Diary of a Road Trip: Part Two - Rocky Mountain Highs and Lows

Clouds roll over the mountain tops just outside our campsite at Estes Park. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

(The following is part two of a three-part series, detailing the unique perspective of a typical family vacation through the eyes of a somewhat demented, middle-aged father of three.)

DAY 3

8-21-10  Noon  Spent most of the morning in Iowa City – great town. My wife and daughters fell in love with it. My oldest daughter announced she was getting her souvenir (we told each kid they could get one souvenir on the trip) – a $60 backpack from the campus bookstore.

“Why the hell do you want to get a backpack as a souvenir?” I asked.

“So I have something to put the rest of my souvenirs in!” She replied.

So much for the one souvenir rule.

8-21-10 2:36 p.m.  Just stopped at a little town outside of Des Moines called Van Meter – it’s the birthplace of Cleveland Indian Hall-of-Fame pitcher Bob Feller – the “Heater from Van Meter” as he was known. As luck would have it, they have a Bob Feller Museum. I thought it was awesome. So did my wife and kids. I’m not sure who abducted my family since we left Iowa City, but I’d like to shake their hand.

My son notes that Bob Feller was a first round pick! (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

8-21-10  4:08 p.m. We’re just now leaving Iowa for Nebraska, and I must say I really loved Iowa. It doesn’t get enough press for how beautiful it is. Sure it’s mostly farms -but they’re really pretty farms! Rolling countryside, incredible patterns in the fields, subtle colors, huge windmills and The Bridges of Madison County! What else could you want? Cripes, if I ever learn how to grow corn, I might even move here.

Is this Heaven? No, it's Iowa. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

8-21-10 4:50 p.m. I’m preparing myself for the worst, but so far Nebraska is nowhere near as bad as advertised. In fact, I kind of like it. It’s sort of like Iowa, only a hell of a lot flatter and with much straighter roads. Hell, I-80 is so straight, I’m pretty sure I don’t even need to steer. Let’s try it … HOLY CRAP, I’m doing 92 mph! … no wonder, my damn foot is asleep - I can’t even feel the gas pedal. Come to think of it, I can’t feel my right butt cheek either. Shit, my whole leg is asleep. Maybe I better steer until I can get up enough feeling in my foot to apply the brakes.

8-21-10 6:09 p.m. I woke up my wife and had her pull my right foot off the gas pedal. I thought she might drive for a while, but apparently Nebraska’s iron-flat, rail-straight I-80 was far too tactical and challenging for her to take over, so she asked if I could just use my left foot to work the gas and brake pedals until we stopped for the night.

8-21-10 6:12 p.m. After nearly killing my family on Nebraska’s iron-flat, rail-straight I-80 because I was driving with my left foot, we decided to stop for the night at a campground called Ft. Kearney State Park.

“How old is Ft. Kearney (I pronounced it KEERNEY) anyhow?” I asked the park ranger.

“You mean Ft. CARNEY?” She replied.

“Really?”

“Yup.”

“Well, never mind that - is there any place around here to get some ice?”

“Yup, next town up the road.”

“Oh, you mean Minden (I pronounced it MINDEN)?”

“Naw, I mean MENDEN.”

Apparently normal pronunciation guides don’t apply in the state of Nebraska. Jokingly, I told her our drive from "O-MEE-HAW" was pretty uneventful.

She looked at me like I was retarded.

8-21-10 7:35 p.m.  We picked up some ice in MENDEN and now we are setting up camp here at Ft. CARNEY. I must say; this place really is nice. Long, plush grass to pitch the tent, a beautiful lake only 100-yards away, blue sky, a strong breeze, and best of all, no mosquitoes!

Looking out our tent door in beautiful Ft. Kearney, Nebraska. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

8-21-10  8:30 p.m. Some old farmer and his wife stopped by our site. I asked him where he was from. He told me MENDEN. I asked him why they were camping so close to home. 

“Whaddaya mean?" He replied,  "MENDEN is a good seven-mile from CARNEY!"

I guess they don’t get out much.

8-21-10 8:45 p.m. I got the fire started … sort of. It wasn’t like a towering inferno or anything, but I thought it was pretty good. The old farmer must not have thought so though, because he just brought me over a huge jug of torch fuel.

“I noticed you was havin’ a bit of trouble with that fire son.” He said all-knowingly, before handing me the jug of torch fuel. 

“Here - dump a little of this on it - that should do the trick.” 

Then he winked at me and walked away.

I must admit; the torch fuel did indeed work pretty well - maybe too well.  Ah, what the hell, my son needed a haircut anyhow, and I’m pretty sure his eyebrows will grow back before school starts.

8-21-10 9:30 p.m. I just finished my dinner of a hot dog burnt so bad it looked like an oblong hockey puck. To make matters worse, I followed it with a flaming, molten-lava marshmallow that destroyed every taste bud on my tongue before searing itself permanently onto the roof of my mouth.

My stomach is killing me – I think I’ll go brush my teeth and go to bed.

8-21-10 9:42 p.m.  Judging by the amount of blood and pink, fleshy tissue I just spit into the sink, I’m not sure how my teeth are staying affixed to my gums. Oh well, I hear mouth wounds heal quickly -- even third degree burns! 

I should be able to eat solid food again in a month or two.

Wakey! Wakey! We're off to Colorado! (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

DAY 4

8-22-10  7:40 a.m.  Well, this is it, the big day - the last leg of our journey to Colorado, and apart from my extremely raw and blistered mouth, I feel pretty good!

