50 Years

Fifty years ago.  I remember exactly where I was fifty years ago this past weekend.  Elaine and I were camping.  (Yes, the same Elaine I am with today.)

It was to be the first time we went camping together and not everyone was happy about us going off camping together.  You see, it was a different time, we weren’t married and Elaine’s mother was not happy that we would be alone in the woods.  Elaine’s father   loaned us camping equipment.  Truth be known, we weren’t going to be camping alone.  We were going to be camping with our friends Rick and Mickey (who weren’t married either.)

I can’t say where Mickey is, but Rick and I have remained friends for over fifty years. (useless knowledge)

Elaine and I told our parents we would be camping in the “mountains” with no specific location.  As it turned out, we found a nice camping spot deep in Cache la Poudre canyon.  Again, as it turned out it was good place to camp.

Shortly after setting up our camp the skies started turning black.  It started to rain.  It was raining hard, not super hard but hard.  Elaine and I went to our tent.  Looking south from our tent Elaine and I were “treated” to the scariest lightning show I had ever seen.

Unbeknownst to us /the lightning was accompanying the rain coming down at a rate of several inches per hour.  The rain did not stop. Big Thompson canyon flooded.  This is where hundreds of people have worse stories to tell than Elaine and I.  Houses and businesses were washed away.  Over one hundred and forty people died.

The road in Cache la Poudre canyon washed away in a spot, making it nearly impossible to get back to town to tell people we were safe.

I will never forget the weekend of August 1^st, 1976

God bless, Love ya

5

Our crazy lives!

Monner