Heels Over Head

a real-life adventure

Read Part XXIII here.

Now available in ebook format!

I secured the time off, replaced the ice that had now melted, and well before dark we took off on busy I-70 heading west. By the time we hit Silverthorne, it was raining. I pulled over again. There, on the side of the road, just below the interstate, was a KFC.

Taz waxed comedic.

"Mom! Look! If you stick your finger up your nose, you can do a repeat performance!"

"That's not funny!" I glared with the most evil eye I could muster. But he could see right behind my bogus scowl.

Both kids burst into uncontrolled laughter, and I soon joined them.

"You just keep making me laugh, Bud," I directed, putting the car back into gear and slowly merging back into traffic.

Along with our biking and hiking, we took the Ugly Duckling up Shaeffer Trail and as far up Glacier Pass as we could in two-wheel drive. Both side trips were 100 percent fun, the way I remembered driving. The way I wanted to always remember driving.

We followed one of the biggest hailstorms Colorado had seen in a few years almost all the way home. Fortunately, I had an extra day, so I could take my time, especially when sheets of rain marred visibility.

For the next year, I tried to do what I used to do before the accident. We went to Rocky Mountain National Park after school and work when we had enough daylight. We left Denver at 4 a.m. on Saturdays to catch the sunrise and the baby mountain goats on Mount Evans. We made our annual autumn photo trek to the Maroon Bells. Twice. We still walked or rode our bikes to church, but I was driving a little bit more and more and not having nightmares and flashbacks.

I had to get ready. The biggest test I'd faced in a while was coming up in July two years after the accident. For three years, I'd saved money to fly my family to Alaska to visit my brother. The possibility existed that he might be stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base a year or two longer, but I didn't want to take the chance of losing my opportunity to make the trip on a shoestring budget. Besides, in a year or two, one of my kids would be old enough to work, and vacations might become more difficult to schedule. Both of the kids would be in band the following year, and that promised to take a huge bite out of our lives.

Read Part XXV here.

Table of Contents

Copyright 2013 by Deborah and Brett AtkinsonAll rights reserved. No part of this book - prose, photos or graphics - may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without express prior written permission of the author.

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