8-22-10 11:34 a.m. We just crossed into Colorado. I have to say, the western half of Nebraska started getting a little hillier, but here in Colorado it’s flatter than a pancake and there aren’t any trees. To top it off, it’s raining again. My sister always brags about the 330 days of sunshine they get in Denver every year, I guess this is one of the 35 lousy days.

8-22-10 12.38 p.m.  Stopped to get gas in some podunk little town in the middle-of- nowhere-eastern-Colorado. When I opened the van door I almost dropped to my knees from the overpowering stench of cow shit. Odd, because I’ve only seen a stray longhorn here or there for the past 50-miles, grazing on land that looks more like the surface of the moon.

8-22-10  1:15 p.m. Wow! We just drove past the Greeley feed lot. Now I know where the stench came from. There must be 10,000 cattle crammed in that place with no room to graze and nothing to do but eat out of a trough and produce waste. The smell was so horrible, it penetrated our van even though the windows were rolled up and the air conditioning was on full blast. My daughters were so grossed out they vowed never to eat another hamburger for as long as they live.

8-22-10  1:29 p.m. Stopped at a McDonalds 15-miles outside of Greely. The girls both ordered quarter pounders with cheese - I guess they’ll go vegan later today.

8-22-10 2:46 p.m. Even though it’s raining pretty hard, I’m sure those are the Rocky Mountains looming on the horizon. My wife thinks I’m nuts. She says they’re just clouds.

8-22-10 3:30  We’re at the base of the mountains now. My wife still doesn’t believe it. I guess three and a half days in the van have made her delusional.

8-22-10 3:50 p.m. Now we’re halfway up the range. It’s pretty amazing - and very steep in places. My wife won’t even look out the window half the time. She’s totally freaking out. Just to really get her going, I drove off the edge of the road onto the shoulder gravel while she had her eyes closed. She didn’t find it nearly as funny as I did. She said I get to clean the piss out of her seat.

8-22-10 4:30 Wow, it took a whole hour to get from the base of the mountain to Estes Park. I’m not sure how we’re going to pitch a tent in this rain, but I guess we’re going to try. The lady at the campsite warned us to keep any food, or anything with a scent, locked in airtight containers and stored in the car to keep the bears away, even though they hadn't seen a bear at the campsite in a long time.

“How long is long?” I asked her.

“Oh, it’s been a good ten days now.” She answered.

My son’s eyes got as big as manhole covers - my wife pissed her pants again.

8-22-10 5:30  Amazingly, it quit raining as soon as the woman from the campsite showed us to our spot - A-30.

“So where do we put the tent?” I asked, noticing our entire lot was on a relatively steep 15% grade.

“Whaddaya mean?” She replied “The whole lot is yours, you just put it where you want.”

I soon found out they don’t call them the Rocky Mountains for nothing. Hard as I tried I couldn’t stake down our tent in several places. In fact, I turned three of the stakes into perfect, 90-degree angles while trying to pound them in the rocky terrain with a large rock - one of them ended up a dinner triangle!

“Remind me to camp in the ‘Soft-Fertile-Soil Mountains’ next year.” I told my wife as I struggled with both the tent, and my ability to oxygenate blood at 9,000 feet above sea level.

The lush, green grass, and soft, fertile soil of the Rocky Mountains! (photo by Lon Horwedel)

8-22-10 5:30 p.m.  One short hour later, the tent is secure … sort of. I had to put it under some pine trees because it was the only place I could successfully drive a stake in the ground. Unfortunately, one corner of our tent is firmly planted on top of a huge root, must be about 12” in diameter, but with the air mattress, we shouldn’t even notice. 

8-22-10 5:46 p.m.  My son just came back to the site looking pale as a ghost. I thought maybe he’d spotted a bear, but that wasn’t the case at all. He was at the playground swinging on the swing set and now he said he thinks he’s going to puke - our first official case of altitude sickness. That didn’t take long.

8-22-10 6:20 p.m. We left the campsite to go to my sister’s house in Broomfield for dinner. Not more than a quarter mile down the road we spotted a giant bull elk – huge rack, must have tipped the scales at 500 pounds or more. Somehow, the thought of elk roaming through our campsite seems less scary than black bears.

Now there is something you don't see everyday in Ann Arbor! (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

8-22-10  8:04 p.m. We just arrived at my sister’s house. Longer drive than we expected, especially considering it was all down hill. My wife’s nerves are officially shot for the day. The hairpin turns, lack of guardrails, and 9-hours spent in the car, have left her in ruins.

8-22-10 10:30 p.m. Had a great time at my sisters. The dinner was great, and it was nice to see her and her husband Peter. Peter is leaving for New Mexico in the morning, so my sister will be joining us at our campsite for the remainder of our stay. I never did get to toss in a load of laundry, but I did take advantage of her toilet!

Now it’s time to start our long ascent back to Estes Park – only this time in the dark. My family is placing their lives in my hands, but I told them not to worry because the darkness will prevent me from watching anything else but the road. They don't seem too convinced.

