I was afraid to go to the mountains. I just knew it would make me think of growing up in Redlands, California. I used to drive up to the San Bernardino Mountains every weekend by myself. I’d get in my little Cortina and go up for two or three hours on Saturdays. Often, I’d just take a book. Now, I was afraid that the smell of the campfire, the smell of pine trees, the smell of water and rain would only depress me.
And be in the wilderness? Have the place to ourselves? Can we do this? Will I be a burden to everyone and ruin it for them? What if the kids hate it? What if Dave and Roger can’t get along for four days?
Living in Montana and doing all the things she was doing, Carla was living my dream life. I envied her and her family’s outdoorsy lifestyle.
I looked down and shifted in my chair. No-legs Linda. In the woods. I don’t know.
But maybe it’s time for it not to be just about me. I want our kids to experience rugged outback adventures and the risk-taking that goes along with that, not have a watered-down, namby-pamby, pretend-to-camp trip. Car camping in state-run campgrounds with Dave’s parents in a pull-in spot next to wheelchair-accessible bathrooms wasn’t cutting it. Maybe it was time to show the kids what I loved and to see the mountains again through their young eyes. Maybe watching them experience it would be enough to keep me from getting down.
Dave and I lay in bed and talked for hours that night. Well, mostly I talked. The gentle tingle of his touch as his fingertips caressed my shoulder and ran up and down my back told me he was listening.
“This could make us normal—beyond normal. It could give us the kind of life that I’ve always wanted to have.”
“If you’re ready, Olsie, let’s go and do it.” And, pulling me closer, he said what he says to me every night before he drifts off to sleep: “I can’t live without you.”
I have to do this. It’s time, because this is what you do with kids. And if we don’t, if I hold everybody back, our children will never get to experience the thing that I loved most in life.
A few days later, I decided that I was finally ready: ready to sleep under the stars on the hard ground in a little tent with the sighing sound of wind in the treetops lulling me to sleep, ready to smell the vanilla aroma of Jeffrey pines, and more than ready to smell like a campfire. When I was younger, I used to stash my dirty camping clothes in the back of my closet so I could enjoy the aroma of parfum de campfire for as long as possible.
My anticipation about returning to the wilderness was more than enough to allay my fear of depression. Nearly ten years after the accident and a week after her invitation, I returned Carla’s fateful phone call. “Let’s do it,” I said. “I’m ready to get out and go!”
Of course, emotional readiness is one thing; practical readiness is another.
How does a severely disabled person get around without a wheelchair, go to the bathroom, and not add inordinately to everyone’s work—and, and, and? All I knew for sure was that I could butt-walk and was small enough that I could be carried. The rest was a crapshoot.
The next few months were a whirlwind of planning: three canoes, four adults, four kids, four days, and twelve meals.
“I’m concerned about space,” I told Carla. “How are we going to get all this stuff, including food, to fit into our canoes? What if we don’t bring enough? It’s not like we can call for takeout.”
“Don’t worry about it, Linda. I calculated the body weight and activity levels of all of us and counted calories to ensure we’ll all have the appropriate number at each meal.”
“Camping with a dietician—I should have known you’d have a plan.”
“The thing is, the plan depends on our catching five or six fish every day, or we’ll go hungry,” said Carla.
“Great. Nothing like learning to hunt and gather under pressure. Dietician or not, we’ll need lots of M&M’s. No camping trip would be complete without ’em—and if Tiff and Brian end up hating camping, we can use the candy as a bribery tool!” Funny images of training puppies with treats flashed in my mind, but instead of fuzzy, eager animal faces, I saw the faces of my children. I couldn’t help but giggle.
“Right,” Carla replied.
“Okay, I think we’ve got the food covered, but this still feels pretty ambitious. We’ve never done this with kids, and it’s not like I’m going to be able to paddle, Carla. What are we going to do about—”
“Linda, it’s going to be fine. You’ll be with us. Not only will I make sure you don’t starve to death, but Roger and I will be right there with you. I promise. Nothing bad will happen . . . but get life vests.”
Life vests. Got it.
“Hey, hon,” I said as I rolled into the living room, where Dave was drinking a glass of wine and bent over a pad of paper, “make sure to add life vests to your list.”
“Already on there. Since you’re here, come over here for a minute. Let’s go over this: TP, toothpaste, shampoo, floss, liquid soap, cards, fishing licenses, airline tickets, money, maps, camera and film, batteries, water bottles, compass, matches, flint, pans, dishes and utensils, cups, washcloth and towel, rope, trash bags, tent, dry bags, port-a-potty, shovel, flashlights, knives, tarp, stove, water filter, life jackets, paddles, knee pads, fishing gear, flares, whistle, binoculars. What am I forgetting?”
“I was thinking about what I’m going to wear,” I said.
“Funny, I was thinking about you not wearing anything, mountain mama.” Dave flashed a charming smile, then got back to the business at hand: “All right. When you are wearing clothes, what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that I won’t be able to wear my legs all the time. So when I butt-walk, I’m going to need something that keeps the dirt and rocks out of my delicate parts.”
