Last Trip With Dad 1976

It was July 1976; Tammy was nine and Jennifer was six and they did not remember very much about our trip to Colorado four years before except what they could see in the pictures we had taken. When we asked them where they wanted to go on our vacation trip, they said they wanted to go to Colorado again. We asked Mom and Dad if they would like to go with us and they said yes. We planned to take new routes and see some places we had not been to before. With our girls older, I thought it might be easier on all of us this time and our girls had been on more trips and used to being in the car for extended periods.

Traveling with kids, it is extremely hard to go much farther than Amarillo in one day without spending the night in very small towns where finding a good place to sleep is easy. On our second day, we made it to Colorado Springs where we would stay for a couple of days. We were planning to go to the North Pole the next day, so we found a motel in Manitou Springs at the foot of Pikes Peak. It was an older motel, but it had a separate bedroom for my parents.

The next day we went to the North Pole (Christmas Village) for the day and our girls were able to ride all the rides. We went to the workshops where they were making things out of metal or glass. We went to stores including Santa’s Workshop where you could buy things and have them shipped from Santa’s Workshop. We had meals in their eating places and visited the Ice-cream shop and had sweet treats. The girls got to see the reindeer and other animals there in the village. They got their picture taken with Santa and Jennifer was smiling this time.

The next day, we drove up Pikes Peak to the top along a narrow twisting road that had steep drop-offs along the sides of the road. From the view at the top, you can see for miles including the towns below. We went to the Garden of The Gods and took a lot of pictures. We went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo which is on the side of the mountain with walking trails up the side of the mountain to get to the next attraction, a unique experience.

From there we went to Denver on our way to The Rocky Mountain National Park. We spent that night in Golden Colorado with plans to take a route that we had never been on before. That route would take us through Winter Park, Granby, Grand Lake, and then to Estes Park. The views along that route are hard to capture in pictures and words cannot describe all of what you see. Driving in that area is not for the person with a fear of heights or poor reflexes. We passed sections where snow along the road was much higher than our car and where mountain goats and elk would be on the road or crossing the road as they wished. There were things to see everywhere you looked. We stopped at places like the Alpine Visitor Center where you could walk out into the snow.

From Estes Park, we followed highway 34 east through Loveland to get to I-25 to head back to Denver. That highway follows the river through the mountains with bridges crossing the river many times providing views of homes and small businesses down near the river. During the summer months, there would be hundreds or thousands of people staying at the camping grounds along the river. When we got to I-25, we headed south to Denver and on our way home. Everyone was ready for our own beds. It would be two very long days of driving to get home, but everyone had adjusted to taking naps in the car except Dad and me. We would talk about different things to get our minds off being tired.

On July 31, 1976, the Big Thompson Canyon was the site of a devastating flash flood that swept down the steep and narrow canyon along the road (highway 34) that we had traveled just a few days earlier. There were 134 lives lost in that flood with 5 that were never found. The flood was triggered by a thunderstorm that dropped 12 inches of rain in less than 4 hours in one area up in the mountains. That caused a wall of water about 20 feet high to flow down the canyon at about 14 mph destroying 400 cars, 418 houses, and 52 businesses. Most of the bridges were washed away and washed out most of US Route 34.

This was the last trip we were able to take with both Mom and Dad. His emphysema had gotten worse during the years and his breathing was difficult in higher elevations. His lung cancer was discovered later, and he passed away in July 1978. I am so grateful for the memories of the times shared with them and my family. Making memories is so important and then passing them on so future generations can get a glimpse of those years.

Elk Close Encounters – YouTube