Mountain Mayhem

There was a time in my life when many of my vacations involved the familiar trio of Mom, Dad, and me jetting off to some charming little town that promised “local flavor” and at least one knick-knack store. I’ve always come home a little changed—more patient, more grateful, sometimes just more aware of how much I still resemble both of my parents. So giving up that yearly metamorphosis of the soul for the greater good of a full-family trip felt like a small sacrifice. After all, those quiet, hilarious days with just Mom and Dad are where some of my favorite stories—and lessons—seemed to find me. There was always a rhythm to us. It was a comfortable kind of chaos that felt, somehow, like home on the road.

One year, we decided our vacation should include the entire immediate family (all 16 of us at the time) to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. There was also the fact that none of my parents' eight grandchildren has yet experienced the mountaintop utopia where the four of us Arthur kids spent several childhood summers. 

From the moment Mom, Dad, and my brother Jason arrived to retrieve me from the Denver airport in a rented minivan so chock full it looked like Jed Clampett and his clan making their way to Beverly Hills, I knew we were in for 5 days of customary Arthur antics. Little do I suspect, however, that I would soon come to realize that Buddy Ebsen's Beverly Hillbillies patriarch had nothing on my father when it came to personifying a backwoods mountain man.

For some reason, my dad had decided to complete his already questionable outfit of camouflage cargo pants and a Kansas City Chiefs hoodie with the felt cowboy hat I wore to my high school Sadie Hawkins dance. I have no idea where he found that hat, let alone what compelled him to bring it along on our family vacation, but he wore it with questionable pride.

As the overstuffed minivan made its way to the airport curbside, a happy yet exasperated little brother leaped out of the front passenger seat, greeted me with a kiss, and heaved my large roller bag atop the camping supplies in the far back of the rental van. I shimmied in the back side door to sit next to my mother. I gave hugs and kisses all around, until I noticed the unique shape of my father's sunglasses.

“Dad, what's up with the Phyllis Diller sunglasses?” 

Dad beamed a tight-lipped smile into the rearview mirror, and Mom burst into her usual laughter, seeing as she thinks my dad is the funniest human alive. She proceeded to utter between her guffaws, “They're mine, honey.”

I knew better than to ask why my father was wearing Mom's sunglasses. Jason's “don’t ask” sideways glance from the front seat was all I needed to stop talking, settle in, and enjoy the ride.

Parched from my plane ride and amazed at the supercharged heat of the mountain region, I reached for a bottle of water sitting in the console cup holder. As I lifted the bottle to unscrew the lid, three loud voices cried in stereophonic sync, “Nooo!  Don't drink that! It's holy water!”

What? Am I a vampire?

“Oh my god! Everyone, settle down! Is the holy water direct from the holy land or something? And why is this hallowed water in a plastic bottle that looks like every other water bottle in this vehicle?”
I suddenly remembered that time we packed the holy dirt we retrieved from Chimayo two years ago into half-rinsed minced garlic jars and decided not to press the issue. For a family that reveres holy relics, we pay very little reverence to the vessels containing them. 

I decided I wasn’t that thirsty.

The first leg of our trip was rudely interrupted by my brother Jason's cell phone. My sister Julie was calling.

Jason's side of the conversation with his “Oh, shit. No kidding? On fire?! My god, Julie, what the…?” and his occasional explanatory asides began to illuminate the situation. Julie had stopped to fill her car with gas and had willingly given two strangers a jump start. First bad move.

The knucklehead needing the jump start supplied the jumper cables, but not the brains to use them. Apparently, not knowing the difference between red and black, the dude reversed the polarity and set the cables and both cars on fire. Yes—both cars.

The gas station fire extinguishers had expired: they did not work. Fire trucks in the distance. Good Samaritan in a white shirt leapt from out of nowhere to grab the blazing cables with his bare hands and doused the burning cars with his own extinguisher. The gas station was shut down (for obvious reasons). There were police reports. There was a fight with the store manager because neither of his extinguishers worked. Insurance cards were exchanged...Oy.

This was my sister and two of my nephews' sideshow as they entered Monte Vista, only hours from our destination. They handled it like troopers, though, and were back on the road in no time. We all prayed that this did not set the tone for our 5 days together.

As soon as we settled back into the drive, we all started getting calls that ended after just one ring, along with random texts from my brother Jerrod. He and his family had arrived at the cabins a half day earlier than the rest of us. The ranch gate codes were not working. 

The good, and equally bad, thing about being so high in the mountains is that cell reception is practically nonexistent. To make a call, you have to drive at least 30 minutes down the mountain. This is a reality with which Jerrod became all too familiar as he attempted to get his own 6-person family, exhausted from their drive across barren and boring Kansas, into one of our two cabins.

