Fantastic Trips That We Have Stumbled Into - Estes Park and Trail Ridge Road

As We have already bored you with the story of Jerome, Arizona and how Mr. Bobby and I were once young and somewhat adventurous, I'll tell you about what started us on being old folks that plan out trips to Kroger's which is very close to where we live. At the time of this adventure, we lived in Dallas, Texas. It was coming up on Labor day weekend ... 3 whole days for a road trip so we decided to try and make it to Colorado to see the Rockies, though they didn't start playing until some 15 years later. I really have no memory now of why we thought we could make it there and back in 3 days. So anyway, off we went ... I don't remember much of the first part of the trip but we drove up into Oklahoma through one of the Reservation towns and then over into Dorothy's Kansas. Kansas was different from what either of us had expected ... green with miles and miles of rolling hills ... and eventually I could see that we were approaching something off in the distant haze ... probably mountains. I asked Mr. Bobby if those could be the Rockies. He said "no", that they were the famous Grassy Knoll Mountains. I told him that there were no such things. He then treated me to hours of discourse on how famous those mountains were and their history. By the time Mr. Bobby was finally tired of talking, you could see that the little white cloud structures were the snow capped peaks of the Rockies. We were driving along to the Rocky Mountain National Park and went through Estes Park, Colorado, a really beautiful town at the foot of the Rockies. As we began to ascend, we saw the stately Stanley Hotel off to the right. Just then the car started to sound like it was having problems. Fairly young and very stupid, we kept going. We made it to the entrance to the park and the park ranger gave us some nice looking brochures and pointed out one that he said that we should read before we proceeded any further. We just kept driving. I saw a sign post that said Trail Ridge Road and, since it looked interesting, we turned off onto it. No shoulder and very narrow and steep. Soon we were above the tree line. Mr. Bobby was driving very slow now and there was a lot of traffic on the road, especially behind us. I looked over to see what was going on. He only had one hand on the wheel. His right hand was pressing down on his right leg and the accelerator was all the way to the floor board. We started sliding backward. I tried to help him press his leg down, we obviously had something very wrong with the car. He did manage to get into a scenic overlook and somehow he got that car "that only wanted to go backwards" over the continental divide. Once we were driving down the car started acting better. We did find a garage, they took a look at the car but didn't find anything wrong. We realized that we needed to turn around and get back to Dallas. I was very brave and stayed in the car, crying my eyes out as we crossed the continental divide again and the car acted up. We did make it to another garage, where they found nothing wrong. We made it back to Dallas before noon on Wednesday. We had no problems with the car the rest of the week. We decided to have some fun on the weekend by going to the horse races in Louisiana. We took off on Friday afternoon and as we were getting closer to Louisiana, I saw a sign saying Estes Park. Yes, the car started acting up and we decided to turn around and head back to Dallas. The car spent part of the following week in a garage being checked out and got a clean bill of health. The next weekend, we tried again. Sure enough, when we got to the sign Estes Park, the car acted up. Back to Dallas. Mr. Bobby took the car in and had them pull the engine out. This time they found it -- a cracked piston. Mystery solved. I learned a couple of things that have stayed with me all these years -- beware of any sign saying Estes Park and always read what the park ranger recommends that you read. Trail Ridge Road has the same type of warnings as does Space Mountain at Disney. - Miss Carol Well, that's her version ... pretty close to the truth, as far as it goes ... that is, as she knows or remembers. Indeed we had a long weekend for a road trip and at some point, before or after we started, I decided to try to visit the Rockies ... but she didn't know that! It was probably when visiting the trading post on the Reservation in Oklahoma ... a great disappointment when compared to my expectations based on previous visits to some in Arizona back in the 1960's. At the time I had already been in every State sans Alaska ... an oft planned trip that never materialized ... but, had never been in western Kansas or anything outside of the Denver Airport in Colorado ... so I headed the Yellow Monster west with Pike's Peak as my secret objective, having yearned to so do since first hearing of Pecos Bill's adventures in school! Kansas truly was a most pleasant surprise ... mostly flat I guess, but as we got into western Kansas, we were struck by the green grass in the fall no less, and the rolling hills ... a pleasant surprise and a pleasant drive too. As we topped the hills, you could see what appeared to be a range of mountains far in the distance ... Carol thought they might