When I got sick, fever and all in July, days before we were supposed to leave on our first family vacation in a couple of years, at first I became defiant and tried to pretend that everything was fine. But as I found myself huddled in a ball in bed the defiance quickly began to fizzle, and I despaired that we may be kept home, again, for a third year in a row. We had made these travel plans back in the winter when our friends Paul and April— who basically spur us to take just about every family climbing trip we have ever taken— saw that there was an open campsite in Junction Creek Campground just outside of Durango, CO. April made the reservation for 10 days in July 2022, and we said we’d try to come.
From 2010 until 2018, we met up with these friends on a yearly basis, years I refer to as the “living-the-dream years.” But this year was going to be the third or fourth time in a row we’ve tried to connect with them since 2020, unsuccessfully. In July of 2020, we were going to meet up with them in Tucson, AZ, stay in their guesthouse, swim in their pool, and climb on Mount Lemmon. That June, Mount Lemmon caught on fire and temps crept up with no monsoons to ease the heat. We decided not to go there and went to the Red River Gorge in KY, and got gnawed on by bugs and ticks and almost melted in 90 degree heat with 90 percent humidity instead. I cannot say that it was fun. That fall, Paul and April enticed us to join them for a Thanksgiving trip in Yosemite, but while COVID cases soared that November, we decided to remain grounded at home. The summer of 2021, we planned to drive from Seb’s last rowing championship in Sarasota, FL, to Paul and April’s in Tucson, and possibly also to Southern California. While we were still in FL, a family member in Pittsburgh died, and we returned home for her funeral. We didn’t have the time or the gumption to drive all the way across the country after that. Again that fall, our friends tried enticing us to Yosemite, and again, we decided not to go, using the excuse that traveling logistics were too complicated.
I tried to hold the family trip plans to CO loosely for a while this year. Seb already said he wasn’t going with us because of work, and we knew that Oren didn’t want to go on a climbing trip. We had to figure out if there was something else in Durango for him to do. Turns out, Durango is less a climbing than a mountain biking destination, so it was going to check all our boxes for a good vacationing place: a little climbing could be done by those of us who wanted to climb (me), a lot of mountain biking could be enjoyed by those who wanted to do that (Oren and Brian), and then there was water to swim in when we all needed to cool down. Plus, it would give me the dose of clean mountain air and the smells of pine trees and rocks and dirt that I have been missing so much these past few years. I was also looking forward to climbing with April again— there is something about climbing with a woman with similar strength and ability as myself. Climbing is that much more enjoyable when I can share it with someone, equally. (Sorry Brian, you’re just too good for me…)
By the end of June, our plans were sure, and we were starting to make lists and go shopping for the trip. I had been training for a few weeks in the climbing gym to be in tip top shape. So when I got sick a few days before we were supposed to leave, I realized how desperate I was to go. My desperation grew when we did not leave on July14th. And we also did not leave on the 15th. We decided that if we could not leave on the 17th, it would not be worth it to leave at all. We did not leave on the16th, but thankfully, my symptoms resolved, and I was feeling mostly human again. So we woke up the morning of the 17th, and I felt great, and we decided we could leave.
Durango, CO, is at about seven thousand feet elevation, but it is still very hot in the summer. All week, the temps were in the 90s. For six days instead of ten, we hiked and climbed and biked in 90 degree heat. It was a dry heat, though, as they say, and the evenings cooled off. So we staked out shaded climbing spots, and we staked out swimming spots, and we made it through the week. Conditions were not ideal for climbing hard, especially as I recovered from my recent illness, but they were good enough for biking and being with friends. Camping was wonderful— our tents hunched beneath big ponderosa pines that swayed and moaned in the breeze every evening as the sun went down. Even the pit toilets were “pleasant.” And, surprisingly enough with the heat and drought in the southwest, we were allowed to have campfires. We all had a great time even though it was shorter than we had originally planned. We’re home now, satiated. Seb and the cats are happy we are back. And the summer can come to an end with our seal of approval.
Also, our friends have extended yet another invitation to join them in Yosemite this November. I wonder what we’ll do?
