The last time we were in Colorado Springs, Eric slipped off the truck and cracked a rib. That was 2020, a few weeks after Sheri fell playing tennis and broke her fibula in Shreveport then fell off her bike and broke a rib in Montana. Three breaks in 4 months at the beginning of the pandemic. Despite the setbacks, we kept moving and so did the mice who infiltrated our fifth wheel, bumming a ride to Rocky Mountain National Park to see the Elk migration, we guess. Like us, mice have to find a way to live, too. We’d just prefer that they find their own sandwiches and not share ours.
After seeing off our Italy-bound soldiers, we decided to give Colorado Springs another go. Instead of Air Force Academy Fam Camp, we chose Cheyenne Mountain State Park for a 4 day respite as we wait for the interior region of the Rocky Mountains to warm up. The campground is perched at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain with commanding views of the busy Colorado Springs metro area below. The combination of steep terrain and solar convection spun up a mid day Chinook wind that shook the tent violently as we were making camp. Thinking back, that we should have paid closer attention to that.
240 hours in Aurora was tiring. We’d been battling the flu, helping the kids, surviving nighttime freeze in our snow drifted tent and figuring out if it was actually a “beautiful town destroyed,” or a heart and hustle town with a bad press agent. As we departed the ribbons of Aurora highways, we looked forward to less. Less of everything. Less pace. Less commerce. Less crowds. Pulling in to Cheyenne Mountain on Easter Sunday we made chicken soup to soothe our souls and planned 3 full days exploring the area, starting with pickleball, of course.
Colorado Springs has a thriving Pikes’ Peak pickleball scene with dozens of outdoor courts within a 15 mile radius of Cheyenne Mountain. Monument Valley Park is a lot like Pompano in Sarasota, filled with a mix of generations and dupers battling it out for 11 points and no pickles. It felt like a great time for Sheri to try the sport on again, with Eric by her side, partners in paddling. As we warmed up with dinks and fast hands, Sheri went for a wide to the right shot and POP!! There went the left knee. Hobbled. We’d stay for another hour to not waste the entire morning, Eric on a court with two Army youngsters from Georgia and a rotating player while Sheri practiced perspective, sketching the court. Painfully hobbling to the truck, it felt like an emergency, and straight to the Fort Carson Army Community Hospital we went.
Fort Carson is an Army Infantry base so they are no strangers to injury. Knees are like backs; when they work they are great and when they hurt they are a painful mystery. The diagnosis came back opaque. Nothing obviously broken or torn. Try a brace, ice and meds for 72 hours. 72 hours was exactly what we had left in Colorado Springs, so we wait and wonder. If it improves enough to make crawling in and out of a tent possible, we will push into the Mountain interior. If it worsens, it’s back to Bethesda and our friends at Walter Reed.
Emotionally and physically rocked, we returned to camp only to find that the Chinooks had reached havoc on the Clam. When we left for 9am pickleball, the day had been still and the panels on the Clam up were up for privacy. Mother Nature has an effective way of teaching that can sometimes be cruel. The panels had acted like sails, lifting the Clam and its contents before tumbling and sweeping it to the edge of the steep cliff. A few tie downs had kept the structure from rolling down the hill and into Colorado Springs, but the kitchen was smashed. We were pretty hungry for the chili we thought we were going to make but that would have to wait.
As the wind came up again, tent panels and kitchen items flew over the split rail fence and into the bushes. Sheri wondered how she was going to get out of Boss on a bum leg since it is two big steps to the ground. Eric wondered if this was a good time to consider that the zipper on his mummy bag had broke last night and the 37 degree temperatures had made for a mostly sleepless night. A nap was probably not in the picture. It was forecast to be another cold night. A least it was not raining.
Cheyenne Mountain looked down on the debacle of personal injury and camp destruction with indifference. Maybe Comfort Kills, but it is such a nice and gentle way to go that you hardly feel it. Mother Nature kills too, and she is not so subtle. Time to assess and re-group. There is little margin for mistakes when you are two thousand miles from home and living out of a truck. We have to do better, or we have to head east.