8-22-10 11:34 p.m. Somehow we made it back to our camp a good 20-minutes faster than the drive to my sister’s house. It’s cold up here – really cold! It can’t be more than 45 degrees and the wind is howling. My wife and kids skipped anything resembling oral hygiene and went right to bed. I can’t stand the thought of going to sleep with chunks of pork loin stuck in my teeth, so I’m walking up the hill to the bathroom in complete darkness hoping bears don’t like the smell of Crest toothpaste. There’s no one else at the campsite until this weekend, and I’m pretty sure my family already is fast asleep, so if I do get mauled, my corpse might well be sitting here till morning light – lessen, of course, some coyotes or other vermin show up and chow on my remains until there’s nothing left but dental records. 

Oh well, at least I'll have clean teeth!

(Stay tuned for the final segment: REDRUM!, Campfire Cooking 101, looking for gold in all the wrong places, and the heading-for-home blahs!)

 

Diary of a Road Trip: Part One - "Go West, Old Man!"

Family vacation destination - the Colorado Rockies. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

(The following is part one of a three-part series, detailing the unique perspective of a typical family vacation through the eyes of a somewhat demented, middle-aged father of three.)

The past few years I’ve felt the painful pangs of failed summers slowly slipping away as my family did nothing in the way of taking that “awe-inspiring” vacation we always talk about.

But not this year, damn it! This year it was time to put my foot down and demand our family do something ... anything! And not just some stupid, little, weekend getaway. This year we needed to take a grand excursion (or, as it turned out, a couple of grand). We needed to go someplace far away, and hopefully, relatively exotic. To make it even more exotic (another word for cheaper) I talked everyone into making our awe-inspiring journey a camping trip!

My kids were excited at the thought. My wife? Not so much. So I dug down deep and used my awesome powers of persuasion to try and convince her the time was now if we were ever going to do this thing.

“We gotta stop talking about this and just do it,” I pleaded, “while the kids are still young enough to like us, and we’re still young enough to sleep on the ground!”

To my surprise, it worked, so the very next day I went out and bought a tent big enough for six, very svelte human beings (and little else) a couple of flashlights, a lantern, a grill, some graham crackers, chocolate bars, marshmallows, four rolls of toilet paper (a camping must) and a queen-sized air mattress (I may still be young enough to sleep on the ground, but a cushion of air couldn’t hurt).

Much like Lewis and Clark before us, I thought we should head west toward Colorado; home to the Rocky Mountains, one of the most beautiful places in the country, but more importantly, home to my sister Dina who surely would feed us a home-cooked meal, let us do a load of laundry, or at the very least, take a crap on something with a clean seat and the ability to flush.

My goal was to give the kids a trip they would never forget, much like their old man did when he was a kid. I still vividly remember taking a camping trip to Florida with my family when I was in the seventh grade just like it was yesterday.

Of course, just because it was memorable doesn’t mean it was all good times. In fact, most of it was pretty awful. I had the flu when we left, and I was quarantined to the back of our 1976 Ford Gran Torino station wagon where I would spend the vast majority of Ohio, Kentucky, and most of Tennessee, writhing in severe pain between bouts of vomiting.

By the end of the trip everyone in my family would blow chunks at least once, except my little brother Duke, who somehow escaped the virus, but more than made up for it by crawling into my mother’s sleeping bag one night looking for a dry place to sleep after he had pissed in his.

Memories like that can’t be made in just one weekend, or even four or five days, so to make sure my kids got more time to soak in the potential misery, I carved out eight full days for our trip. And eight full days is exactly what we got!

PREPARATION

For whatever reason, I tend to cram a lot of stupid things into the last few hours before I hit the road for any trip, let alone a weeklong vacation. Stuff like mowing the lawn, or doing several sets of push-ups (as if I can’t do a push-up anywhere else but home). This trip was no different, except caulking the tub somehow made it on to my list.

It was while doing my last-minute caulking job on the tub when I realized I hadn’t really given much thought to our cat Levi, as in, how would he survive eight days on his own?

Even though Levi weighs in at a hefty 21-pounds and could use a good diet, I still didn’t think eight days of starvation was the best idea for his long-term health.

We’d left him for long weekends before and he’d done just fine because we always made sure to leave him extra food and water, and apart from the occasional cat turd on the floor upon our return, it really hadn’t been much of a problem. But this was different. This was no three-day weekend and a little extra food and water wouldn’t cut it. We needed someone to help.

Luckily, my mother-in-law lives in town and was more than happy to keep Levi fed and watered while we were gone. Unluckily, my mother-in-law is 84 and has two bum knees, so a trip to the basement to clean out his litter box was out of the question.

Luckily, Levi’s litter box is actually made up of a pair of litter boxes stacked inside each other meaning I could separate them and have two litter boxes ready and waiting. Unluckily, only one of them has a hood meaning I was sure to have a mixture of cat crap and loose cat litter strewn all over the basement floor once we got back.

I knew it was a gamble. After all, we’d be out of cell phone range for much of the trip stuck in the middle of the Rockies, and I must admit the thought had crossed my mind that I might be coming home to find either my 84-year-old mother-in-law, or the cat, dead in the middle of the kitchen floor (or possibly both). Still, it was a gamble I was willing to take.

I finished caulking the tub and then dropped to the floor to pound out a quick 20.

I’m not sure exactly how, but somehow we managed to fit our tent, five sleeping bags, five bags of clothing, three bags of food, a cooler, camera equipment, and five human beings into our Ford minivan. Even more amazing was the fact I could still somewhat see out of the rear window.

