David E. Steiner

Retired USAF, Teacher, Dad, Grandfather, Curmudgeon

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The Trip to the Mountains

 

When I was a kid, June was an important month. As soon as school was out, we began to plan our annual trip from Portland, Oregon, to Colorado. We usually left the last week of June, so we’d be at our summer home on Big Owl Road by the 1st of July, which was my father’s birthday, and we would stay until after my parents’ wedding anniversary, on August 18th.

But school wasn’t really out, because I learned a great many things on that annual journey.

We learned about packing, for one thing. Packing a car with everything we would need for almost two months was a science, and my parents devised over the years a pattern which insured that there was room for everything, without a cubic inch to spare. When we finished packing the trunk it was always touch and go whether the lid would close, and then my father would go around the car, clucking his tongue and shaking his head as he contemplated the depth to which the rear end had sunk. And he always bought cars with big trunks.

When I was very small my brother and I fought over who was going to have the front seat window, because there was no air conditioning at that time. Many cars had water bags draped on their front bumpers and some had tubular evaporative coolers hung on a window. But since we traveled only five days out of every year, my father thought such an expense unwarranted. So we perspired as we made our way to the mountains by various routes. Sometimes we took a northern route, through Ontario, Oregon, to Pocatello and Little America through Cheyenne and up the Big Thompson. Or we might take a more southern route, stopping at Winnemucca, Nevada and Heber, Utah, over Rabbit Ears Pass and Trail Ridge. But it was always 1300 miles, more or less, and it always took two and a half days.

We passed the time in various ways. My mother was occupied by keeping her two boys occupied, and my father drove the Dodge or the Buick Special. My mother had a lunch-box size tin box, which she filled with various candy treats and she doled them out as the miles rolled by and when we stopped for gas. When my older brother was very small we started out from Portland and after just a few miles he startled her by saying, “Isn’t it about time we stopped and refreshed ourselves?” She told that story for years.

We played the usual games: I’m Packing a Trunk, Twenty Questions, various license plate games, but mostly we thought about the fun we were going to have when we got to Colorado. Mom looked forward to not having a telephone or meetings she had to go to. Dad looked forward to fishing. We boys just looked forward to being there and a summer of playing in the woods.

Both my brother and I had our first taste of long distance driving as soon as we had our learner’s permits. My first experience became an important part of my education as I carefully drove the first few miles from Portland, observing the speed limits and rounding every curve at the prescribed speed. My father stood it as long as he could and finally, his patience at an end, said, “At 50 miles an hour you’re never going to get anywhere!” So I pushed it up to 72 and kept my cars at that speed until the 55 miles per hour speed limit came in. Then I had to drop back to 65, like everyone else.

We learned about the states we traveled through, too. Oregon had good highways, but when we crossed into Idaho we were greeted by narrow roads and plenty of washboards which made the wheels chatter. As we crossed the state line my father would always mutter, “Bad roads in Idaho. Lots of graft.” But he loved the Nevada highways, which were wide and smooth, and there was no speed limit at all. “All that gambling money,” my father would confide. One year we stopped at the Bonneville Salt flats with our new Buick, drove out on the salt, put the pedal to the floor and let her rip. My mother was none too pleased, but the boys, (at the moment, all three of us) had a wonderful time.

We often stopped at Heber, Utah, and we stayed in a motel where sheep grazed on the front lawn. In the summer of 1947 we saw, at the tiny theater in Heber, “Miracle on 34th Street,” and knew we’d seen something very special. I have no idea to this day why it was in Heber, Utah in the middle of the summer.

When we finally arrived, at the middle of the third day, we were all too excited to be tired from the long trip on two lane highways in cars vastly inferior in every way to those we have today. The end of June had finally come and we were once again at the place we had been thinking about all year.

 

 

Columns

© 1985 – 2003, David E. Steiner

Allenspark Wind Columns:

Introduction

Why Allenspark?

Going Riding [August, 1985]

Electricity

Used Cars

Peace and Quiet [1986]

Liberals & Conservatives

Going to the Movies

The Screened Porch

The Beginning of The Season

The Weather

The Hilltop Guild Bazaar

The End of The Season

The Gift of Time

The Beavers

Addresses [1987]

Hiking

Watching the Trees Grow

Postal Rates

Changes in Estes Park

Square Dancing at the Pow Wow

Back to the Hilltop Guild Bazaar

The Solstices

Bird Feeders

Elevators

The Estes Park Hardware Store [1988]

Visitors

Limousine Service

A Memorial Service

A Hummingbird

Garbage

A Hiking Trip

The Estes Park Public Library

Wild Life

Riparian Rights [1989]

Weather

Fences

Commuting

Mountain Friendliness

A Motorcycle Trip

Satellite Television

“Weaving Mountain Memories”

Hotel Rates in the Old Days

The Price of Propane [1990]

The Front Range Almanac

June

Modes of Transportation

Miller Moths

My 50th Column

Modern Conveniences

Rock Climbing

On the Death of Otto Walter, Postmaster

Otto’s Memorial Service

A Big Owl Pot-Luck Dinner

A Whine About Telephone Service [1991]

After the Persian Gulf War

Some Changes in the WIND

The Trip to the Mountains

The Mountains in the Summer

Visitors

Of Dogs, Music, and Children

Muhlenburg County

To My Grandson

The Sale of Longs Peak Inn

World War II  [1992]

Murphy’s Law and the Computer

The South St. Vrain Canyon

“Whiteout”

The Hazards of Volunteering

Crime in Our Valley

Infestations

On the Death of Charles Eagle Plume

Can We All Get Along?

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

Lost Horizon [1993]

Walking

Rumors About a Visit by the Pope

Progress?

More About Fences

Woodpeckers

The Visit of Pope John Paul II

Forest Fires

The New Sewage System

The Snow Pool

The Good Old Days [1994]

The WIND’s 20th Anniversary

The Bunce School

The Shooting Gallery

The Estes Park Museum

Our Government

U.S. West Takes a Hit

The Year of the Hummingbirds

A New “Yield” Sign

Growth in Allenspark

Private Telephones?

The Salvation Army

Creation Science [1995]

Devolutionizing Big Government

Risks

Airports

Fort D.A. Russell

Domestic Terrorism

Old and New

Barney Graves

Life in the Wilderness

What’s In a Name?

Arthur C. Clarke

 

The Estes Park Trail-Gazette Columns:

July 1983

Carpentry

Estes Cone

Johnny Grant

Observations in Estes Park

The Bath House

Waving

The Sutherland’s Ice House

How Old is Charles Eagle Plume?

Dogs

Christmas Trees

Tree Murder

Mountain Driving

Garbage

Mail Boxes

More About Mail Boxes

“Are you related to ....?”

Spring

An Accident

The Wild Cat

A July Reunion

A Visit to Baldpate Inn

Opening Cabins

Summer

The Times, They Have Changed

Death and Transfiguration

The Population Explosion

The March of Time

Faith-Based Social Services

Looking for Pitch

Recent Writings I

Recent Writings II

Recent Writings III

Recent Writings IV

Recent Writings V

Recent Writings VI

 

 

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