Ok, so we went on our trip yesterday, and man did I have a good time.
First of all, the I-17 north was crowded because it was a holiday weekend, so I got off south of Lake Pleasant and went through Peoples Valley, Yarnell and Congress to get to Prescott. I haven't been that way in years, no traffic, none. And it is much prettier.
We stopped several times to let the kids play in the snow. So we got to Prescott, and it was beautiful, we went to the town square with the massive and really cool courthouse ( if you know me you realize that it must be pretty for me to say a courthouse is cool!!! ).
Well things didn't go perfect, Ryan tripped over the border of the sidewalk and fell face first into the concrete, skinned his forehead, knee, nose, and chin, and he got a HELLUVA bloody nose.
The thing about Ryan that you wouldn't know if you had not have met him is that he is one of the most sensitive little chaps I know. He will enthusiastically thank us just for changing his underwear, or for that matter for washing his clothes, or making him a PB&J sandwich. Last month he walked up to me and said " Dad you know waht I love about Cheyenne ( his little sister )?" I asked what. He paused deep in thought and looked at me with the most serious face he could muster, then broke into a HUGE radiant smile and said " Her heart."
So when he gets hurt I always expect it to hurt more on him, but I am always wrong.
The common joke around here is that he doesn't deal with pain like the rest of us, he is a tough little shit. I have seen him spin in cirlcle untill he can't stand up, fall running forward, crash his little noggin into the entertainment center, move the whole damn thing, stand up and say "OUCH," rub his little noggin and keep spinning. That would have knocked me out.
Back to the sidewalk incedent, I was in a building of shops next door going to the bathroom. I walk out to the van, and find Ryan covered in blood, Barb was a little freaked out, and the girls were yelling and crying. I felt my gut hit the floor when I looked at Ryan. I got the girls and Barb settled down. Barb took off Ryans coat, washed the rest of the blood off his face, and I had him come and sit on my lap.
I checked his teeth, nose, and face to see what was wrong.
Turns, out it was a bump on the nose, nothing broken or missing. So I sat with him for a second and asked it he was hurting anywhere, he said no, I asked why he was crying,( in a very sensitive fashion) he didn't know. I asked if all the blood scared him. He nodded his head and wimpered a little. So I told him that he was ok and it was a little bloody nose, and he was going to be fine. I asked him if he was a tough guy, he yes, we acted like we were boxing a little, I told him I loved him and we could go play in he wanted to. Huge radiant Ryan smile. We got everybody back out in the park and we proceded to play in the little piles of snow still left, and Ryan played with a little boy about his age for a while.
We hopped back in the van and headed for Jerome, and I missed the turnoff, we ended up going several miles farther north, the turning on a dirt road that went down to Clarkdale at the bottom of Jerome. It was about 30-40 mile to Clarkdale. and we could only average about 10 mph. The saving grace was the views, the road roughly paralleled the top of a HUGE mesa, sometimes dipping into the valley, sometimes several miles from the edge. I saw 2 other vehicles in the 3 1/2 hour drive, when we were away from the edge it was high plains or highlands forrest, we were between 3 and 5 thousand feet most of the time. Away from the edge we had amazing views of the distant mountains with clouds cooling and rolling over their crests like giant waves of cotton colored oceans. No pollution, no rank smell of the crowded city, giant crows everywhere, sunbeams breaking throught the storm laden clouds in the distant painted with all the colors of Gods easel.
But when we were close to the edge......thousands of feet down to the valley floor, hundreds of miles across, and not the nasty look of earth rape that looking over a large city produces, but like looking at your lover naked for the first time, Red Rock country off to the right, and the WHOLE ridgeline, not just a glimpse, and it only took up a little bit of the view. Ranches, cattle, entire rivers, ravines, fields, forrests, plateaus, and mountains waxed and waned almost by magic before my eyes as we dipped in and out of the valley. Almost like I was a suspended on the wing of a giant bird flying in and out of the valley. I often forgot where we were going and that I was even driving. There were seconds that seemed completely transcende earthly experience.
Ryan was terrified by the rocking of the van, so I did what I never do, and let him out of the carseat, no traffic, 10mph on a fast spot, and if we fell off the edge, they would never find us, there was nothing back there. I looked back one time to see what he thought, because he stoped making a sound, we were crossing a stretch of amazing views, all the other kids were bored. He had his little hands on the glass, he was up on his knees, he had an amazed, shocked look on his eyes, he transcended his earthly little existance right along with me. His eyes were huge and unblinking, so as to not miss a thing, but there was more, he always needs to experience one more thing, he always needs to do one more thing, and right then and there he was in complete contentment and ecstacy. His little face reflected what monks have searched for, for the whole existance of any kind of monk everywhere, peace, awe, happiness and the reflection of beauty.
I know every parent has moments where they are completely taken with their children, but I shared that moment with Ryan and him alone, he looked at me while i was looking at him and over his shoulder at the grandeur outside the window, we locked eyes for a split second with the same feeling in our hearts, we were the only people there for a microsecond. Then he said "DAD it is mucha wucha sucha hucha amazin bootiful." I could not agree more........
