MoonRise Mountain

Cindy McEnery's Picture

I remember a note I got from my son Drew, not long after he arrived in Vail, Colorado. It simply said: "Last night I skied the Continental Divide under a full moon!"

A few nights ago, a friend and I rode to the top of the Continental Divide under a full moon, and coasted into Vail Valley in a car we weren't sure was going to make it.

The car began to slow. It huffed and puffed up the mountains from the Denver plain, getting slower with every mile. It was dying! But Cindy, my friend, had her wits about her. And rather than getting stuck in the Eisenhower Tunnel, right on our front bumper, she chugged and coaxed the altitude impaired car off the road just in time. Imagine the mess on a Thursday evening, clogging the only tunnel over this part of the Colorado Rockies. I don't want to think about it.

I especially don't want to think about it as I was there more or less illegally, having left my picture ID at home before trying to board the outward bound flight to Colorado. But somehow, some nice people at Airport Security, after a few pertinent questions, decided I wasn't connected to any dark forces, and let me fly. But I didn't want to clog up the tunnel and have anyone re-thinking that decision.

Then something happened that makes you want to say, "Hmmmmm..."

We had no sooner chugged to a dead stop at a turn-off at the mouth of the tunnel, when a Roads Department vehicle pulled up alongside us. There were two bearded men inside it. (I could have sworn they were from the mountains of Virginia). We hadn't seen them behind us. They just appeared.

They asked, "What seems to be the matter?" So we told them the symptoms. Quite simple.  "It slowed down and stopped!" They diagnosed the problem, Vapor Lock at altitude, which sounded like a fit of the vapors to us.  They told us to wait a few minutes and everything would be ok. So we did, and it was (except for the bear tracks Cindy found on the soft sand around the car) and when we turned around, the vehicle and the bearded men had vanished. We didn't see them come and we didn't see them go...

I was so relieved, I said, "They were Angels!" Cindy thought so too. And I could have sworn that the sign on the door of the vehicle said VDOT (Virginia Dept. of Transportation) It should have been CDOT. Helloooo...

But no matter who they were, or where they were from, it was a good feeling to have Angels riding the mountains with us. The moon was brilliant, the air was cool, and the mountains were breath taking as we cruised into the sea of twinkling lights of Vale Valley. A homecoming of sorts, a reunion with my own angel Drew, in many ways.

Yippeee!