RIO GRANDE ENDURANCE TEST
THIS ESSAY IS AN UNEDITED WORK IN PROGRESS…
The summer after my grandfather died and our house flooded, my stepfather and mother took us on a road trip to Colorado. My grandmother came with us, as she had become a regular part of family trips and celebrations after the loss of her husband. My parents and grandmother at this time were square dancers in a square dancing club. My mom encouraged my grandmother who always loved ball room dancing to give square dancing a shot and she loved it. The three of them were quickly weekly regulars at the square dancing club. Back in those days, people brought their children with them to these types of weekly meetings. All of us kids were expected to line the walls and watch quietly as the caller rattled off the moves and fully costumed dancers swirled and stepped in rhythm. In Colorado, there is was adult getaway square dancing camp in a place called Fun Valley Family Resort located off of US-160 in the South Western part of the state in the Rio Grande National Forest. We embarked on a two week long road trip in which we went from Louisiana to San Antonio Texas to Dallas to Carlsbad New Mexico to the resort.
The drive through Texas was long and boring, and I remember looking out the window at the vast sandy landscape with anticipation as to what the resort would be like as I had never been to Colorado before. We stopped several times for tourist sorts of things such as San Antonio’s Alamo and Carlsbad’s Caverns. My stepfather was increasingly mean at this point, I was about 8. We were living with my grandmother because our house had flooded the summer before, and it was still being repaired. I felt safer with my grandmother by my side. I thought of her as a protective angel, because she would stand up for me. I day dreamed as I looked out the window of horses and rivers, of fishing and camp fires. I was so excited to have some time at a real ranch style resort. We even were getting to stay in a log cabin, which was absolutely thrilling. I imagined it looking like the cabin Abraham Lincoln grew up and thought how log cabins must create characters of fortitude if Lincoln was any sort of good example of a “log cabin guy.”
I loved camping and got to camp with my Girl Scout troop a few times, but my parents hated it. For me, the log cabin in the woods was the closest thing that I was going to get to camping with my family. I had hopes that it would be the perfect trip. We had a lot of fun getting to eat out at restaurants and getting to see all sorts of new things as we made our way from the southern part of the country to Colorado. I wrote and drew the whole time on the way. We had a station wagon and my brother and I got to sit in the “way back” seats which faced the back window. I drew and wrote fantasies of horses and mountains under the crisp blue skies of the desert. It was this trip that I saw my first tumble weed scurrying across the road and my first road runner. I had only associated road runners with the cartoon, and I laughed in delight when I saw a real one. My grandmother beaming over the gushing enjoyment of that experience bought me road runner earrings at a gift shop in New Mexico.
After days and days of traveling, we finally pulled into the resort. The resort was amazing! There was a huge lake stocked with rainbow and speckled trout for fishing. The restaurant at the resort would even cook your fish for you in the evenings. There were horses, a recreation hall, miniature golf, paddle boats, and of course hiking the base of the Rocky Mountains. The resort was established in 1959 and has always hosted square dancing and other family style fun. It is still open today. My stepdad parked our eighties wood paneled Chevy station wagon at the main lodge and went in to check us in. I was practically bursting with excitement when he walked out with the keys in his hand and we made our way over to our real log cabin. Something about the way log cabins seemed to unobtrusively blend with nature was beautiful and exciting to the eight year old me. The use of mud and straw as insulators made the process so natural and sustainable that I wondered why we needed all of the home building products we had. The simplicity of a log cabin built within and with materials from its own environment was so romantic of an idea to me that I could hardly contain myself. With all the redecorating that was being done on our flooded house, the simplicity of dirt floors and wood walls felt safer than all the modern amenities with their complications. The cabin was two bedrooms and right by the South Fork of the Rio Grande River. There was a cute front porch with a swing and a beautiful view of the river and bridge going over the river to hiking trails and I imagined I was living in the movie “The great Divide” for a moment in time.
My parents were not the only ones from the square dancing group that was staying at the resort for the week. There were several other families, including one of my best friends, a boy name Sam (name changed). Sam and I were avid make believers. His parents were active in the square dancing club, and he was the only other kid that was close to my age. We also went to the same church together so we were together several times a week. Back in the eighties, it was acceptable for children to run around at will without parents. The resort was no exception. We were told what time we had to be at our meals and allowed to hang out in the recreation room or fish in the pond. Sam and I created elaborate Star Wars reenactments as we often did at home, but with a new adventurous setting.
