled the snow from outside the rooms (they all open outside) and put the excess snow where the exits to the street above the hotel was. There was no way I could make it to the lot where my car was parked from the front of the hotel trying to get up a steep hill with the snow. I went down to the desk and told the dude on duty about that. He kept calling maintenance with no luck. The guy prolly took a nap after shoveling the snow. So, he asked me where my car was and got it for me. He cleaned all the snow off of it. Then he fetched my luggage from my room and loaded my car. By this time, the car was nice and warm. I tipped him $20.
I had a decision to make. Should I go to the hospital or drive home. If I went to the hospital I might be in Aspen for a while and Ryan might have to come and get me. I got to the bottom of the hill. Right turn – hospital. Left turn – home. I chose home.
I gassed up in Glenwood Springs and got my Mickie D’s coffee and hit I-70. It wasn’t too bad until I got behind the snowplows at Vail Pass. By the time I got to the Eisenhower Tunnel it wasn’t too bad and after going through the tunnel it wasn’t bad at all. It was still cold. In the low teens. I made it to Kansas before having to gas up again and stopped at Hays Kansas. I got a good night’s sleep.
When I got up the next morning it was cold. It was dark when I left Hays. After a while I saw what looked like city lights blinking on and off all at the same time. WTF? As I got closer, I realized it was a big wind farm. I was glad I had plenty of gas so it would warm up before I had to gas up again. Wrong! The temperature kept dropping. When I finally gassed up it was 6 degrees and the wind was blowing. Froze my ass off. Driving through Kansas City I listened to sports radio and heard the fans saying they should fire Andy Reid because KC lost to the Patriots. Let’s see, the Chiefs lost by one touchdown to a superior team with a better quarterback on the Patriots’ home field. I know a lot of teams that would kill to make the playoffs. Teams like the Detoilet Lions. No playoff wins since the NFL/AFL merger. KC had had some snow and some of the bridges were a bit icy. Did a nice skid on one of them. Anyway, I made it all the way to Mt. Vernon Illinois on that tank of gas. It was 9 degrees and I had to gas up freezing my butt off again.
The next morning I took off glad I was heading South so it would finally warm up again. When I gassed up in Tennessee it was in the 30’s. Listening to the radio there was some dumb black activist in Chattanooga bitching about gentrification on MLK Boulevard. Seems it was turning white and she didn’t like that. She wanted it to be a black slum like MLK streets throughout most of the country. What a dumb holiday. What did the dude do? He led some protests and made a speech. Fifty years later what is the state of black America? Worse. As for that being judged by content of character over skin color? It’s skin color all the way.
I made it home safe. I did a lot of sleeping. I’m feeling much better but I still have some recovery time. Alas! I won’t be going back skiing next month. I need to give my head plenty of time to heal. Also, this is my last solo ski trip. From now on, I go with Ryan and Sherry.