Jerrod's texts are filled with extra exclamation points, and his spotty phone calls to us are rife with curse words, mainly because everyone on the other end sounded like they were hard of hearing or auditioning for a Verizon commercial. "What?" “Jerrod, are you there?” “Bro, I can't hear you.” “Can you hear me?” “You're breaking up. Say that again.”

Being on the other end of several of Jerrod's urgent calls, I sensed his blood boiling, and his exasperation becoming physical—like Clark Griswold's did during his unsuccessful attempt at hanging exterior Christmas lights. Griswold became more and more frustrated until he punched a plastic Santa in the face and punted it across the lawn, then karate-chopped the antlers off of each plastic reindeer. I feared for any plastic animals within Jerrod’s immediate vicinity. 

As much as I love sleep, slumber on this trip was truly challenging. Julie and I slept together on the top bunk, above my parents. This seemed a favorable pairing until we remembered we had both begun suffering panic attacks in times when we could not catch our breath or when something tight and confining was bearing down on us. Something told me that the two of us on a bunk together might not be the most ideal sleeping arrangement.

We giggled like small children every night as we fell asleep. At times, we laughed until we almost peed ourselves, reminiscing about the mountain days of our youth. We would lie huddled next to each other as we scrolled through our iPhones and tried to stifle roars of hysterics at how ridiculous we all looked in photographs. I half expected Mom or Dad to high-kick our bed and tell us to be quiet, but I found out later that they lay there with huge smiles, giggling right along with us because it was like they were witnessing us as little girls again.

About that panic attack thing. More than once during the quieter moments of drifting into slumber, I worried that I was going to have to voluntarily launch myself from the top bunk because of the pitch darkness. It made me feel like I was locked inside a coffin 6 feet under the earth (you know, where air doesn’t exist), which caused my heart to race and my lungs to contract to terrifyingly shallow depths of breathing. Knowing that the ceiling was only inches from my face (even though I couldn’t see it, no matter how wide I opened my eyelids), and I was closed in on one side by a solid knotty-pine wall and on the other side by the living barrier named Julie—I had to silently talk myself down from an all-out panic attack. I prayed that I could transcend my anxious thoughts.

Breathe, Jenée. Just breathe. Nothing can harm you. You can shove Julie off the bunk in one swift kick if you need to escape. Just breathe.

As if she could read my mind or actually heard my eyelids open and close in their panicked cadence, Julie punched me hard and said, annoyed, “Née, what are you doing?! Go to sleep.”

“I'm trying not to freak out, Juice. I feel like that poor hamster I carried home in a shoe box from the pet store when I was little. Why's it so f*#-ing dark in here? And what is all this stuff in our bed?”

The "stuff" I was referring to was a heavy stainless-steel BPA-free water bottle and the largest flashlight known to man. They were strategically placed between our pillows.

Julie whispered, “I need them near me so I don’t panic.”

Good God. Aren’t we quite the pair?

Julie's survival kit brought me no comfort whatsoever. The items that shared real estate with my pillow reminded me that I was lying next to another human with a propensity to freak out at a moment's notice. This made me want to crawl into bed with Mom and Dad. I thought about that for a moment and decided it was best to endure my challenging nights on the top bunk with my claustrophobic sister.

As though it was our only saving grace, and as if on cue, Julie and I began to giggle for no apparent reason except that we both finally realized what a living mess we were. I fell asleep in the safety of my little sister's adorable laughter until I was jabbed in the ribs with something painfully sharp. Her elbow. Apparently, I was breathing too loudly.

Julie has about as much disdain for being woken by subtle movement or snoring as she does for hearing someone chomping on an apple. She has misophonia (we both do)—the condition otherwise referred to as “selective sound sensitivity disorder,” or in more casual circles as “if-you-don't-stop-crunching-that-apple-so-loudly-I-will-punch-you-in-your-throat.” And she has no qualms about conveying her annoyance with overt displays of disgust. I had to restrain my impulse to launch her over the side of our bunk for waking me. I lay there terrified again while she snuggles into her massive flashlight and canteen.

As if our nighttime anxiety wasn't enough, the next morning, we took a family jaunt down the mountain, about 30 minutes to the bustling town of La Garita (population: very few).  

La Garita is where we headed for cell reception and ice. Julie was on the backend of a hideous virus she contracted a couple of months ago from her Toronto “friend” Francois, whom Dad refers to as “Fronsay.” Thanks to her handsome French friend, she had spent the past two months going in and out of sinus infection insanity, spending a solid three consecutive weeks with her ears completely clogged.

