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Our Final
Road Trip
By: Daniel Scott, Sr.
(click
on photos to enlarge)
My sister Sharon (Murillo) and I had purchased my
father's midget race car sometime in 2007 from a gentleman
named, Charles Myers, in Omaha, Nebraska. My dad, Landy, was
aware that we bought it, but didn't know when we'd pick it
up or where it would be stored. I spent months looking for a
trailer to purchase. Midget trailers are unique in size and
style, so it wasn't easy. Several leads fell through until I
was told that Dave Rumsey of Holland, Michigan had a nice
trailer, the same trailer he custom built for the midget we
now owned. Dave had owned and restored the midget before
selling it to Mr. Myers. I contacted Dave and made the
deal.
Now the problem was getting the trailer from Holland,
Michigan to Omaha, Nebraska. Sharon and her husband Gilbert
and son Michael volunteered, rather reluctantly, to handle
the move, a move that would mean over 1350 miles. They
completed the move in early June, dodging several tornados
in the process.
In the mean time I had my car fitted with a trailer
hitch. I originally thought that my friend Gean Okada,
Daniel and I would go to pick up the car, but Gean needed
advance planning and for some reason, only God knows, I
procrastinated. I talked about having to go, but didn't make
an issue about it. I'm not sure why, because I really wanted
to get the car home. Sometime in early June, maybe a week
before we left Daniel told me that he could get a week off
work and wanted to know if I wanted to go get the car. I
immediately said yes and we picked a date. We would leave on
Tuesday, June 10, 2008. It wasn't the ideal time for a trip
with gas prices at an all time high, around $4.50 a gallon,
but it seemed like the right thing to do, so we did it.
We took off as planned on what would become our last road
trip. Daniel always liked road trips. In 2006 we talked
about going on vacation, anywhere, here or abroad. I
mentioned Washington, DC, Germany, England. Daniel wanted to
go on a road trip in California, so we did.
On the morning of June 10th we headed northeast towards
Las Vegas and onto Utah. We stopped in Utah and
took some photos. Daniel took off and did some moderate rock
climbing as I took photographs, photos that are now
priceless. I didn't notice it at the time, but after I lost
Daniel and examined other photos I saw a different Daniel. I
saw the same thing repeated in other photos, a man at peace
and thoughtful moments where it seemed he was contemplating
life. They seemed to be serine moments. I wonder what he was
thinking, what he was thinking in the other similar photos.
I'll never know. I wish I had been more observant and had
asked him when I had the chance. We miss so much in our
lives while being caught up in our own world. He probably
won't have answered me anyway. Most of us would just say,
"I'm not thinking about anything."
We spent the first night in Colorado, got up, had
breakfast and continued driving east. While driving through
Vail, Colorado we talked about Daniel snowboarding there one
day. There was still snow on the mountains, it was
beautiful.
By that evening we were through the Rocky Mountains and
in Nebraska, following a major thunderstorm. It looked dark
and ominous ahead. We didn't hit much rain, but could see
that the rain had preceded us. As we approached the Omaha
area we could see cars and trucks off the road, or stuck in
the center median of the highway. We were listening to my
iPod through the car radio that Daniel had hooked
up
.for some odd reason, we never put on the radio to
catch a weather report. We stopped for the night at around 7
p.m. about 50 miles from Omaha. While checking into the
motel we were told that several tornados had just past,
killing several boy scouts about 35 miles east of us. We
found out that we were following in the direct path of the
tornado.
We ate at a local coffee shop. I remember Daniel wasn't
that hungry and didn't eat much. We talked about the
tornado, the local area and other things. I remember that we
were people watching and Daniel commented that he'd never
want to live in that area. The people seemed very friendly,
but just too different from what we were use to.
We went to the hotel and got some sleep.
In the morning, we got breakfast and headed to the home
of Charlie Myers, arriving mid morning. We met the caretaker
who told us that Charlie was out of state and wouldn't be
meeting us. Charlie's property was a large lot with a ranch
style home, surrounded by numerous nice track homes. The sub
division was named Myer Estates, after Charlie Myers, since
he originally owned all of the land. We also found out that
Mr. Myers had a wing of a hospital named after him and owned
a grain company. We also learned that Mr. Myers was generous
man of high quality, always willing to help others. The
caretaker told us that Charlie had wanted her to show us his
collection of cars. Packard's, an original Cobra, a
Studebaker and several race cars, all beautifully restored
or in the process of restoration. They were all stored in
two large garages. The woman said that Charlie had no
intentions of selling the midget, but was thrilled to see
the midget was finally returned to the Scott family. It then
became clear how blessed we were that our paths had
crossed.
We took a few photos, loaded up the car onto the trailer,
took some more photos and headed home. We
stopped at a Menard's (hardware) to pick up a lock for the
trailer. I recall how Daniel was so helpful. Running out to
the car to check the size of the hitch, coming back, never
an unwillingness to help, just a calm peace. This part of
Omaha was much nicer than where we spent the night, much
more urban, more modern. Daniel commented that he could live
in a place like this.
We decided to go a different way home, the southern
route, just to change the scenery. It would add about 500
miles to our trip, but Daniel wanted to see a different part
of the country.
We checked out a couple of Bass Pro Shops and Cabala's
Sporting Goods stores, looking at guns, along the way.