The second day there, my mom took Sam and I on one of the hiking trails with a guide. We hiked up the mountain and the guide told us about the horse trail rides. There were a few things that cost extra at the resort or were deemed not appropriate for children to do alone, horse trail tours, being one of them. The horses went up and down the same trail only further up since they could move faster. As soon as I heard about the horse trail tour, I desperately wanted to try it. Living in South Louisiana, I had ridden horses all of my life between rodeos and other events, there were always horses around. And of course, these were the days of My Little Pony. Even my Barbie dolls had horses. My school friends and I use to pretend WE were horses, trotting around the yard making horse noises like we Monty Python characters.
I was indeed horse obsessed. For my birthday that year, I asked for a book about horses. My aunt bought me one, and my mom bought me one too. I was so thankful and said that it was really the only thing I had wanted, to which my stepdad responded, “You are so stupid, you could have asked for a horse, and I would have gotten you one, but all you wanted was a book.” When he said that, I begged for the chance to change my desires, I am not sure why I believed that he would have bought me a horse other than he manipulated me to believe tha.t. I know now that he was just being unnecessarily mean to me, but I still begged. He laughed at me and said, “Too late, your birthday is over now, think bigger next time.” So when I heard about this new opportunity for mountain horse riding, I began immediately begging my mom to book it for me. The horse tours were not cheap, but I never asked for much. I even tried to use the argument that if I could have gotten a horse for my birthday “but only got books,” then maybe the tour could be a late birthday gift. That really didn’t stick, even with my mom. I promised her that I would DO ANYTHING if I could just do the horse tour. I promised extra chores, really anything at all. ANYTHING. Of course, she had to talk to my stepdad about this. My stepdads response was “We will see,” which to an eight year old means, “There is still a chance.”
As the week went on, my hopes of horse back riding began to dwindle. I realized that our mountain resort trip was going to be coming to an end in a few days, so I upped my begging. I even heard my mom fighting with my stepdad asking for him to grant me my horse tour as a late birthday gift. She was irritated that he had spent a couple of hundred dollars for my brother’s birthday and for me only a ten dollar book. His response was first the same. He had not decided. Also, he citied that he was going to buy me a new bed as “part of my birthday present” since mine was ruined by the flood. She pressured him knowing that a bed was not something that I should have to have as a gift but an item that was their parental responsibility. His anger grew at her pressuring, and they began yelling at each other. My grandmother and I were sleeping in our room in the cabin together, and we could both hear them. I remember telling her how afraid he made me when he yelled like that and how he yelled all the time. She and I quietly listened and pretended to sleep as they fought throughout the night. The log cabin walls that I had personified into a safe comforting hug dissolved into just another chamber to be trapped in. I held onto my grandmother.
“Maybe you could buy me the horse tour.” I said to her.
She said, Michelle, I’d love to but I don’t think he will let me, and you have to have an adult go with you anyway, I can’t.”
I accepted this, and we eventually dozed off.
The next day, was a big day and the second to last full day that we were going to stay at the resort. My mom had planned a trip on a tourist train. I knew that that day was my last chance to convince my stepdad into letting me take the house tour. I was a persistent person if anything. In fact, I attribute my general sense of survival and resilience to my persistence. I told my stepdad over and over that I would do ANYTHING for the horse tour. After breakfast, we went back to the cabin and had about an hour to kill before leaving for the train tour. I was swinging on the porch swing with my grandmother and my stepdad called me over to him. He was standing at the base of the river. I ran down to him.
“Yes sir,” I said.
“You will do anything – ANYTHING at all to ride the horses right?” He asked.
“Yes! Yes! Please, I’ll do whatever you want,” I chimed. I could not believe that he was giving me the opportunity to do something to ride the horses. I knew that Sam’s family had already booked the horse trail tour for him, so my hope increased.
“Ok, well, will you accept a challenge that I give to you?” He asked.
“Yes, I said ANYTHING. I mean it! Please! What do you want me to do?”
“I’m going to TIME you for this, ok?’ He replied
“Yes, what is it? Time me for what?” I asked.
“You see this river? It is freezing cold. There are sharp rocks. If you can walk to the other side and back in five minutes, you can do the horse trail tour.” He replied.
“Really?” I asked. “Will I be punished if I don’t make it?” I asked clearly suspicious of his offer. My grandmother sat on the swing watching us, but she was too far to hear what was happening.