Our van had never ventured so far from home before, so we made sure to get the oil changed, rotate the tires, check the coolant, and slap down about a half a roll of duct tape on the loose weather stripping peeling off our front windshield before we hit the road. Lucky for us our van just so happens to be silver, so the duct tape matched the color of our van quite nicely, making us look only just a little like a bunch of redneck idiots as we pulled out of town.

We left late in the afternoon on a Monday after my wife got home from work. Our plan was to bang out three hours of the drive before stopping on the west side of the state at the Warren Sand Dunes State Park. About halfway across the state of Michigan, it occurred to me I should keep a diary of our trip, which was no easy feat since I expected to do most of the driving. But I figured if teenagers have enough dexterity to text and drive, then surely a 45-year-old with several more years of driving experience should easily be able to write in a diary while plowing down the highway at 85 mph. And that’s exactly what I did.

The following is an account of our trip:

DAY 1

8-19-10  5:15 p.m.  It’s nice and sunny today, I checked the weather forecast before we left and it looks like it should stay that way the rest of the week … oh shit …I think that was the Michigan weather I checked, I probably should have checked the weather for Colorado … ah, what’s the difference? I’m sure it’s basically the same. I mean, how different could the weather be 1,500 miles away in the middle of the mountains?

8-19-10  5:21 p.m.  My sister just called to make sure we packed warm clothing. It snowed in the mountains today… Crap!

8-19-10  6:45 p.m.  My wife wouldn’t let the kids bring any technology on this trip. So far so good, but I’m expecting bloodshed in the backseat any minute. Just to try and keep them occupied I told them to start a list of all the different states we see on license plates during our trip to see if we can get all 50. They thought it was stupid. Then I told them whomever guesses the last state we find gets $20. They told me to make it $50 and they’d think about it. Greedy bastards! (For the record, I picked Delaware, my wife chose Vermont, my son took Rhode Island, my smart-ass daughter chose Colorado, and my extremely smart-ass daughter picked Hawaii).

8-19-10  7:12 p.m.  We’re here at the Warren Sand Dunes State Park setting up our tent at the campground. It’s pretty hot and crowded – not exactly off to a good start. My son looks a little shriveled – I think the swarm of quarter-sized mosquitoes hovering above his head drained most of his blood. At least they’re still airborne; the ones leaving my daughter’s neck and forearms are so overloaded they’re crashing into blood puddles at her feet! Oddly, they’re leaving me alone. My wife is giving me the evil eye from inside the tent as I pound in the last tent stake.

8-19-20 8:23 p.m.  The mosquitoes proved to be too much, so we headed to New Buffalo for some dinner and fresh blood transfusions – so much for cooking over the fire. I feel guilty – like I’m not really camping, but I’m pretty sure this linguine with sun-dried tomatoes and fresh mushrooms would beat the crap out of a burnt hot dog on a stick!

DAY 2

8-20-10  6:14 a.m.  Hmmm, that wasn’t as bad as I thought. I actually feel pretty good after a night in the tent. I want to hit the road, but everyone is still sleeping. I think they all want to go to the lake before we split anyway. What the hell, we got all day, as long as we get to Dyersville before 4 p.m. why not?

8-20-10 10:15 a.m.  Damn kids won’t get out of that damn lake no matter how much I tell them we’ve got to get a move on.

8-20-10  10:18 a.m. It must be my lucky day; my daughter just walked down the shore a bit and found a sign that read: “Contaminated With E Coli – Please Stay Out of Water”. She asked me what E Coli was. I told her it was bacteria from fecal matter. She asked me what fecal matter was. I told her it was excrement. She asked me what excrement was. I told her “SHIT!”

8-20-10  10:19 a.m. My kids are out of the water.

Nothing like a little E Coli to get your kids out of the lake! (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

8-20-10  12:48 p.m. Just got through Chicago - talk about E Coli!. I like the town, but what a shitty drive. Things are looking up though – only a few more hours of Illinois and then it’s on to Iowa. We’re already up to 25 states on the license plate game. So far no one has been eliminated. It’s getting cloudy – that wasn’t supposed to happen.

8-20-10  1:30 p.m. We’re in Rockford now getting gas. It’s starting to rain. My legs are a little cramped. For the life of me I don’t know why I didn’t get cruise control on our van - or a CD player for that matter. Amazingly the kids are still getting along, and we haven’t even turned on the radio yet. Imagine that, five plus hours of driving and no radio. Maybe they’re in the early stages of West Nile?

8-20-10  3:30 p.m. Just crossed the Mississippi River into Dubuque. Not as impressive as I would have thought, but it’s raining like hell now so maybe it will flood the banks by the time we return and we’ll really have something to see.

8-20-10  6:00 p.m. Spent the better part of two hours at the Field of Dreams movie site in Dyersville. My kids walked into the cornrows in left field, but only two of them came out. My son thought it would be funny if he disappeared in there for a while. I thought it would be funny if we took off and left him behind for about a half an hour. My wife smacked me upside the back of my head when I told her of my plan. Amazingly it quit raining the entire time we were there. We had a great time playing ball with people from all over the country, now we’re on the road again and the skies just opened up. The last time I was here, my broken car radio which hadn’t worked for over a year, started working again as soon I pulled out of the parking lot – strange!

My kids coming out of the corn with Shoeless Joe ... wait a minute, where the hell is Eamon? (photo by Lon Horwedel)

8-20-10 8:38 p.m. It’s official, I’m either getting old, or I’m just a big wussy. We’re staying at a Comfort Inn just outside of Iowa City because of the rain. Oh well, at least we got one night out of the tent and I’m pretty sure my kids could use a break from the skeeters anyhow. The back of my son’s neck looks like Dick Cheney peppered him while quail hunting!

