Assume the Position: Memoirs of an Obstetrician Gynecologist (21 page)

     So off we went, boarding our raft at the base of the Glen Canyon dam and Lake Powell, exiting at Temple bar and flying a little puddle jumper into Las Vegas over Lake Meade.  We saw the whole Canyon form one end to the other, over 300 miles. What a glorious wonder it was! 

The Colorado River was ice cold as it shot out from the bottom of the Glen Canyon dam and Lake Powell.  Fortunately for us it was early summer. We took quick baths in the River that took our breath away, welcome respite from the heat that it was.

We went over Lava Falls and Crystal rapids, considered the big ones.  I rode the pontoons of the raft the whole time and at one point wound up in the frigid rapidly flowing river before I was extracted and placed back in the raft.  There was a whole group of young and virile New York fireman on the rafts with us, as well as a mixed group of all kinds of people from everywhere.  Havasupai canyon was extraordinarily beautiful.

Waterfalls were abundant and gorgeous.

Day hikes up to some narrow trails on the cliffs were spectacular if not dangerous.  Camping out on the small beaches at night in tents next to sheer cliffs of granite would occasionally lead to the death of some unfortunate people every year.

     This trip was a memorable birthday for me.  The fright began when we were camping one day after a full day of rafting.  While we were on the little sandy beach Julie disappeared.  I couldn’t find her anywhere and there were only a few places to look.  Nightfall was setting in early as it did in the bottom of the narrow canyon.  I paced the small beach from one end to the other, several times, and she was nowhere to be found.  I peered into as many tents as I could.  I thought maybe she hooked up with one of the fireman.  I just didn’t know what else to think other than the river took her away when suddenly she appeared from behind some big rocks at the end of the beach where she went for a few moments of privacy, skinny-dipping, and meditation.  I was not happy!  But I was overjoyed that she was alive.  So it made it difficult to appreciate the Dutch oven birthday cake the river rats made for me that evening.

     The trip ended in Vegas where we took our first prolonged bath and shower in over a week. We had never been to Vegas before so it was new to us. A good nap, shower and down to the Hotel casino show. The noise, lights, loud music, bare-breasted women with tassels on their nipples, smoke, and general mayhem was so far removed from where we had been in the tranquility of Mother Nature with no lights, noise or electricity that it was true culture shock. We hopped the next plane out and got back to our life, children, dogs, and Phoenix.

     My 40
th
birthday was also memorable.  Julie had arranged to surprise me with a sailboat vacation in the Virgin Islands, the two of us on a boat with a captain and first mate.  I had always wanted to spend time sailing.  It was a wonderful thing she did by arranging this for us.  For me, however, I had a problem with the passing of decades.  And 40 seemed like it was the halfway point in life for me, so I had problems from the start with this birthday, not the trip.  But off we went.  It was a lovely time and a lovely 40-foot sailboat. The first night we anchored off a portion of Saint John Island in the evening. I didn’t get a good look at the island until I awakened early in the morning.  I went on deck around 6 am in my skimpy bathing suit, saw a beautiful isolated beach adjacent to the woods, dived off the boat and swam for five minutes to get there.  When I arrived at the beach I laid back and enjoyed the pristine beauty, the birds chirping sweetly, the sailboat in the distance, and the privacy.  Then I heard a voice with a deep-pitched English accent from somewhere in the woods behind me, “ Get your bare white ass out of here”.  I struggled to see who it was.  Through the trees I could see an old lady with a shotgun pointed right at me.  Back in the ocean I went and swam back to the sailboat.  Greetings from the Virgin Islands!  A few days later on my actual birthday, we wound up in Virgin Gorda at a beautiful ocean resort and bar appropriately named the Bitter End Yacht Club. With gorgeous rock formations in the foreground and endless miles of sea green Ocean between Europe and us at this point, one could imagine being almost anywhere in the world but always at sea with countless more places to visit.  I got loaded, just me and the other derelicts at the Bitter End Yacht club Bar!  Welcome to the 40’s!  Julie says I never enjoyed the birthday trip, and she would never plan a birthday party for me again.  I was glad about that but she was wrong about not enjoying the trip.  It was great!

     My quest for exploring Mother Nature, privacy, anonymity, and my love of skiing took me and my family all around the mountain West on snow skis – Aspen, Vail, Durango, A Basin, Crested Butte, Keystone, Park City, Taos, Jackson Hole, Buttermilk, Aspen Highlands, Steamboat, Flagstaff, and Telluride.  My kids became expert skiers at a very young age.  I kept in touch with Mother Nature this way and got myself recharged for going back to work. But increasingly I needed more time off. The day to day of long hours, a large patient load, long nights always on the alert and ready for action 24/7, managing partners and their idiosyncratic behavior, listening to petty staff issues daily, dealing with insurance or lack thereof, paying invoices and meeting payroll, rising malpractice insurance costs, and running a women’s research business on the side was taking a toll on me although I was oblivious to it.  Julie wasn’t.

     Telluride, Colorado had special appeal for all of us. The distance gave me respite from the phone calls.  An eight-hour car drive from Phoenix through the Painted Desert and large Navajo reservation, just the drive alone was like finding Mother Nature all over again.  It was as many before and after us called it, ‘God’s country’.  I never minded the drive and did it countless times with kids, their friends, and dogs. It was also good bonding time with the family.  We sang songs, played word games, laughed, ate beef jerky, and played with the dogs.  “On the road again” by Willy Nelson became my theme song. “Just can’t wait to get on the road again.”

      Located in the Southwestern corner of Colorado near Four Corners area, surrounded by 14,000-foot peaks and some of the best skiing in Colorado if not the world, Telluride was a small mountain town in a box canyon.  I considered it the prettiest part of Colorado.  Thus for me at least it was the prettiest part of the country.  It was an extremely progressive and liberal community much to my liking.

     Arizona politics was increasingly bothersome to me, too.   Evan Mecham was an archconservative millionaire car dealer and inflammatory racist who was elected governor by a 40% vote in a three-way race, then later impeached. He called black kids ‘pickaninnies’ and said Jews needed to face up to the fact the US was a Christian nation. He said MLK was not deserving of a holiday and ended it in Arizona.   Following him, J. Fife Symington, another Republican and East Cost aristocrat, was elected twice before a felony conviction for tax fraud.  He, too, was removed from office.  The Savings and loan debacle with Charlie Keating at the helm was nothing other than pure greed at its worst.  Then there was and remains Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his prisoner tent colonies in the desert.  I never really blamed the politicians. They were who they were. It was the people who kept electing them over and over again that I just couldn’t fathom. That is what bothered me.  Colorado increasingly looked more and more attractive to me.

     It is said by locals that most people find Telluride in the winter because they ski there.  Snow is abundant.