“No, no punishment,” He replied.
I looked at the river. The ice cold mountain water was about the height of my knees. I had dipped stuck my hand in the water earlier in the week, and I knew that the water was painfully cold. I stared at the jagged rocks that lay underneath the bubbly flowing water.
“Well?” He said.
“Yes, I’ll do it, I’ll try.” I replied
“You have to do it in time or else no tour,” He replied and then suddenly he shouted, “GO!”
I scrambled out of my shoes and went toward the river. My first two steps were painful and the rocks were piercing the skin of my feet. The freezing water made it even worse. I looked across at my goal, to touch the shore on the other side and make it back. I wanted to cry, I was in so much pain. I knew better than for him to see me cry. I knew that crying would mean that I was too immature to ride horses in his mind.
I got to the other shore and turned around.
“Two Minutes left!” He shouted.
I began to panic. I wanted so desperately to ride horses, and I was already past the half way mark in my time. I began moving faster, slipping here and there. I began being less careful about rocks I placed my feet on, not deciphering which would be less jagged and painful. I could tell that I was bleeding and that the rocks were cutting up my small feet. I hurried as fast as I could.”
“One Minute left!” He shouted.
Faster and faster I moved through the water. I remember looking up at the bridge to my right and thinking how much nicer it was to have a bridge for crossing the river. The icy cold at this point was traveling up my legs, and my bloody feet felt almost numb. I was determined not to give up.
“Ten, Nine, Eight Seven, Six,” he counted down the final seconds of my river race.
And then with five seconds to spare, I made it to the other side.
“Woooohoooooo,” I said. “I did it! I really did it! I made it in time.”
I was beaming and so proud. I really had doubted that I would be able to make it in time. I waved over to my grandmother, and she waved back to me. She was still unable to hear our conversation, but relishing in my joy!
“Yeah, you really did do it! Congratulations. Even I didn’t think that you could, but you did it!” He replied.
Oh wow, I thought. I felt so proud. My stepdad had given me a really hard challenge, and I actually conquered it. By the sound of his voice, I thought that even HE was proud of me.
“So,” he said, “You made it all the way across the river with the rocks and the cold water. I know how painful that was. Wasn’t it?” He asked.
“Oh wow, you don’t even know, it really hurt! But I did it,” I said.
“So it really DID hurt?” He asked again,
“Well, yes of course, it hurt like the dickens” I replied. “So I get to ride horses tomorrow?”
“You did something that really hurt you, so that you could do a horse tour. That says a lot to me? It says a lot to me about you. It shows how dumb and irresponsible you are. The idea that you would accept a challenge that you knew would hurt you, and you kept on with it after it hurt you! Look at your bloody feet! This shows me you aren’t mature or smart enough to ride trail horses. You should hang out with asses because you made yourself into one.” he said snickering and then made donkey noises at me, “heehaw heeehawww.”
All of pride that I felt instantly vanished as I realized that he had set me up for failure and humiliation. I grabbed my shoes and ran off crying. I ran to my grandmother.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” She asked.
As I explained the story to her, she started seeing red.
“I’m gonna have a talk with him. This isn’t fair to you. That was mean.” She said. “But I have to do it tonight when you are asleep.”
“Ok Grandma,” I said. “I’m sorry.” I was always apologizing to everyone, because I seemed to be the sole source of so much drama in my family.
It was time to dive to the train tour. We went through the woods, meandering in the switchbacks up the mountain. I remember how my stepdad would purposely go a little too fast or swerve over the road to scare me. We went through the switchbacks so fast that even my mom was clearly uncomfortable and would sometimes say his name in an attempt to slow him down. This day, he was on a role. We arrived at the train and hopped on. It was a coal powered train with wide open windows. I sat silently and tried to enjoy the scenery as we went around mountains and over tall bridges. My mom took pictures from out of the window with her fancy Canon. She lost the lens cap and cover on the way up. It was all she could talk about or think about. I saw her lens cap and camera case fall the long distance down the mountain to the river. I thought of the case tumbling around in the same river that had cut up my feet. I imagined it being churned into pieces as if it were in a blender. I wondered how far our car would roll if my stepdad swerved off the road just for fun on the way back home. I was as if he had entered my mind, because he whispered in my ear, “sure is a looooong way down – don’t’ fall out the window.” His eye twinkled and he smirked as he slivered away from my ear, my mind a muse of his fear tactics.