(Stay tuned: Up next, rolling through Iowa, camping in beautiful Nebraska, then on to the thin air of the Rocky Mountains.)

WARNING: This might only be a watch!

Tornado warning number 15 this summer, during the Ann Arbor Art Fair. Doesn't look that bad to me! (photo by Lon Horwedel)

For my mother, who was smart enough to die in March before the official start of tornado season.

I’m not sure just when, but the rules changed somewhere along the line when it comes to tornados. Conditions that one constituted only a tornado watch, suddenly have everyone scrambling for cover every time it dumps a little rain or farts a little thunder.

The meteorologists now feel that any rotation in the clouds constituting a storm front is enough for them to fire out a tornado warning – whether a funnel cloud is spotter or not. This has led to a long summer of wailing sirens and repeated trips to the basement.

Not that I’m not used to repeated trips to the basement, but it’s been a while. It was the summer of 1974, to be exact, when my mother made it her personal mission to keep every one of her offspring safe from the ravaging dangers of the “killer” tornado that was sure to level our town.

She was scared to death of thunderstorms anyway, but when a true “killer” tornado hit Xenia, Ohio earlier that spring, killing 33 people (it was one of a record 148 tornados that touched down in a two-day period, April 3-4) it put her over the edge.

Her paranoia got so bad; we were heading to the basement on days that were only partly cloudy! I still remember sneaking a peek out the dirty, narrow windows of our dark, damp basement as the neighbor kids played in their yard.

“Mom, I don’t think it’s that bad out.” I’d say from the floor of the southwest corner of the basement, head safely tucked between my knees in the official tornado-disaster position.* 

“Yeah mom,” my sister complained, “the sun is shining!”

My mother would have none of it.

“You two shut up and get your heads back between your knees!” She’d shout. 

Then she would go on to tell us of the telltale signs of a tornado approaching: the hail, the eerie calm (maybe she got that one mixed up with the eye of a hurricane) the Aqua-Velva-green sky, the sound of a freight train, etc.

As she warned us of our horrific fate, she’d dart from window to window, scanning the sky like a hawk looking for anything vaguely conically-shaped in the clouds. Oddly enough, my father always was left out of the mix. More often than not, he was upstairs sleeping on the couch when all hell would break loose.

“Shouldn’t dad be down here too?” One of us would ask.

“He’ll be fine.” She’d shoot back.

Even though I was only 9, I got the feeling that for years my mother secretly was devising some wicked plot to rid herself of my dad – mostly because she told me so every chance she got – so I figured the thought of the house caving in on my poor father while he slept on the couch offered some solace to my mother as she paced the basement.

Folks watching the radar in the basement of the Michigan League where all Art Fair patrons were sent during a July tornado warning in Ann Arbor. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

Somewhat amazingly, our house never got leveled that summer, or any other summer for that matter, and near as I can figure, my dad safely slept through roughly 1,367 family trips to the basement during my childhood. I suspect he’s slept through every warning this summer as well.

But somewhere along the way – maybe it was the gigantic frogs, or the big hairy spiders, or perhaps the centipedes that often nestled with me in the infamous “southwest corner” - I got to thinking it might be safer to be outside in a potential twister than in our dark, moldy, critter-infested basement. It was at that point that I actually started wanting to see a tornado, or at the very least a funnel cloud.

My mother thought I was crazy, but by the time I was 18 and had a camera in hand, I not only wanted to see a twister, but photograph one as well. Several times in the past 27-years I thought for sure I would succeed. I’ve seen the Aqua-Velva-green sky, I’ve heard the freight train, and some of the hailstorms I’ve experienced looked like a for-sure a twister was on its way - still, 27-years and nothing.

That’s why the rash of warnings this summer has me somewhat befuddled. One glance at the less-than-ominous-looking sky and I hear myself asking, “Are you serious?” My kids, however, seem to have inherited their grandmother’s genes when it comes to “fear-of-the-twister.”

“Dad, shouldn’t you come down to the basement with us?” They’ve asked me at least a dozen times this summer.

“I’ll be down when the first shingle flies off the house.” I tell them. “Oh, and stay away from the southwest corner, you’re better off hulking under one of the steel support beams.”

Hey, better safe than sorry.

* The southwest corner was the official “safe zone” in our basement.  The theory being that most tornados strike from the southwest and if one actually did destroy our house, all the debris would be sent flying over our heads and into the northeast corner – a theory I never quite bought into. As for the official tornado-disaster position (on your knees, tucked, hands over your head) I guess the experts figured it was better to have your spine and the back of your head crushed to a pulp than any other part of your body.

August - The Sunday of Summer

August - Summer's almost gone. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

(note: After a month off, I'm back to writing on a regular basis starting with today's post. I'll also be working on a few other book projects this fall as well. I'll post a few excerpts from those projects in the coming weeks. Hope you like them! - Lon)

As I stood bleary-eyed over the toilet this morning and began the oh-so-annoying start and stop ritual of emptying my aging bladder, I looked up at the calendar hanging on the wall over our toilet and noticed the date was Sunday, August 1.

Fitting, I suppose, that the first day of August would fall on a Sunday. I mean the whole month of August feels like a Sunday to me. The Sunday of summer. The beginning of the end of the best stretch of the calendar year.