During one stop at a Bass Pro Shop they had a large outdoor
boat show. We climbed aboard several and Daniel talked about
getting a boat for wake boarding, which he loved. I told him
I'd buy the boat when he bought a truck to tow it. I meant
it, I figured why not. It would give us something to do
together and I thought Michelle and Maya would love the boat
too. We spent at least an hour checking out different
things, from guns to the live fish tanks to hunting gear. As
earlier, it was peaceful and calm, we weren't in a rush and
it showed. This trip was another example of how our
relationship had evolved. I don't know when it started, but
there was a mutual respect now, two men talking man to man,
not father to son or visa versa. There was always that
father - son bond, but now we were friends, best friends. I
developed that with my dad when we worked together at
Northridge Hospital and I'm developing that with Michelle
now. Michelle and I were always close, but never had the
opportunity to develop a friendship with her moving away
after high school. I believe it's rare between parents and
their children and I've been blessed to have had it with my
father and both of my children.
I told Daniel I'd buy him the gun of his choice for his
21st Birthday which was the following week, he was happy,
but reserved on the outside. I could tell that he was
thrilled on the inside. Daniel found the gun that he wanted,
a .45 caliber Springfield, but we couldn't buy it since we
were from out of state. We tried in every state that we
found a sporting goods store from Nebraska to Nevada but no
luck. (Daniel did get the gun for his 21st Birthday)
Back on the road, heading south to Oklahoma City the
weather was getting bad again. We only drove through a
couple of heavy rain bursts, but we were surrounded on three
sides by very dark, tornado like conditions. The radio was
reporting tornado sightings all around us. I remember
passing through one small town and wondering out loud where
we would go if we saw the tornado headed our way. Towing a
trailer would make it difficult to out run the tornado, so
we'd have to find an over pass and pray for the best.
We arrived in Oklahoma City and stopped to get gas and
something to eat. Inside while ordering food I heard the
buzz about the tornado that had touched down about 10
minutes earlier in the same small town we drove through 15
minutes earlier. Another near miss.
During one stop for gas and food I returned to the car
and watched with pride as Daniel sat on the trailer fender
and carefully removed some gunk off of a part of the race
car with his pocket knife. As I walked
towards him I remember thinking how grown up and capable he
now was. A few years earlier I would have been concerned
about the quality of his work, but not anymore. He finally
had me convinced that he had arrived, that he had his act
together. He was no longer a boy, he had become a man. I
recall now how he'd get upset if I questioned him or didn't
trust that he could do something. Daniel never lacked in
confidence. He always helped me do handyman work around the
house while he was growing up. Sure, he'd sneak away to
play, but he always helped when I needed him. He picked up
things just like I did from my dad.
We drove through Oklahoma and into Texas. We noticed a
leak in one of the trailer tires, but it wasn't bad and
since the trailer has tandem wheels (two on each side) we
knew we were safe. As night fell, we decided to sleep in the
car, not knowing if the trailer and race car would be safe
parked out in the middle of nowhere. The locking device
wasn't the best and we knew if someone wanted to steal the
race car, it wouldn't be that difficult. Daniel arranged the
luggage and made a bed in the back of the SUV. We had taken
turns resting back there when tired. I wasn't able to sleep,
too hard of a surface, but Daniel could fall asleep without
any trouble. We parked behind a hotel. I slept in the front
passenger seat that night, with Daniel in the back.
We slept somewhere in Texas. When we woke we continued
west. Around Albuquerque, New Mexico we noticed the trailer
tire getting much worse and starting to shred. Daniel had
slept in while I drove. We stopped and had the tire
replaced, then headed west again. We stopped in Flagstaff,
again looking for a gun, but couldn't buy one there either.
Once we got to Highway 93, about 100 miles west of
Flagstaff, we headed north towards Las Vegas. We had
probably travelled 20 miles when we saw signs that the
Hoover Dam was closed to trailers, the only crossing point.
We didn't see any southbound vehicles with trailers and
couldn't find out any information from the public service
radio station that was advertised on the road. There were
only two options, keep going and hope they didn't mean cars
towing trailers or go back to Interstate 40 and around the
other side of the Colorado River adding hundreds of miles to
our trip and costing us several hours, or another day. We
were already tired and wanted to get out of the car for
awhile. We decided to take our chances and headed to the
Hoover Dam. We found out that the trailer rule was for
commercial vehicles only and it was due to 9-11 and
terrorist threats. There was a check point, but we passed
without any trouble. It was slow moving over the dam, but
Daniel hadn't remembered ever seeing it, so it was cool.
We were down to the last 25 miles before getting to dad's
house. The trip was pretty smooth considering the tornados
and flat tire. Daniel and I talked, listened to music, I
read, and we just hung out. Nothing notable just enjoyed
each other's company. The best was yet to come.
When we arrived at my dad's house, we quickly unloaded
the race car and pushed it into the driveway. I then
called my dad with a cell phone and told him that I was at
home in California watching the news and a high rise
building on the Vegas strip was burning out of control. I
told him to hurry outside and see if he could see it from
his house, I'd call him right back. Sure enough, within a
couple of
minutes the garage door rolled up and dad was "face to
grill" with his midget race car. The look on his face was
worth every penny spent and every hour of driving time.
Daniel seemed to enjoy it as much or more than I did.
Looking back at the photos I took, you can see how proud
Daniel was of his grandfather and how much he enjoyed being
there. The photos of Daniel and his grandfather are now and
forever, priceless.
We spent the night, eating pizza over a couple of beers
while listening to my dad's stories. Dad's not much of a
listener, but he has great stories of his racing days. In
the morning, more stories and some coffee and toast before
we headed home to end our last adventure together. We
travelled over 3400 miles in five days, made my dad's
Father's Day one that he'll never forget, and I got to spend
quality time with my son, not knowing that in less than 2
½ months he'd be gone.
It's been over two years since Daniel and I departed on
our final road trip. I'm thankful for the memories and the
photographs, but so sorry that my boy isn't here with me
anymore. I miss him so much.
I love you son,
Dad
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