When we changed elevation during the descent down the mountain, Julie's ears became blocked entirely again. She exited her car and beelined it to me as I stepped from Mom and Dad's minivan. There was a palpable level of anxiety written all over her face as she raced to me.

“Née, my ears are blocked and I didn't bring my ear unblocker,” Julie blurted anxiously as she grabbed my wrist with terror-stricken eyes.

I tried to figure out what she had just said to me.

Ear unblocker? What in the hell is that?

Instead of inquiring, I gently grabbed her hands and said, “It's okay, Juice. They'll unplug in a while. Just breathe.”

For whatever reason, she trusted this information. With a look of hope, she turned from me and remarked—as if threatening the universe—“They'd better, or it will not be pretty.”

We seated ourselves at a table inside the La Garita General Store; the only retail entity in the entire square block of town, other than a trash dump, where you can pay $3 per bag to dump your garbage. The owner of the General Store mentioned that she and her husband were likely going to put the property on the market after 15 years. I was not surprised in the least. I would have become a mumbling hermit if I had spent the past 15 years in such isolation and solitude. But just as I began to ponder this, two dusty cyclists walked through the screened entrance door, smiled massive white-toothed grins, and rushed to hug the owner as if they were long-lost friends.

Apparently, the Continental Divide Bike Trail runs north and south about 12 miles west of La Garita. This is the closest spot for a shower, a hot meal, and some hospitality. We were a willing audience as the store owner and her husband shared stories about the guys who’d come barreling through the door. 

I was particularly interested in where the conversation would head when the store owner's husband began to incredulously expound on the single women who make the trek.

“By themselves!” he shudders. “I wonder if they've lost their marbles. It's incredible. I mean, they won't even have another woman along with them, let alone a man!”

Julie and I rolled our eyes as she opened her mouth wide in a futile attempt to yawn. Her ears were still plugged. She was in hell. 

For my dad, the conversation provided an opportunity to bring up his belief in the utility of guns. 

“Well, let's hope the ladies are packin’,” Dad said with a confident chuckle. Julie and I rolled our eyes again. 

I turned to Dad with a sideways whisper, “Dad, the term 'packin' can mean different things in different circles.”

One of my nephews laughed and almost spat soda out of his nose. Dad looked confused and wanted me to explain.

“Never mind. Carry on with your Annie Get Your Gun appreciation." I reached for the horseradish.

Dad tilted his head with a smile, recognizing that the sentiment might have sounded inappropriate to his fiercely independent and capable daughters. He was correct, but we both nodded our heads in forgiveness.

I looked closer at Julie. She was again wide-mouthed and fiddling with her ear. After she squirmed and shook her head in a concerning fashion, she finally froze, smiled, and exclaimed, “They've opened. Thank God. Now I have to call my insurance agent to make sure the fire damage on my rental car isn't going to affect my premium.” I wondered if Julie was having any fun at all.

After we ate lunch, made our critical phone calls, and pecked out equally important texts to the folks back in civilization, we all returned to the cabins, with ample amounts of ice.

The man who vowed that he would hide the guns he felt compelled to bring along on our vacation had left two pistols and a rifle in plain sight on the shelf near our bunk bed for the past two days.

“Dad, can we put these guns somewhere other than right next to our supplements?” I ask nicely.

“Oh, thanks for reminding me, Née Née. I want to teach your niece and nephews some gun safety this afternoon.”

“Oh, goodie. Just the kind of fine family fun that your non-gun-toting children and grandchildren can get behind. Why don't you teach them fishing safety instead, Dad?” I slightly beg.

“There's nothing dangerous about fishing, Née. Gun safety is important for everyone,” Dad retorts as he peers into a box of bullets.

This obvious admission of the unsafe nature of guns could have easily spawned one of our more heated conversations, but I was on vacation and I had no interest in arguing with Dad. Besides, Mom was standing in the doorway with that Don't you start, young lady look on her face. I kissed my dad on the cheek and punched him in the arm, then I walked past Mom with that sarcastic Cheshire Cat grin I used to give her as a teenager. She pinched me.

Dad did, in fact, teach his gun safety course, and my nephews and one of my nieces followed him like he was a Mama Duck, or rats following the Pied Piper as he played his magical flute and lured them into the open field next to the upstream cabin.

For some reason, Julie and Jerrod, too, decided to sign up for the class, unaware that they would learn about gun safety in a roundabout and unsafe way that ultimately consisted of the two of them trying to get the rifle “unstuck.” This goes on until our mother has had enough of the weapon-of-destruction tug-of-war and confiscates the broken gun. It was as though Mom suddenly embodied Ma Kettle, grabbing the rifle from her children while Pa retreated to a pistol-firing lesson for his grandchildren.