be the Rockies but I assured her that the Rockies were much further away ... that these were most probably the famous "Grassy Knoll" mountains. What triggered that response is something that only Mr. Cranston knows but her protestations not withstanding, she fell for it hook, line and sinker! They really looked like a wide weather front moving in, more than anything else, methinks! We could only see them as we crossed the hills and soon their image was momentarily forgotten, while I waxed on about their history during pioneer days ... and we concentrated mostly on the scenery to the north of us. Then, all of a sudden, out of the blue ... appeared these gigantic monsters right on top of us, or so it seemed ... the Rockies!! Agenda accomplished ... to plagiarize a friend of ours ... Unbelievable!! A sight to behold ... the "West" is full of 'em, all unique ... and that one takes back seat to none! We drove to Bolder City ... spent the night near the Air Force Academy ... had breakfast at MacDonalds and headed for the Rocky Mountain National Park, going through Estes Park ... as Carol said, a really beautiful little town. She knew of the Stanley Hotel, I did not ... but it looked like something out of a storybook ... a grand hotel, indeed! The brochure that we were admonished to read ... strongly suggested that expectant mothers and those with any type of heart problems might consider an alternate route and also indicated the common problems cars experienced, how to avoid them and what to do in case you didn't. Had we so done, there would be no story, methinks! Like Carol said Trail Ridge Road was very narrow and steep with no shoulders ... interesting indeed! To make things more interesting, the 5,100 pound Yellow Monster with its 460 Cubic Inch V-8 and Carter 4-Barrel didn't like Trail Ridge road and the higher we went, the shower it went ... with it floored, it was losing speed and power, down to under 6 mph in low when it locked up ... no fun navigating, going backwards without power ... and seeing the long drop off inches away ... Carol mentioned holding my leg down ... my knees were shaking so bad that we had to hold them down! I somehow made it to a small, empty scenic overlook area large enough to accommodate the car and rest. How we survived and the car's restarting can only be explained by Devine intervention ... any fool in his right mind knows that the thing to have done would have been to turn it around and go back down the mountain! Truth is, it would have been more than a little hard for me to turn that 19 foot vehicle around in the available space ... I grew up getting full service ... had her filled with Amoco unleaded "white gas" ... 'bout all I could do was point it in the desired direction and step on the pedal. Besides, a group on motorcycles passed by going toward Estes Park so surely I could make it to the top ... so it was to the top or bust ... proof positive that I was a fool, just not in my right mind. We somehow made it, crossed the Divide and the car did perform better going downhill ... we stopped at some nice tourist area ... at Grand Lake, methinks, rested and had lunch. The area was so beautiful ... it remains among my favorite places, one where I would have liked to live, at least much of the year. Given our experiences of the day, we decided to get off the mountain rather than stay ... but we experienced no further problems with the car. I said earlier "Agenda Accomplished" but not quite ... remember my dream to visit Pike's Peak ... it remains an unrealized ambition. No Pike's Peak for us ... we drove back the next day, avoiding elevations whenever possible ... even the rolling hills in Kansas were cause for concern! However the Monster was up to the task and we made it back to Dallas without incident. The next week we headed off on another "day trip" ... this time to Louisiana Downs,190 miles ... well, we thought it was going to be two days but turned out to be but one. Things went smoothly for the first 130 miles out ... when we saw a road exit sign ... which we both read aloud "Estes Park" ... causing the car to begin malfunctioning and performing as it had the previous weekend in the Rockies! We babied the car to the next exit and from there to a service station ... they too could find nothing, suggesting that we had perhaps gotten water in the tank but we had the oil changed, bought ice and cold cans of Coca Cola and headed back to Dallas, driving slow and pausing ... putting ice and cold Coca Cola on the carburetor whenever it seemed to be faltering ... basically uneventful, other than the smell. Back in Dallas, the car underwent a complete examination but all they could find was some white residue in the fuel line ... after fixing that, the car worked fine! Undaunted, we again departed for the races the next weekend! 130 miles out was again the sign and though we didn't say it aloud the car saw it ... and it was déjà vu, all over again. I know it's unbelievable but it really did happen! It turned out that we had a cracked piston. Evidently, the distance, all of which was Interstate, traveled at the same speed using automatic speed control, was what it took to heat things up and cause it to malfunction ... We eventually got to Louisiana Downs, but not in the Yellow Monster!