In between my poorly aimed, weak spurts of urine, I started thinking about our summers here in the northern hemisphere, more specifically, how they relate to a typical weekend.

It all starts with June, I realized – the Friday of summer. So much promise, so much time. If you throw away a day here or a day there, who cares? It’s only June. But June is short - way too short if you have kids in school. This year my kids weren’t released into the world until June 18th, giving them a mere 12 days of June to enjoy before July marched in and took over. But I guess that’s the way Fridays go. You waste more than half your day at work, and then try to make up for it from 5 o’clock on.

Before you know it, it’s Saturday – the best day of the weekend. July is the Saturday of summer. A great time to just relax and let the chips fall where they may. July lasts forever in a 31-day package. It gives you time to plan by not planning anything. Maybe you’ll take in a ballgame, maybe not. Maybe you’ll go see some fireworks, maybe not. Maybe you’ll go to the pool on a hot day, or the Dairy Queen at night. Maybe you’ll camp out in the back yard and catch lightning bugs with the kids. Maybe you’ll even take them to Cedar Point. It doesn’t really matter – nothing really matters in July, the best month of the entire year.

But now, today, it’s August 1st, and that’s not cool. Yesterday was just fine, it was still July, still Saturday, but today is Sunday - the Sunday of summer. Today will be a little shorter - maybe by only a few seconds, but still shorter. Soon the air will be filled with the nauseating sound of cicadas buzzing. The grass will stop growing and start to turn brown. The corn stalks are tall, sharp and itchy. It’s hotter than hell, but I’m tired of going to the pool.

I don’t wear sunscreen in August. My arms already have turned a deep, dark brown, so why bother? But my skin no longer has the suppleness of youth. It looks old and tired, like a worn-out ball glove. My Aunt Lori had skin like that, especially after she lost a lot of weight. I used to marvel at how wrinkley and brown her forearms looked by the end of the summer. Now I can’t help but notice that my arms look the same way, on this, the 45th August of my life.

I saw a maple tree yesterday that already started turning orange. It won’t be long now. I better get off my ass and do something before it’s too late. I never went to Cedar Point with the kids. I didn’t catch one lightning bug. I still haven’t been to a ballgame. I rode my bike one stinkin’ time. What the hell have I been doing all summer?

The kids will be in school soon. I have to start planning something – anything! They’re not getting any younger you know. What were you thinking? Soon they’ll hate your guts and never want anything to do with you ever again. You better come up with something good. You better not blow this. You’ve got one month buddy – one lousy month to take that family vacation you’re always talking about. It’s now or never asshole – just do it! Come up with a damn plan and do it!

Wait … shit, I forgot. This week is Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. I love Shark Week!

But what about your plans you idiot? You told yourself you were going to come up with a plan for the family vacation today. You’ve been saying it for three weeks now.

Ah hell, it’s only August 1st. I’ve got plenty of time. Besides, it’s Sunday – the Lord’s Day, a day of rest. I’ll figure out what we’re going to do later tonight, or maybe tomorrow … by the end of the week for sure.

After my last pitiful attempt at a final squirt, I put away my weapon of mass disruption, wiped pee splatters off the floor, the toilet seat and parts of the wall, and then washed my hands and went back to bed.

It was only 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, August 1st.

Funerals, Weddings, and Birthdays

Joel Gentz's parents and widow stand by his casket as members of the Air Force Honor Guard remove and fold the American flag that draped his casket. (photo by Lon Horwedel)

I haven’t been drunk since I was in college. That’s a good thing, I suppose. I can’t say being drunk ever made me forget my troubles or feel any better, plus I never really liked the taste of beer or hard liquor anyway. Still, for some strange reason, I was truly hoping the bartender at my nephew’s wedding had some Mike’s Hard Lemonade on hand – that’s one drink I actually like. He didn’t, so I drank Coke and stayed sober.

Maybe I was looking for a little less clarity and having a few drinks seemed like a good way to cloud things up a bit. My brain tends to grind a little too much most times and it had been one hell of a week in what’s turning out to be one hell of a year.

It all started with a military funeral for Joel Gentz, a young Air Force Lieutenant who was killed in Afghanistan. I didn’t know Joel one lick, but I’ve become all too familiar with military funerals.

This one was my sixth in the last seven years, and it was no different than the rest - a young man ripped away in the prime of his life. But this funeral also fell the same week as the Fourth of July, which made it seem more patriotic, I guess. Certainly, the turnout for his funeral seemed as much like a parade as it did a loss of life. The citizens of Chelsea, MI., where Gentz was from, lined the streets holding little American flags as the hearse carrying his body slowly made its way from the funeral home to the church.

There were no bands or floats, but people still waved their flags as the procession rolled past them. If you were deaf, you may have thought it was the Fourth of July or Memorial Day, but, of course, it wasn’t. 

At the church Gentz’s parents and his widow stood, for the most part, emotionless as members of the Air Force Honor Guard lifted the flag off his casket, folded it, and then handed it to his mom. Who knows what was going through their heads. I’m pretty sure they must have thought it was all a dream - it certainly felt surreal to me.

But that was early in the week. I had bigger things to look forward to. My nephew Aaron was getting married on July 3rd – the first of my mother-in-law’s 21 grandchildren to wed. I have no nieces or nephews on my side of the family, but when I married my wife (the youngest in a family of eight) I immediately became an uncle several times over, thanks to her prolific sister and six brothers.

