Back on a Saturday in late April, I received a call while at work that no one wants to get. The call was from Arapahoe Basin Ski Patrol regarding my dad. My dad had been up in Colorado for the weekend for a one last skiing trip before the skiing season had officially ended. It seemed like he had been in Colorado every weekend to go skiing for most of the winter and early spring. The ski patrol person who had called said he was calling to let me know that my dad had been in a ski accident, had some pain in his back, and had hit his head. The person had also said that they would be taking my pops to St. Anthony’s Hospital in Frisco, Colorado which is a regional trauma center. My stomach had dropped, and an emotional state of panic had started to set in. I called my boss and told him I needed to leave work for a family emergency. I went home, packed a quick bag and started driving toward Colorado with purpose. From Albuquerque to Frisco, driving it was supposed to take over 6 hours.
Let’s just say the next couple hours were miserable during the drive to Frisco. After a few attempts of calling the hospital, I was able to speak with my dad. You could just hear the pain in his voice. The good news was he could feel pain, but the bad news was he multiple broken ribs and a broken collarbone. It could’ve been much worse. I was determined to get up there and be with him. However, given that he had his car up there, we got in a hot debate about it making sense to drive to Frisco and have two cars. He wasn’t going to be able to drive for a while.
Rainbow Lake in Frisco Colorado on in mid-Spring
After 3 and half hours of driving, I arrived in Alamosa, CO. At this point, it was 8:30 pm and I made the decision to turn around and drive back to Albuquerque. It didn’t make sense to have two cars in Colorado with only one person who could drive. Moreover, it would be the smarter idea to just catch a flight to Colorado in the morning. Before turning around, I made sure to see if there were any flights available in the morning and bought a one-way ticket to Denver at 6:45 a.m. I drove back to Albuquerque and arrived a little bit after 1 a.m. My amazing girlfriend had picked up my dogs and brought them to her place, so I went straight to her place to try and get a little rest before needing to get up and catch my flight.
I woke up at 4 am and caught an Uber to the Albuquerque International Sunport for my flight. Lines were small and got to my gate with plenty of time to spare. The flight from Albuquerque to Denver is a little bit over an hour so I figured I’d try and nap on the plane, which didn’t exactly work too well. However, I was able to capture this photo during the flight of the Colorado Rocky Mountains
The day was just getting started when I landed in Denver…..
