James McKew

Camping is in my DNA.

I was raised by campers and spent large amounts of my youth in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, hiking, biking, building fires and sleeping in tents. I burnt my hand on a propane lantern when I was five and can still remember it, when I was seven I wandered away from camp into the San Gabriel Mountains above Los Angeles and gave my grandparents a terrible fright. They were lifelong campers. There’s a story told of my Grandpa pulling a travel trailer up Tioga pass in the 1950’s with his Cadillac before jack-knifing in the middle of the road and closing down traffic for hours. This road even by modern standards is treacherous but back then it was a dirt road first built for mining wagons to reach Tuolomne Meadows. Those were the days before cell phones and convenience stores. You traveled with AAA maps, plenty of water and stopped at every gas station to top off. My grandparents were part of that post World War II generation that didn’t accept no for an answer. If you drove a Cadillac to work every day…well, just put a hitch on it, so what if the trailer weighed as much as a Sherman tank? They were diehard campers and the Eastern Sierra’s were their playground…soon it became mine. Brian and I joined them in the 1970’s and everyone was given their daily camp assignments. Brian was responsible for wearing a Speedo and playing in the two-inch deep trickle that passed for a stream. I was expected to ride my bike up and down the dusty roads and report back on all activity in the area. Grandma cooked all the meals, bathed the dogs in the trickle and during her free time did crossword puzzles. Grandpa fished for our meals, I have memories of him in thigh-high rubber waders heading off into the woods with a creel over his shoulder and pole in hand. That guy was a real fisherman…he could find trout in a dry stream bed and come back to the trailer with a stringer-full by ten o’clock.

Our vacation this year is at Trout Lake. Katie’s friend since kindergarten owns a cabin there. I’ve been twice before, the first time I was Katie’s boyfriend. We had dated for only six weeks and I viewed the trip as a challenge to see if I could survive being with her and her two teenage kids, four of her life-long friends, their four children and two dogs all in a cabin slightly bigger than a Volkswagen Beetle… for three days. Surprisingly, it went pretty good; I cooked, cleaned and did my best to answer the well-timed and delicately asked questions about how we met and what my life was like before Katie and Colorado.

The second time we had been married for just under a month. Her kids were away visiting their father in California and it was just the two of us on an extended honeymoon weekend with friends. Once again I behaved myself and got the nod; my contract was renewed for a third year.

Sometimes at work I daydream about the cabin; I imagine waking up next to Katie in the dark living room with the smell of coffee brewing. Outside the front door, warm light touches the crest of Lizard Head Pass, a dog stirs under our inflatable bed, someone tip-toes past us, grabs a fishing pole and heads down to the lake. These are the things I look forward to when life is boring or hard.

Day 1-Thursday

Today is all about timing our arrival so that the cabin owners arrive before us. This year we have a greenhorn; Shama, Katie’s six year old adopted daughter from Haiti. Before leaving we have fried eggs and bagels for breakfast. Katie takes the dog to her dad’s place while I mow the lawn and pull a few weeds. Then we pack the minivan, stop at Albertson’s for flashlight batteries, deep woods insect repellent and of course…beer.

We head south out-of-town on Highway 50. I’m in the passenger’s seat with a smile on my face, the past few weeks of work have been stressful and I’m in need of time away from the grind. We’re speeding through the rolling sagebrush plains between Whitewater and Delta, out the windshield is our destination: the San Juan Mountains, jagged little teeth on the horizon with patches of snow filled crevasses on the northern slope.

“Oh my gosh!” Katie slams on the breaks. “We don’t have the sleeping bags. I put them next to the bed so I wouldn’t forget.”

I wonder if we need them, it’s thirty miles home for a few sleeping bags. Would it be cheaper to stop at Wal-Mart in Montrose and buy replacements? We turn around and drive back to the house, have a sandwich, get the sleeping bags and toss in the rain jackets.

Back on the road, it’s smooth sailing. We stop in Montrose to use the restroom then continue pushing south. Arid desert plains give way to lust pastures and trees that line stream bottoms with each passing mile. A few rain drops hit the windshield. I love the cloudy weather, having lived on the edge of the desert for most of my life, any passing cloud is a joy. The van’s temperature gauge reads seventy wonderful degrees outside. We turn right at Ridgeway; I like this little town for a number of reasons, the original True Grit was filmed here for starters. It’s also the crossroads of our journey, once we leave here, the road becomes an official scenic byway, the drive from Ridgeway to Trout Lake is perhaps on my top ten list of scenic drives in the U.S., well at least it’s on the top thirty… either way it’s spectacular. The mountains here are jagged, grey and treeless, with plenty of snow for mid-July. Below them, the lush green aspen groves billow out and fall to the valley floor like Scarlett O’hara’s ball gown.