Not more than three months earlier, a bunch of us were sitting in my mother-in-law’s living room placing bets on which of her 21 grandchildren would be the first to get married. Now that that’s been settled, we’re all wondering who’ll be next.

Aaron and his new bride Randi. (photo by Lon Horwedel)

Aaron picked a great day to get married. Not just because the weather was great, but because he’ll also have more to celebrate than just parades and fireworks every summer on the Fourth of July. The same can’t be said for Joel Gentz. Even though his death came in June, his funeral and the Fourth of July forever will be linked for his folks, his widow, and all his friends.

Joel and Aaron had a lot in common: both in their 20’s, both newly married, both with promising futures, but in the span of one week that all changed. Now one life will continue to try and fulfill the promise, the other is simply done.

As I watched kids scramble for candy tossed on the street by passing politicians at Ypsilanti’s Fourth of July Parade, I wondered if this was what Joel Gentz died for. As I watched fireworks erupt in the sky later that night, I wondered if my nephew’s marriage would last – newlyweds always seem so happy and invincible, but kids, time, and life in general, have a strange way of wearing down the euphoria. I also wondered if Joel Gentz’s widow would ever find love again.

I wonder a lot of things these days. But as I stood in front of the bartender the night of Aaron’s wedding, the only thing I wondered was why he didn’t have any Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

Coach

Talking to my son between innings. (photo by Gail Winger)

Father’s Day never meant all that much to me until I became a father myself. It (becoming a father) always was something I figured I would do; I just never knew when, or how rewarding it would be once it actually happened.

But now I’m afraid I might be turning into “that guy.” You know, the one you see living vicariously through their children. It’s not like I’m a stage father or anything, but I do have to admit that lately I’ve been living and dying with every one of my son’s little league baseball games - probably even more so because I happen to be his coach.

Let’s not underestimate the power of “the coach.” I still remember my little league coaches quite vividly - and not always with a lot of fondness. More often than not, my coach was always some kid on the team’s dad, just like I am now, and they always did what most dad/coaches do – put their kids in primo positions even if they sucked.

This is just what dad/coaches do. I never took it personally because I knew if I was in their position I’d probably do the same thing. Besides, even if I thought they were idiots at times, I got along with most of my coaches (and their sons) and we had pretty good teams when I was a kid.

Of course, that was long before the advent of youth soccer in our society. When I was a kid everyone played baseball because basically our summers were made up of two choices: play ball, or go swimming - and the order of these two was mighty important, as every dad/coach would warn us on game days. We were strictly forbidden to go swimming before a game lest it somehow interfere with our ability to field a grounder or swing a bat.

The whole swimming-on-game-day stuff never made sense to me then, but now, 35-years later, I find myself telling my players the same crap about the evils of the swimming pool, and it’s my son who is playing the primo positions (from an objective standpoint, if that’s possible, he is one of our best players).

I’m not sure, but I think maybe, subconsciously I got married and had kids so that I could relive my childhood again. Sadly, little league may have been the highpoint of my baseball career because I was never good enough to play past the high school level, but I’m still plenty good enough to play with 10-year-olds. (plus I get to wear a uniform and hat – just like the players!)

And who couldn't love all the neato things that 10-year-old boys like to do? Like giving each other cool nicknames. My team, the Ann Arbor A’s, is made up mostly of kids named after breakfast cereals. We have “Apple Jacks” at third base, “Corn Flake Blake” at second and a kid we call “Special K” who can play anywhere. We also have our hardware section with "Hammer" at short, and "Nails" in centerfield. My son has been dubbed “8-ball” and our exceptionally tall pitcher landed the unfortunate moniker of “Sasquatch.” The fastest kid on the team is “Hot Wheels” and our catcher is “Savior” (his initials are J.C.). We also have one kid who never wears socks, so his nickname, of course, is “Socks.”

These kids have great personalities too. One of the boys (Nails) has taken it upon himself to be my official “cuss counter” quietly pointing out every time a let a swear word fly out of my mouth. I told him I’d give him 10 bucks at the end of the season if he has more runs-batted-in than I have swear words ... right now my money’s pretty safe.

And I would know because I keep track of things like runs-batted-in, and batting averages and on-base percentages. I chart every pitch and every at bat. I keep track of stolen bases, passed balls, and errors. I’ve turned into a statistical geek for no apparent reason because I don’t even like math.

Maybe I’m taking this coaching thing too seriously because last week when we blew a four-run lead in the last inning to lose by one, I stayed awake for two straight nights wondering if there were any moves I could have made to help us win.

It’s sick, I know, but the fun I had playing ball as a 10-year-old doesn’t even compare to the amount of fun I’m having coaching them. (I think it’s because I don’t have to run.) I guess it all makes sense because despite my age, I’ve never really felt like a grown up. Sure I’ve got a college education, but I much prefer relating to 10-year-old kid collecting baseball cards than a grown man playing the stock market.

That's who I am - why should I fight it? I don’t even own a suit or a tie, so I guess I’ll be buried in a ball cap instead. All I ask is that they don’t plant grass on top of my gravesite when I die. I'd rather have a pitcher’s mound!

Defining Moments

Sometimes fate boils down to nothing more than a split second or a half an inch. (Photo by Lon Horwedel)

No one knows for sure when a moment in time will be thrust upon him or her in such a way that it will change their life forever. Sometimes it comes and goes without so much as a blip and it’s not until much later that the significance is even realized.

