Fickle Hand of Fate, Part the Fifth

Pretty, but definitive evidence that we left Colorado Springs too early in the morning.

I didn't have an alarm clock to set, so I just told myself to wake up at 4:30 A.M. (for our planned 5:00 departure), and guess what? I woke up and looked at my watch at 4:30, and we were on the road with Dad and Beverly behind us (Lady GPS rode in our car) by 5:00. We were happy to leave behind our filthy and dilapidated motel room in all its putrefactive glory. Goodbye to the toilet whose water tank I had to fix twice. Goodbye to the shower whose tiled walls had once been painted over and whose paint is now peeling, leaving pockets between the paint and tile that fill with water during a shower and then stagnate and fester and grow all manner of bacteria and germs and microscopic parasites. Goodbye to the blinds literally splattered with mud (the months of dirt wetted by water sprayed over the shower curtain onto the blinds). Goodbye to the beef and bean burrito that I found in the freezer of the mini-fridge. Goodbye to the giant dust bunnies (dust rhinoceroses?) and cardboard packaging for shoe laces and plastic grocery bags, etc., layered on the long-neglected, rarely vacuumed floor beneath the beds. Goodbye to the gravel--and the solitary piece of meat (already there when we checked in, mind you)--on the dingy, soiled carpet throughout the room. Goodbye to the outdated bedspreads and furniture and screwed-to-the-wall oil painting circa 1967. We'll miss you all so much.

Dad had talked to Jim the mechanic to know that the motor home's radiator had been fixed and that the RV was ready for us to pick up upon arriving in Belle Fourche, SD this afternoon. We made good time on our journey, stopping in Cheyenne, WY for breakfast and Newcastle, WY for dinner around noon. We also stopped for a bathroom-and-fuel break in Lusk, WY, with two additional vomit breaks at the side of the road--once for Abigail and once for Hillary. (Hillary prefaced her upchuck by complaining that her tummy hurt shortly after Abigail registered her own complaint. Thinking it was a case of monkey-see-monkey-do, I was unsympathetic . . . until she grabbed Abigail's puke bucket and made her own deposit. Abigail said, "Now at least I'm not the only person sick." Misery loves company. Mercifully, it was the first and last heave for Hillary as well as the end of Abigail's days-long sickness.)

Colorado

Wyoming

Wyoming

We got to Jim's place in Belle Fourche mid-afternoon, dropped off Dad and Beverly and the girls, and took both cars (Susan in the rental, me in Dad's car) back to Spearfish to return the rental car. Yikes. I'm glad we hadn't brought the children with us, because I'm sure they would have demanded one of them in payment for our having gone beyond the 150-miles-per-day driving limit. As it was, Susan left an arm and I left a leg, and we drove back to Belle Fourche, hooked the car back up to the motor home, and started north on Highway 85 en route to Dickinson (with one brief stop in Ludlow, SD while Beverly heated up supper, which we ate while parked in front of the fire station).

It was after 10:00 P.M. when Dad and Beverly pulled away from our house and we went inside to get the girls and then ourselves into bed (I have to go to work tomorrow morning). It was about 20 minutes later that Beverly phoned to let me know that they were returning to Dickinson . . . the radiator went out again! I drove out to meet them and escort them to an RV camp site on the north end of town. I noted that radiator fluid covered the back of the motor home as well as the car hooked immediately behind it (which Dad had had to remove in order to turn around the motor home on the highway before reconnecting it to return to town). Dad and I hooked up the motor home to the electrical outlet, and Beverly went off to enter the RV and check that the electricity was indeed on. Several minutes later, Dad and I rounded the corner to find Beverly lying on the ground at the foot of the stairs to the motor home. She had fallen while trying to climb the steps, and she was unable to get up, waiting for the two of us to hear her cries for help or, as it turned out, to find her on our way into the RV.

What a terrible yet fitting way to end this weekend trip. Tomorrow Dad gets to begin the search for someone who can fix or replace the radiatior. For now, we all must sleep.