Admittedly, I’m not a man of many surprises. In the rare event I do come up with something special, however, it’s usually a doozy.
I’m not sure when the full idea struck me, but the seed of this surprise was planted months ago when I heard my wife lament (for the 100th time) to a friend who jets off to the West several times a year she had “never even seen the mountains.”
The whole truth was even sadder. Kristin had only been across the Mississippi River once, and even then got no closer to the mountains than central Missouri where the two of us watched our daughter graduate from boot camp at an Army base in the middle of nowhere.
My own claim to Western adventure wasn’t much greater. I’d been “out West” only once and that was as a school kid traveling along with my adult sister and her young family.
Mildly fearing the world may darn well fall to pieces long-about the first week of November, I decided there was no better time than the present to make sure both of us got at least a tiny glimpse of the mountains before the wholesale collapse of civilization.
Kristin knew nothing of my plans until the entire trip was booked: plane tickets, B & B and a rental car. Only then did I let her know we were “going somewhere” and offered as a clue a simple drawing of a pair of round, wire-framed eyeglasses. (As worn by '70s pop artist John Denver of “Rocky Mountain High” fame.)
“I don’t get it,” she said at first. “Oh wait! Now I do! You’re taking me to see something?”
“Ugh!” I groaned. “YES, of course, but you’ve got nothing better than that? You’re supposed to guess WHERE I’m taking you!”
Getting exactly nowhere with the glasses, I made the next clue even more obvious — to me anyhow. I recorded just two notes (“wow-wow”) of Joe Walsh’s iconic anthem “Rocky Mountain Way” and sent it to her in a text message as we stood across the room from each other.
“Oh, oh! I know that!” she screamed. “That’s Joe Walsh! You’re taking me to see Joe Walsh?”
“Unbelievable!” I shook my head in disgust. “Do I have to write it down for you?”
I grabbed a pen and wrote the number “5280” on a sticky note and handed it to her. She immediately Googled it (an action that I had forbidden right from the start, I might add) and up popped “Denver, Colorado, "The Mile High City" elevation 5,280 feet above sea level. The cat was out of the bag.
“Oh, my gosh! Colorado?” she screamed. “The MOUNTAINS! What all are we going to do?”
Perhaps this is why it is best I am a man of few surprises, because I really hadn’t given a single thought to that little detail.
“Um, well, um… I figure we’ll come up with something once we get there,” I said.
That seemed good enough for her.
Come back next week and I’ll let you know how things panned out!
Write to John Lorson Send Help, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg 44627. Kristin and I would love to hear from you! Be sure to check out Facebook for time-lapse film clips of Kristin’s artwork and other fun stuff at JohnLorsonSendHelp.
The Link LonkOctober 25, 2020 at 05:16PM
https://www.the-daily-record.com/story/lifestyle/2020/10/25/send-help-road-rocky-mountain-adventure/3728880001/
SEND HELP On the road to adventure with a man of few surprises - Wooster Daily Record
https://news.google.com/search?q=Send&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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