Sometimes the moment happens by not happening at all. The plane you didn’t board, the road you didn’t take, or maybe you avoided a horrific crash just by leaving somewhere 10 minutes early … or 10 minutes late. Every fiery crash you see on the highway could have been avoided by either party if not for bad timing.

I’ve thought a lot about defining moments lately. Not just my own, but other’s as well. Especially last week when Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers came within a whisker of pitching a perfect game against the Cleveland Indians. His defining moment came on what should have been the last batter of the game, Jason Donald, who hit a routine grounder to second base.

Only it wasn’t quite that easy. The Tigers’ first baseman Miguel Cabrera ranged far off the bag to try and field the grounder instead of letting the second baseman take it. Now, realizing no one was covering first, Galarraga hustled over to cover the base and try to cement his place in history.

Donald was busting up the line to try and beat the throw, but Cabrera threw a perfect strike to Galarraga, who got there a step ahead of the Indians’ runner. The stadium was set to erupt, the players were set to erupt, but then came the parallel arm motion of first base umpire Jim Joyce. It seemed puzzling at first because it wasn’t what anyone expected – not even Jason Donald.

Joyce had called him safe.

Stunned silence filled the air. It couldn’t be. Television replays started showing the play from a million angles, and every angle showed the same thing – Donald was out by a wide margin and Joyce had blown the call costing Galarraga his shot at the history books.

Fans began to boo Joyce as Tiger manager Jim Leyland and first baseman Cabrera gave the ump a tongue-lashing. But not Galarraga, he seemed unaffected as he walked calmly back to the mound to record his 28th out of the night.

Later, Jim Joyce, regarded as one of the best umpires in the American League, would see the replay and break down in tears. He now knew he had blown the call and he felt terrible. So terrible he did something unprecedented for an umpire. He payed a visit to the Tigers clubhouse to seek out Galarraga and he apologized.

Joyce wouldn’t sleep that night; in fact, he still had tears in his eyes the next day as he tried to ready himself to be the home plate umpire for final game of the Tigers and Indians three-game series. In a show of true sportsmanship, Galarraga walked the lineup card out to Joyce. When he arrived at home plate, he gave the tortured umpire a pat on the back. Joyce wiped away his tears and returned the gesture. It was nice moment between the two who now were forever linked by a routine grounder with two outs in the ninth inning of what would have been a perfect game.

It’s become their defining moment. A half an inch higher on the bat and Donald pops out to right field – no controversy. A half an inch lower and he strikes out - a perfect ending to a perfect game. If anyone other than Jim Joyce was umping at first that night, he probably calls Donald out and Jim Joyce could tell his grandkids about the perfect game he got to work one night in Detroit.

I feel for both men, but especially Jim Joyce because I know what it’s like to lose sleep over a mistake – to question your worth, even when you know you’re good at what you do. Galarraga’s almost-perfect game couldn’t have come at a stranger time because I had my own defining moment the same week and it nearly cost me my job, and just like Jim Joyce and Armando Galarraga, I had no clue that something so routine would turn out to be so huge.

Of course mine wasn’t a ground ball to second base, mine was my normal drive home from work – something I’ve done on the same route, five days a week, for the past 16-years. Only on this particular day I saw something that wasn’t routine at all - a dead man. It was so striking to me, I wrote about it a few weeks back in my piece called “Slipping into Silence.”

Originally published on my blog with little fanfare, the piece took on a life of its own when my employer, AnnArbor.com, published it. Some people loved it – others not so much. I was called a racist, a terrible writer, a terrible person, a liar, etc. Some thought I made up the whole story. When I was asked to verify the details of the man I thought was dead, I found out I was wrong. The man I assumed to be dead, was indeed lifeless and unresponsive, but only because he had just suffered a seizure.

Maybe he died later, maybe not. I’ll never know because HIPPA laws prevent hospitals from giving out information about patients. But it didn’t matter. My employers deemed my error unacceptable and I was sent home for two days while they tried to decide my fate.

It’s hard to put into words how you feel sitting at home on a beautiful day not knowing if  you’ll have a job or not when the phone rings. I couldn’t really enjoy the weather because I felt like I might puke. I couldn’t really get up enough energy to do anything but worry. After 25-years as a photojournalist, I had a hard time believing what was happening.

How could my career come down to one mistake?

How could an anonymous man control my destiny?

Was my job really going to boil down to if a man was alive or dead? How could I possibly hope for someone's death just to save my job?

In the end I kept my job. But not until I was smeared publicly by a gaggle of commentators who were, and still are, calling for my head. I’m now forever linked with that elderly black man on the bench who I thought was dead - just like Galarraga and Joyce are forever linked. The only difference is the man on the bench, if he’s even still alive, doesn’t know it.

It’s been a strange few weeks. People keep asking me what happened and I keep telling the same story over and over again. I’m no longer allowed to write for AnnArbor.com, but that’s all right because I’ll continue to write on my own blog as I’ve done all along - at least through the end of July. At that point I plan on starting a book about my childhood.

In the meantime I’m rediscovering the joys of running and working out and breathing air again. I love to write and I love to take pictures, and coming up with something fresh and new every week for four straight years was a hell of a challenge. I’m proud of what I produced in that time span, and I plan on doing it for a while longer, but then it will be time to move on to try something new.

Who knows, maybe that will become my true defining moment.