August 6, 2016
I catch a shuttle to the airport and a shuttle to PayLess and am preparing my story about last night in the hope I won’t be charged the rental for yesterday when I didn’t arrive on time.
I get the nicest man and he gives me a corporate rate, a 4 door Jeep Renegade (way above what I had reserved), and he throws in a GPS. I walk out to my late-model SUV and can’t get it started because I can’t see where the key goes. My first experience with push the button to start the car. I am also thinking of my nephew who once said to his mother, “you know , mom, when you told me somethings we should never go “cheap” on? I have one to add to the list: Never go cheap on Sky Diving companies.” Neither of us dared ask how he knew that. But so far my cheap on cars, and on motels has worked out OK.
On the shuttle to pick up my car I sat next to a gal and we chat. In response to her inquiry, I tell her about the night before and she says, “Oh, No.” I smiled and said, “That is why it is called an adventure.” She smiles in return: a fellow traveler who gets it.
People sometimes ask me how are you going to be safe from strangers? I am puzzled by this. I suspect their travels don’t have as much improvisation as mine. And they are expecting travel to mimic the predictability of a settled life.
What I always experience on my solo trips is the altruism of others. Of strangers. I need help and someone emerges. This helps me believe in my species- in “humanity.”
Election year is a very good time for this kind of trip. (Since writing this in 2016, I have become aware of the privilege or entitlement, of being a white woman. Like many people I was not so acutely aware of this in 2016)
My GPS is so helpful. It gets me seamlessly to REI (The Flagship REI, as every camper knows, is in Seattle). I am there to buy the compressed fuel for my camp stove which we can no longer carry on airplanes with us. The climbing rock with the staff, who have you in a harness on belay in case you fall, is closed this day, so I don’t have to have the increasingly frequent inner dialogue of ‘Deb, don’t you think you are too old for this?’ And I have to face not my fear of being too weak, but of my shame of others seeing me as too weak (some childhood things seem to last forever).
While in the bathroom at REI, I inadvertently open the door on a 4-year-old on the toilet. I apologize, close the door and find my own stall. The girl’s mom calls out, “Jada, Are you OK?” Her small voice replies “I’m fine.” I suddenly think of my long-time friend, Kate. If she were here and heard this she would probably call out to me, “Deb, Are you OK?” and I would have replied in my little girl voice, “Yes”. Perhaps other strangers would have chimed in with their inquiries. Kate has the most delightfully low filter with strangers, and I am delighted that she just popped into my head at this bathroom stop. I am not so alone on this trip.
This afternoon my car GPS lady takes me to Red Rock Amphitheater. It is a natural bowl nestled between large Red Rocks and open to the sky. The seating goes from the bottom of the bowl up the hill sides. I visit the museum and see pictures of people who have performed here in the past: John Denver, Dan Fogelberg, Bonnie Raitt (be still my heart). Many others that I wish I could have heard in this magnificent, intimate setting with the rocks, the stars, and other audience members. What a wonderful gift to the people of Denver.
Damn, I live in Florida.