Gather and remember
It’s a long way from southwest Nebraska to the White River National Forest. The drive crosses the plains of eastern Colorado, takes a straight shot through Denver, then winds past the iconic ski resorts of the Rocky Mountains — Winter Park, Breckenridge, Vail.
We pulled our camper there recently, to a destination near the West Elk Trailhead on Buford Road. The vistas make you contemplate your place in the world.
Distant peaks are visible, blue and hazy, with valleys and ridges folded in between. Each feature catches the morning light, or the last rays of sunset, and reflects them in ever various ways. Magical.
We met friends there, two couples, some of them lifelong friends. We set up a shared campsite, tucked away in a grove of mature aspen, where Wi-Fi is a distant memory and the light through the trees creates new scenery, moment by moment.
We sat around the campfire at night and talked about Medicare and Medicare Part D. We watched meteor showers and marveled at the daisy chain of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites passing overhead. In the afternoons, we retreated to our campers and napped through the daily rain showers. We’re of an age.
We caught up on the latest family news. We talked about our jobs and hobbies. Some of us have been friends for more than 40 years, characters in one another’s “meet cute” stories. We laughed and retold the tales of how we fell in love, and how we knew.
We talked about the battles of life — cancer, widowhood, disappointment, divorce — and acknowledged, without saying it, that to be seated across a campfire from people who’ve still got your back is perhaps the biggest victory of all. Love and loyalty foster the confidence to go for second chances.
We laughed at all the inside jokes. How one couple invited us to join them in a duathlon years ago, an “easy” run-bike-run event with “gently rolling hills.” By the second ascent, climbing hand over hand up a rock feature, I was pronouncing “gently rolling hills” with a few less syllables. How we once got rained out of a tent at Lake Minatare and how we dodged rattlesnakes at a dude ranch in Wyoming. How we raised our kids together, sharing the intimate concerns that parents reveal to friends they trust: Am I doing this right? Is this personality trait, in your child or mine, going to help or hinder them later? Am I doing enough?
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