Last week we began prepping Shama for this trip. She has been in the U.S. for less than a year and her English is coming along but we are continuously teaching her new words. First we had to explain what a cabin was; then we talked about who was going to be at the cabin and where we were going to sleep at night. It was a full week of discussing the different things that would happen once we arrived. There was even talk of bears. We hear on arriving that someone at a cabin up the road was recently bitten when food was left outside and a bear arrived for the midnight buffet.

The cabin is serene as always, the timeless brown exterior nestled in the tall pines and aspens, just a short walk downhill to the boat dock. Our hosts have already arrived, their adopted five-year old daughter comes running out in pajamas to greet us. They have two dogs, a short black terrier and a tall lanky American Mutt that looks like the cartoon Tasmanian Devil.

We unpack and Shama joins the other kids in a bedroom. I hear a parent telling the kids to stop jumping on the bunk beds. A few minutes later I go in to check on her and she’s jumping up and down on the parent’s bed. I pull her off and go into a heated explanation about the rules for playing in the bedroom. Now she’s angry and pouting…in the first ten minutes I’ve ruined her entire weekend. I order her to put on shoes and a rain jacket.
“We’re going for walk down to the lake”. I said.
Shama pouts and slowly staggers along thirty feet behind Katie and me until I demand that she walk next to me or hold my hand…we end up holding hands. I hate being the bad guy, I hate getting mad at her and demanding behavior. She pouts and looks at the ground. We stop at the lake shore and I pick up a small flat rock and put it in her hand.

“Throw that rock into the lake right now.” I said.

She looks up at me and grins as if a spell has been lifted from her- the transformation is instant and remarkable. We skip rocks for a good ten minutes before heading back up the hill, challenging Shama to run fast up and down the road in front of the cabin. She has an amazing amount to energy that needs to be burnt off before bedtime.

Inside the cabin, dinner preparation is underway. I find a bar stool and a beer and watch our host cook. He shows me a book he recently finished writing about his uncle’s experience flying gliders into Germany during World War II. It’s a beautiful coffee table-sized book with over three hundred pictures taken during the war.

Dinner is Italian sausages in red sauce with Rigatoni noodles and garlic bread. The adults sit at the oval dining table, the three giggling kid’s crowd around a coffee table and eat. The lone teenager sits at the counter. After dinner we have homemade mulberry and rhubarb pie. The berries are from a backyard in Grand Junction, wild rhubarb grows outside the cabin. It’s stunningly good.
After dinner the group goes for a walk to the boat dock.

“Papa, I have to go to the bathroom.” Shama says.
“Now?”
“Uh huh, I have to go right now.”
There’s a public restroom. She’s afraid to go in by herself. I go in with her and she makes a face at the big plastic pit toilet. She points to brown splatter down in the inner lining.
“Watch this.” I said, taking toilet paper and lay it over the toilet seat.
“Why you do that for?”
“Because I don’t want to sit on a gross toilet seat.”

I close the door and leave her to it. She comes out thirty seconds later announcing that she’s too scared to go. Katie shows up and goes back in with her.
There’s fresh snow on top of the mountains from this afternoon’s storms and I get that little tingle inside when the seasons are changing, even though I know Fall is still months away. The evening light is fading from lavender to deep blue, and there’s talk of bears coming out at night.

“Can you take me to the bear’s cave?” Shama asks.
“No, it’s way up on top of that mountain across the highway. Too far, we can’t go.”
“Why?”
“Because maybe the bear has babies and doesn’t want you to see them.”
She seems to understand this.

Back at the house the other kids have already gone to bed. We get Shama’s bag out and she gets in.
I sit down at the dinner table and begin to edit a novel I’m working on. Katie is in bed reading. Shama makes noises and stirs. It’s after ten by the time I put on my pajamas and brush my teeth; Shama is still lying there wide awake.

“Papa, look at this.” She holds out something small in her palm.
“Is that you’re tooth?”
“Uh-huh.” She pulls back her lip and shows me a hole in her upper teeth.
I take the tiny tooth and put it away.
She lies down and I turn the lights off. I hardly sleep, my forearm aches, probably from the rock throwing.