Was I adopted?

Later, during our beaver pond walkabout, we came upon a rather large, complete spine section of a dead animal. For some strange reason, my mother would not leave the bones to decay in the mountain soil. She picked them up and took them back to the cabin.

Crinkled faced, Julie and I say in stereo, “Who are you?” Mom laughed, but nothing snapped her out of her commitment to hauling to our basecamp the set of intact bones held together with bloody tendons.

This Ma Kettle thing was getting a little out of hand.

Dad wore camo all week, though the only thing he hunted and killed was 180+ outdoor flies—with a fly swatter. Carrying a dead animal's vertebrae alongside his mountain wife was suddenly the highlight of his vacation.

Later that night, Julie made us a delicious vegan taco salad. She enlisted Mom to help as her sous chef. It was endearing to see two of my favorite women making a meal together—until I saw Mom's face contort in horror.

Mom put her knife down and rushed to the sink.

Oh my! Has she cut herself?

I rushed to her side. Mom began frantically washing her hands.

“Mom, are you okay? What just happened?” I asked, seeing no visible blood.

“Honey, I just realized I didn't wash my hands very well after carrying those animal bones,” she said with intense concern.

My mind flashed to Mom gleefully walking, dangling those giant, dirty bones. My nephews have already scarfed down their first delicious round of meat-alternative taco salad.

“Oh boy,” I whispered. “But you did wash them a little bit, right?”

“Yes, but the water was cold and I should have heated it. I wasn't thinking about the fact that I had just carried dead animal parts.”

I felt a little sick to my stomach. Mom could tell I went somewhere horrible in my mind, and she moaned that deep throat escalating to a high-noted crescendo thing she does when she’s afraid of something to come.

“It's okay, Mom,” I assured her. “At least you washed your hands, and besides, we all have super-strong stomachs and healthy immune systems. There's no turning back now,” I say as I look over at my nephews, doing my best to stop my gag reflex from engaging.

Don't ask me why we didn't just toss the salad in the garbage. But Julie had worked so hard in planning our meals out, and despite the abundance of food in both cabins, the substantial meals were set—lest we head back to La Garita for replacement veggies and something that would act as meat. I sat beside my nephews and bit into my taco salad with caution, praying that our bodies were actually strong enough to ward off food-borne illnesses.

Before I went to bed, I set my boots by the cabin door (since I couldn’t see a freaking thing in the middle of the night) and I slept in my bra, thinking I could very well be transporting myself and several adults and children to the ER in a few hours. I began to feel less concerned that Dad didn't pack the rattlesnake bite kit; I was now worried about 13 people projectile vomiting inside vehicles as we descended curvy mountain roads to a hospital.

The next morning, thankfully devoid of Ebola symptoms, our long drive across Kansas back to our hometown in Missouri entailed an equally long game of 20 Questions and a stupefying conversation about the brilliant human waste composting method that the Carnero Creek Corporation has adopted for the outhouses. It seemed apropos that our closing vacation conversation conjured images of Christmas Vacation's Cousin Eddy donning a bathrobe in the Griswolds’ driveway, emptying the RV toilet hose into a suburban sewer, and shouting, “Shitter's full!”

Jason and I looked sideways at each other as he drove, glancing back and forth, laughing and rolling our eyes from the front seats as Mom and Dad laughed together in the back seat.

From the backseat, Dad's voice boomed, as if the van were an excessively long stretch limo and we were seated at opposite ends, “Née Née, will you scoot your seat up a bit so I can stretch my legs?”

I looked over at my little brother, who didn't even glance my way, but calmly said, “Only 10 more hours, Née.”

I looked down at my lap and shook my head at how far my knees were already pushed into my chest because of Dad's earlier request for more legroom. Strangely, I smiled and felt a rush of gratitude as I thought about what a beautiful time we always manage to have together as a family. I said a silent “Thank you” as I reclined my seat to take a nap.

I began drifting off to sleep in my tiny parcel of the passenger seat as Jason joined Mom and Dad’s conversation with infectious laughter that sounded hauntingly reminiscent of my late Grandpa Rellihan. It made me miss him, but also made me smile.

Once the car quieted, Dad reached over my head—since I’d fully invaded his personal space—and rubbed my eyebrows the way he used to when I was a little girl and couldn’t sleep. I smiled, thinking how ridiculous and perfect this all is: my family, half-asleep, overfed, and laughing about nothing.

In that instant, I felt like the luckiest human on earth—and immediately started laughing, because in our family, peace and quiet are usually the first signs of an oncoming disaster or panic attack.