This is the story of a sweet man who had every dream achieved but one. The youngest of his children made that one dream an accomplishment in the summer of 2005. His daughter took him and his wife, along with her own family for a vacation in the Colorado Rockies.
Although the family had some rough spots and kinks throughout the trip that would later be smoothed out, it was all worth it from that very first moment he stared at America’s Purple Majesties. We woke up in our separate rooms, packed our things into our suitcases, loaded the truck, and headed back into the Denver Hotel for breakfast. We watched Denver’s local news while eating waffles, yogurt, fruit, and toast. Occasionally, a bunny would hop along, sandwiched between the floor length windows and some pink ground flowers.
Each person in the lobby kept looking back and forth between their plate, the local channel’s weather report, and the bunny outside. After breakfast, Dad, Mom, Grandpa, Grandma, K.C., and I piled back into the Tahoe and took off. We stopped at an old gas station and got gas to prepare for the day ahead while ‘Red Rocks’ was still in view. We went to ‘Red Rocks’, an amp theater that is embedded into natural, red-colored rocks, the night before, but we couldn’t really appreciate what we saw because of the darkness.
The group of travel-worn tourists decided to stop again among the huge rock formations to explore. We drove around in the rocks for awhile, with Grandpa in the back soaking in every minute. We kept trying to tell Grandpa and Grandma ‘You haven’t seen anything yet!’, but they just said ‘Red Rocks’ alone was worth the trip.
A while later, the group decided it was time to get back on the road and head off to the cabin in Estes Park. We drove along on the highway, looking left and right at the huge houses embedded in the country side. Each house seemed more luxurious than the last.
We started to converse about who might own a house like that and how much it would cost. We rode along a little more, with Grandma squished in the middle between Grandpa and me in the seat directly in the heart of the vehicle. Mom was sitting in the passenger seat videotaping every moment so we could soak it all in later.
As Dad drove, he entertained, telling stories about past times he had been to the mountains. All of a sudden, Dad turned around a corner, only to revel the Rockies in all their glory. ‘Oh my!’ exclaimed Grandma.
‘Now those are mountains,’ said Grandpa with a look on his face that cannot be described with all the words in the entire world, only a few select photographs can show that same expression.’You were right, we haven’t seen anything yet!’ said Grandma as Grandpa spiraled into a state of speechlessness. It was then that the trip was official, it was no longer a dream in a simple, kind man’s head — it was reality.
Many memories were made on the trip, but none of them can even compare to the first time my Grandpa laid his tired eyes on the Rocky Mountains. After every thing that happened, the accomplished dream of one man was well worth the long and weary trip.
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