Day 2- Friday

Pre-dawn light comes through the windows and I turn away. The air mattress stretches and makes a farting sound. Shama stirs at the noise. I get up and go to the bathroom, put on my Broncos sweatshirt, get coffee and start writing this blog. The house is dead quiet for almost an hour, then in the matter of a few minutes everyone is up and moving.

After breakfast of bagels and cream cheese, Katie, Shama and I take a row-boat out on the lake. We wear orange horse-collar life-vests, Katie and Shama sit at the back of the boat and I row east into the wind. Shama changes positions, sits on my lap and takes a turn rowing. There’s laughing and singing, Shama likes dragging her hand over the side in the water, she’s been asking about boats since last Fall.

Back at the cabin we get the fishing report; ten fish caught this morning on a golden lure. The girls play princess, dressing each other in long red towels and blankets before parading through the living room.
Katie and I cook Chicken Scampi with rice for dinner.
We sleep on the farting bed. At 2 A.M. it rains hard outside.

Day 3-Saturday

I slept good last night after taking ibuprofen, my arm didn’t ache and I nodded off quickly. Breakfast is a tasty egg, cheese and sausage casserole.

Our host and I head into the woods behind the cabin and start a construction project. There’s plenty of engineering involved; we calculate wind speed and velocity, consider the allowable amount of sway under certain weight loads. We saw limbs, clear a runway and prepare anchors. When it’s done we have a rope swing suspended between two pines. It looks solid but neither one of us is brave enough to try it; we use his five-year old daughter as the test pilot.

After lunch Katie, Shama and I go to Mountain Village, a ski and golf resort, and ride the gondola into Telluride. On the second leg of the trip we sit next to two boys maybe thirteen years old, with helmets and rented mountain bikes. They ride the gondola up and cruise down the ski slopes over and over. The boys jump off at the top of the hill and another group of tourists and employees get on. This is how it’s done here, the gondola serves as public transportation between the ski resort and the town of Telluride and probably saves tens of thousands of cars from having to crowd into town each year. I like the mountain views and the little thrill of sailing quietly over the forest and ski runs.

Telluride is both touristy and trendy, the city recently passed a law making it mandatory for all women entering town to where black yoga pants, I’m pretty sure I saw an inspection station on the highway. There’s a music festival going on and the tie-dyed types fill the streets. We saw four of them getting high in the parking garage at Mountain Village and I tell myself that they must be tourists, the Coloradan’s I hang out with wouldn’t do such things. In a downtown park, a yoga festival is going on, college girls swirl their hula hoops to Ziggy Marley while two guys display a gymnastic move where one balances on top of the other. Nylon webbing is stretched between two trees and a young girl is using it like a tight rope or is it now called a slack rope? Katie leads us down the main drag in search of ice cream. The shop that she remembers is gone, closed up two years ago. Instead we go to Baked in Telluride, kind of the central meeting point in town where the locals go. We sit on the outside deck. A twelve-year-old pulls up on a stylin’ Schwinn Stingray; banana seat, fire engine red and right out of the seventies. Thou shalt not covet, spins in my head as I lick my lips at the thought of taking it for a couple of lapse around the block. I could fit-in on the Telli-scene I tell myself, I’m hip, I’m cool, but in reality…I would end up breaking my neck. Across the street a woman is on the sidewalk drinking a Coors Light in the broad daylight. Yes, I know it passes for water here in Colorado, but this isn’t Burning Man…we still need some rules about this sort of thing.

A brief pause for clothing descriptions: I am wearing a brown button up short sleeve shirt with green shorts, red baseball hat, athletic socks and white Nike running shoes. I’m sure to be the voted the most touristy looking guy in town. Katie is my opposite, she has on cool jeans, hiking boots, a pretty lavender shirt with a white sweatshirt over the top, looking like she stepped out of an L.L. Bean catalog. Shama wears a tee-shirt, red sweat jacket, dyed jeans and pink tennis shoes; the girl is always in fashion.

“We need to be getting back” Katie says, “it’s 4:20 and happy hour has started.” We ride the gondola back just as the rain starts up in earnest.

At the cabin, it’s Mexican night.
We hear a tale of a fish caught during the day; a huge trout- big enough to pull the rowboat around the lake twice before snapping the line and drifting the boat straight into shore.

After dinner we all pose on the outside porch for a group photo. I love the cabin, it’s cramped sure but there’s something about being in close with people that you love for a few days that makes me want to come back again next year.