The clouds moved in slowly but
furiously. Poul gathered papers quickly, feeling as if he were at
the edge of the world—or at the end of it. . . .
Yesterday morning on the way to Flouriscent, I saw a sign for “scenic drive,” Pike’s Peak. “Want to try it?” I ask thinking it would be a fun half hour. It turns out to have a $20 entrance fee and is a 19-mile drive, but we decide to do it. The first half is two-lane black top and scenic, overlooking the Rockies. Then, half way up it become dirt road with hair pin turns that look down hundreds of feet of sheer cliff. I keep looking ahead, wondering where it’s going to stop. We’re going to hit the top soon. No. Ahead, cars continue to wind their way up, up. And up some more. I’m starting to get nervous and I’m not sure why. It’s a little like that feeling of crawling upward on a roller coaster, the higher you climb, the slower it goes, and you know, with that stomach tightening anticipation, that the harder its pushing upward, the higher you go, the faster you’re going to come down. And maybe, just maybe, this will be one of those super rare times when it’s going so fast it leaves the tracks. . . . . It’s that kind of feeling. “Look, way up there,” Leigh says, pointing upward. Way up are tiny moving things. They look like ants. Midget ants. Still crawling with no end in sight. Christ, I think, I can’t imagine the drop. Is there any air up there? Hawks are soaring below us. To compound the angst, the road is barely
wide enough for two passing cars, and quite a few are coming down.
Everyone is polite, driving fairly slow, trying to make space.
It’s
just that we’re on the outer edge where, with one two-inch
veer to the right and the tires go over the edge, and then maybe
the other two with a car full of two people, four suitcases and
a bottle of vodka go hurtling into space, past the soaring hawks
to the rocks below. “Hey guys! Down there! Another Easterner!” The trees start thinning out. The air is getting cooler. We’re looking out across a couple hundred miles of severely gorgeous mountains and clouds. Well, Leigh is looking out. I’m glancing furtively, fingers welded to the steering wheel, racing at 10 mph around the narrowing curves. Yes, they are getting narrower. We are, in fact, driving up into the clouds. At one point we stop and get out to take pictures. Another couple stops for the same thing. “About half way up I started wondering what I’d gotten into,” the man says. “And wondered if I dared to keep going.” “And I’m wondering if we dare come back down!” The woman adds. I nod and tell them I feel the same way. We make it to the top, as do hundreds of others. We walk over to the gift shop and I stumble, realizing suddenly that I’m lightheaded. My breath is short. There’s a slight feeling of panic. Nothing pulls you into yourself like not being able to breathe.
Take a look at the view!
We’re at 14, 100 feet. That’s more than two miles high. Oxygen is at a premium. The gift shop is jammed with people and half of them are dizzy with the thin air. Moving around is nearly impossible. One woman is on the floor after fainting and is surrounded by efficiently moving, well-trained staff. People are sloppy drunk with lack of oxygen, but it doesn’t prevent them from buying. It isn’t pretty. This is America. We will travel and we will buy our souvenirs. T-shirts! Baseball caps! Shot glasses that say Pike’s Peak! WE WERE HERE! On the way back down we stop and I scatter “Mendel papers” and
take photos. The scenery is spectacular. It’s a not-of-this-world
landscape with little vegetation, lots of rocks and dull earth colors.
When it’s clear, you can see for hundreds of miles. On one end we watch a huge cloud roll in and smash against the rocks, exploding outward with wispy, graceful violence. It’s eerie because it explodes in silence. Everything is silent up here except the breeze. I feel like I’m in some prehistoric moment before life, when earth is assembling itself. We make our way back down, slowly, trying not to ride the brake too much, me trying to look out over the mountains without actually driving off the side of this one. I come down feeling like I’ve had a major adventure – until a few hours later when I learn of another guy who—well, that will come later.
* * *
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