A Tale of Two Cities

Automotive mishaps, presidential encounters, and the hazards of Sunday afternoon traffic

By Debra Goldyn

The plan was simple. It had been a busy summer, full of too much work and not enough fun, and a mini vacation was in order. My husband and I decided we would take a three-day weekend and visit Grand Junction during the Palisade Peach Festival. Fruit orchards and wineries, what could be better? We’d leave Castle Rock on Friday and take the scenic route, winding down through the Hayman fire area on 211 and then heading west on 24 and 82.

Yes, that was the plan. But life has a way of mocking your plans and substituting an alternate experience. Plan B showed up at precisely 11:15 a.m. on Friday, as we were cruising up Wilkerson Pass just outside of Lake George. We were only a few hundred yards from the Forest Service Visitor Center at the top when the distributor decided to retire itself from service. I’m no automotive expert, but apparently the distributor is a critical piece of equipment.

Perhaps we should have noticed the signs. Our vehicle, a 1999 Yukon, hit 150,000 miles prior to the trip, and was beginning to resemble a cranky old man who’s had both hips replaced and is now complaining about his knees. In the week before we left my husband replaced the fuel pump, and then the brake shoes.

Stranded on Wilkerson Pass, we pondered our options. We ended up having the Yukon towed to Woodland Park, for the mere sum of $180, where we checked into the Country Lodge. In the spirit of turning lemons into lemonade, we ponied up an extra $7 to upgrade to a room with a jetted tub. Soon after our paths diverged: My husband headed to the auto parts store on foot, and I walked into town to explore.

Woodland Park turned out to be delightful. I spent the afternoon browsing the shops, admiring the murals that graced many of the buildings, and sampling some Blue Bell ice cream. In the evening we had a pizza delivered from Jo-Mama’s just down the hill, and enjoyed a leisurely soak in the tub. That $7 upgrade was definitely one of our better decisions. We collapsed onto the giant king bed, feeling thoroughly relaxed.

The next morning, with the new distributor installed, my husband asked if I wanted to go home or drive on. “Smart people,” he said, “would go home.”

Yes, but that would be the boring choice. Onward we went, finally arriving in Grand Junction at 5:15—just in time for the closure of I-70 for President Obama’s departure. He had been in Grand Junction for a town hall meeting, and his trip back to the airport required 30 minutes of idling in the summer heat. My husband just looked at me and raised one eyebrow. “Smart people would have gone home.”

We finally arrived at our hotel at about 6:30 p.m., after getting lost, naturally. We went to dinner and enjoyed a few hours in the hotel’s lounge before calling it a day.

On Sunday, it was time to go home. We managed to squeeze in a few hours visiting some of the orchards and wineries—the travel equivalent of power shopping—before hitting the road again.

It was 12:30, and the plan (there’s that p-word again...) was to grab lunch in Glenwood Springs and take I-70 back. Under normal conditions, that would get us home around 6 p.m., but of course, nothing about this trip had been normal. We motored through the afternoon without incident, until we got caught in traffic on the east side of the Eisenhower tunnel. This time, we repeated the mantra in unison: “Smart people would have gone home.”