This train ride had a mountain midway point. It was a tourist trap sort of place with gift shops, jewelry shops, gold nugget panning, mountain gems and restaurants filled with a waterwheel and building with facades of the “old west.” The tour stop gave people enough time to eat a meal, and we had a reservation at a place. Before our reservation, there was just enough time to go shopping. At one shop, my bother and I both wanted stuffed animals. I found a grey cat. I wanted it so badly because I loved cats but we couldn’t have one due to my stepdad’s allergies. My grandmother, brother, and I went over to my stepfather as we asked him if we could get the toys. My brother wanted a stuffed turtle that came out of his shell and a very expensive talking bear. I just wanted the cat.
“Nope,” he said.” I’m not spending any more money on kids this trip.”
“Ok we said,” and I put the cat, turtle and bear back.
My mom and grandmother and I wanted to look the gem shops.
“Y’all go ahead and afterwards, meet us at the restaurant,” my stepdad said, “I’m going to go over and get our table.”
Off we went. I looked at the beautiful gems and my mom purchased a necklace. We made our way over to the restaurant. When we got there, my stepdad and half brother were seated at a table in a long bench seat. The restaurant had a bench on one said that accommodated several tables and chairs on the other. I took a seat in a chair next to my grandmother as my mother squeezed in next to my brother. My brother was sandwiched between my mom and stepdad. My mom showed my stepdad her purchase. Then from under the table, my brother pulled out the turtle stuffed animal and talking bear that he wanted from the gift shop. If I have ever seen my grandmother completely change colors, this was the day. She was immediately furious, and I was immediately hurt.
“You bought him those after you told Michelle you weren’t buying anything.” She said.
“Well, I decided he deserves it for being good,” he said “I’m the DAD, I can do what I want with my money.”
We sat there silently eating dinner, stunned as my brother played with his two stuffed animals. The animals “ate dinner” too. I was so hurt. I felt as if he had crumpled me into a ball and thrown it around for hours. After we finished, we were waiting for the check. I had to use the restroom, and my grandmother offered to come with me. As we walked out of the bathroom, we noticed that my stepfather was paying at the cashiers.
“Come on,” she said, “Fast.”
I didn’t know what she was doing, but she grabbed my hand and rushed me out of the restaurant without my stepdad noticing. We practically ran to the gift shop.
She said, “I have never seen anyone be so mean to a child in all my life. I’m buying you that horse tour and the stuffed cat that you want.”
“No, please, no; I’ll get in trouble for that!” I said. I was terrified at what was about to happen.
“He’s going to have to deal with me,” she said. “You live under my roof right now and I’m not going to allow this.”
She marched me over to the cat, and picked it up. It was a long grey hair cat, and it came with a comb. I named it Chloe. Years later, a real cat that looked just like the stuffed cat walked into my apartment. I was in college and she appeared out of no where. She chose me as her owner. I named her Chloe after my beloved stuffed cat. I had her for 15 years and she is still my favorite cat. But on this day, I was getting that stuffed cat thanks to my grandmother.
“Pick something else,” she said.
“Something else?” I asked “I’m fine with the cat. I really just love the cat.”
“Pick something else anyway. The talking bear that my brother got was a Teddy Ruxpin doll and sold for $69.99. She was trying to make her spending comparable to his and even the horse tour was cheaper than the Teddy Ruxpin. There as a cute white baby seal. I had fallen in love with baby seals as a toddler. My mother use to have a poster of one on the wall of our apartment before she married my stepdad.. The cute white smile of the baby seal made me smile so I instinctively gravitated to the seal, and we walked to the counter to pay.
The gift shop had large floor to ceiling windows looking out to the town and mountains. As my grandmother was paying, I could see my stepdad storming down the sidewalk headed our way. He was clearly furious. I tried to hide behind my grandmother but there was no hiding from his rage.
“What the hell are you doing?” He said as he stormed into the shop.
“I’m playing fair. THIS IS MY money, I can do what I want,” she said.
And right there, my grandmother and my stepdad had a yelling match in front of the cashier. The entire store of tourists stopped to watched in horror as my stepdad threw a fit over the purchase of the two seemingly innocuous little animals.”
“But I am THE MAN of the house,” he yelled.
“Last I recall,” she said, “YOU are living at MY house until YOURS is fixed.”
