a forgotten post from my journal, dated 06.18.19

There are a few things in life that unfailingly make me smile: dad jokes, certain cheesy 80s songs, and when I can walk out the door - or unzip the tent, if you will - and be standing smack dab in the middle of something beautiful, and this weekend, I got all of those things. A friend of mine and I headed to Leadville with a singular focus of summiting Mt Elbert. The post-holing through crotch deep snow and wading through a rushing river with the help of a fallen tree were just bonus.

To save the wear and tear on our cars, we opted to rent one - a brilliant move I accidentally discovered when I needed to make an emergency trip to Texas earlier this year the morning after my brakes started screaming at me. It’s inexpensive and potentially far more convenient should some dingus texting and driving sideswipe you. Let me continue this digression to note the inevitable hilarity of renting a car. Either they don’t actually have the car that you reserved online just HOURS before your scheduled pickup or they want to send you across the country in a minivan when you requested a compact or, in our case, you’re going to the mountains and they bring out the keys to a Kia Soul. I mean, that’s fine. We’re low maintenance. We can fit a couple of tents (or so we thought) and a cooler in this bright red box on teensy, tiny wheels, but we are sure as shit going to laugh about it (and note the irony that even with my Outback and her Xterra, we are driving a bright red box on teensy, tiny wheels into the country’s highest incorporated city).

I could tell you all of the completely ridiculous things that happened (like within five minutes of us arriving, Jordan discovering she forgot her tent), but if you know me personally or have been a reader from any length of time, you can probably guess how it all went. I’ll just leave that all there and dive a little deeper into what really happened in those five days - most notably, the reprieve from my own head that a trip to the mountains always brings. This one, though… this one was bigger. I’m not sure if it’s because Jordan’s first Elbert summit mattered more to me than any of my own physical endeavors, or if it was because I hadn’t been on a mountain in nearly a year, or if it was because this time, the constant mind chatter I was trying to silence was the oscillation between my mother’s recent death and my own mortality (a shockingly normal reaction, apparently). As I write all of this out, the only sensible answer is all three. I honestly don’t care about the “why,” though. I am just grateful to know that it can happen.

We had outrageous giggle fits. We dug ourselves out of SO MUCH SNOW. We got lost. A lot. We bushwhacked and hopped fallen trees and chased marmots and slid down the mountain on our asses. We crossed a river holding a fallen tree above us jungle jim style. We lost shoes (me) and rescued them (her). We spent full days in the the car with no need for the radio - just good conversation interspersed with easy silence. We bridged the generation gap with wise words and anecdotal experience from both sides, and we gave our thinking brains a break. We celebrated the falls with laughter and reveled in our ability to get up and keep moving forward - slow as it may have been. I watched Jordan walk the edge of her limit with determination, and I allowed myself to slow down and let go of a little grittiness. I left there both stronger and softer because of this. So, to Jordan - one of my all-time favorite road trip, and mountain climbing friends - thank you. I love you. And I’m not fired.