Insulted and full of rage, he stomped out of the door. I remember thinking that I hoped that he wouldn’t kill my grandmother over this. I hoped me wouldn’t kill me.
We walked over to the train station and awkwardly waited in silence to board the train. I kept my stuffed animals in the bag as if to protect them from the monster that was my stepfather. I was afraid they would share the same fate as the camera case case. The ride home was nauseating. Between the stress of the gift shop incident and the coal pouring through the window, I got a skull cracking headache. I tried my best to sleep with no avail, my mom behind me still obsessed with her camera case. “Maybe it’s that black speck” she would chime every ten minutes. The fact that she acted completely oblivious as to what had happened at the gift shop and the river that day, injured my heart as much as he had.
The car ride back was equally stressful as my stepfather sped through the forest and told stories of wolves and Sasquatches in order to scare me. He would say, “Look there is one, I see one,” at each bend of the switchback. In the “way back,” I stared at the stars out the window hoping I would survive the trip, my anxiety felt like a volcano pushing into my throat. I feared the ways I would be punished for my grandmother’s bold actions. Would he toss me in the river? Would he hurt a horse just t prevent me from experiencing pleasure? Would he scare my horse so that it tossed me into the river for him? The possibilities for injury were raging through my mind. What would HE DO?
That night was all fighting. My grandmother was yelling at him, and my stepdad was yelling back at her. After my grandmother went to sleep, he yelled at my mother about how disrespectful my grandmother was. My grandmother informed him that I WAS going to ride horses, and he could just deal with it. I remember hearing him say how he was going to stay in a hotel when we got home or at his parent’s house. He refused to be under her roof any longer he roared. He raged on all night, saying how my grandmother would never again come on trips with him involved. I was so scared and didn’t sleep until well past the time everything quieted down.
The next day, my grandmother woke my up early, and we went to the resort lodge. She signed me up for the horse trail tour. Sam was there and his dad chaperoned us.
“You get to come?!” he said. He and I had had several talks that week about whether or not I was going to get to do the tour.
“Yes,” I said, “It’s a long story.”
The tour itself was amazing. It was indeed everything I imagined. It was just as wonderful as I built it up to be. I fantasized about turning the horse off the trail and running away, but I was too afraid to something so drastic. I also knew that I couldn’t take a horse that wasn’t mine, but it was still a nice daydream. I asked a ton of questions about surviving in the wild mountains…what there was to eat and whether there were Sasquatches. We made it all the way to the top of the mountain, and I looked down at the river remembering the pain and shame from the day before. I tried to put it out of my head, but I still felt so betrayed and humiliated.
Going down the mountain, I felt afraid. I wished that I could make the safe feeling of being so far away from danger last forever. I wished that I could stay on top of the world and look down at the little undecipherable specks of people. I saw them like insects, knowing one was my stepdad. I loved looking at little black specks from so high up and thinking to my self, “it could be a camera case or it could be a tree or it could be him.” The black speck of a stepdad didn’t seem so big and scary from up there. The enclosure of the log cabin tuned out not to be the safe haven I expected it to be, but more of a trap. The safe warmth of freedom was in fact in the wilderness on my horse friend. I held the image in my mind of that. I tried to internalize the perspective of my stepdad just being a tiny bump of flesh in the grand scheme of the world. My grandmother’s confidence in standing up for me was the best thing that happened on that trip, even better than the horse tour. It was in that terrifying instance that I realized that my stepdad did not have power over everyone as he wished he had. It was in that moment I was able to see a glimmer of hope like the sun setting over the river, glistening like Colorado gold on the water. It was that moment chucked the cliche, “If he doesn’t kill me, I will indeed be stronger.” Although, I wasn’t too sure that he would not kill me and in fact I was certain that he wanted to, it didn’t matter because MY PLAN was to survive. I knew right then that if I survived; I could be in complete control of myself and my life. Eventually, I will take my children to Fun Valley Resort. They no longer have horse tours, but they have bikes and hiking still. My goal is to create memories on my terms in that place and to make peace with that river. I will let the water wash my feet and my soul of the assault my stepfather made that summer day in the mid eighties. I will reclaim the part of me that I lost that day, the day of my Colorado River endurance test. I passed the endurance test that day. In fact, I have passed the endurance test given to me every day since. The strength my grandmother showed became my inspiration. The path that ran through the mountains was my guide, reinventing my stepfather as the insignificant speck that he is.