Dave took a sip of wine and raised his eyebrows. I continued, “Yeah, so I’ll tie knots in the legs of a pair of jeans. That’ll protect my skin and keep the dirt out. And denim is sturdy and won’t show dirt. In fact, add extra pairs of jeans for everyone to that list. And Carla mentioned rain gear, but I don’t think we need it, do you?”
“I hadn’t thought about that yet.”
“Well, I say we forgo spending lots of money on that until we know whether we’ll ever go camping again. I’ve never carried rain gear in California and haven’t ever needed it. Why spend money on rain jackets when we can pull a few large trash bags off a roll, make a neck hole in the bottom, and pull them over us on the off chance that it does rain? They also take up very little space in a stuff sack. Win-win situation.”
“Sounds good to me. That’s one less thing to buy.”
Six months later, in August 1989, we flew to Missoula, Montana, where we packed two cars with camping gear and food and started driving to Yellowstone Lake. Carla and I had spent hours on the phone, planning the details and catching up with each other. I was excited about seeing her but still nervous about how the kids and men would get along.
The guy car started out in the lead, with the biggest canoe tied to its top. Carla and I followed, with two canoes strapped on ours. Before we knew it, the two giggly, wiggly, eight-year-old girls in the back seat had become best friends. With the windows down and the hot, dry air whipping our hair, Carla drove while I read through the flapping, handwritten lists of food and equipment, hoping we had everything we needed before it was too late to buy extra stuff.
“Mom, can we have more snacks?” Heidi asked.
“Yes, but no more M&M’s, young lady. Eat some dried fruit. And share with Tiffany.”
“Looks to me like they’re arguing. What do you think?” I asked, squinting through the bug-splattered windshield at the car ahead of us.
For several miles, Dave and Roger had been waving their arms a lot. They kept jerking their heads back and forth. My stomach sank as I watched my fear play out before us. Carla and I put on our let’s-be-happy faces as they pulled onto the shoulder of the road and got out. But before we could get our doors all the way open, we heard laughter—the loud, gut-rolling, har-de
-har-har, guy kind of laughter.
The men needed a pee break, and so did I.
“All right, everyone. Eyes forward,” Dave commanded as we positioned ourselves at the rear on the passenger side of the girl car. Pretending privacy, we slid my jeans and underpants down my stiff, metal-kneed prosthetic legs and, with my back to his front, we situated ourselves the only way I’d been able to figure out for a woman with two above-knee prostheses. Dave’s big, strong, confidence-inspiring hands wrapped around my shoulders and arm. Legs extended in front of me, I leaned into him. The pressure of his hands on my skin increased as he took more and more of my weight. We shifted our weight and angles to accommodate each other in this lever-like maneuver that had Dave squatting and me in a wide-legged stance. All that to get into a good position to pee. Knees. I really miss my knees.
“All right. I’m done. Thanks.”
“Okay. Up we go,” he said, lifting us both with his legs and allowing me to pull myself together.
“Ooh, those look good. Share with your dad,” Dave said, reaching into the backseat window and grabbing a handful of apricots from Tiffany.
Dave trotted off to Roger’s car, I scrambled back into Carla’s, and both vehicles pulled back onto the road.
A few minutes later, Tiffany called from the back seat, “Hey, Mom, I need to go to the bathroom.”
“I’ll take her,” Carla said, pulling onto the shoulder once again.
Halfway out of the car, Tiffany started to cry. “I don’t know how, Mom.”
“Carla will teach you. It’s easy.”
Tiffany had never seen a woman with two normal legs squat to pee, but at eight, and before we even reached the lake, she had it wired.
The next morning, we sat through the mandatory park service lecture at Grant Village and learned how utterly stupid we must have been even to think about doing this trip. We solemnly confirmed to the park ranger that we’d read the following warnings:
• Canoeing and kayaking on Yellowstone Lake is a memorable experience, but it is not without its dangers. The water temperature, even in the summer, is typically forty to fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Almost daily, sudden winds create waves as high as four to five feet. These waves are choppy and very close together, making conditions especially hazardous for small boats.
• Travel close to shore and within sight of other party members. Begin early in the morning and avoid open-water crossings.
• Get off the water during strong winds and lightning storms.
• Practice capsize-recovery techniques with all party members prior to your trip.
The ranger scrutinized our three able-bodied adults, four young children, and woman missing both legs and one arm and shook his head.
Roger leaned in, put on his Marine face, and said, “Sir, we’ll take good care of them.” Carla, with her buff arms and legs sticking out of her T-shirt sleeves and shorts, backed him up with a hearty nod and promised to have us back in four days. I tried to keep a poker face in spite of the fact that if I had had knees, they’d have been knocking. I concentrated on suppressing all thoughts of the forty-plus people who’d drowned or died from hypothermia in this breathtakingly beautiful lake.
Corralling the kids, we got them to lug the waterproof bags, camp box, and ice chest onto the sandy beach. The oversize bags held forty to fifty pounds of food, four tents, eight sleeping bags, and our kitchen. Carla and Roger carefully positioned them in each canoe so we were balanced.
Leif and Heidi grasped the wood-rail edge of Carla’s canoe and stepped in lithely. They’d clearly done this hundreds of times. Leif settled down on the front thwart. At age twelve, he was a blond, muscle-bound boy who was already stronger than his mom. Heidi took her place in the middle of their canoe, her perpetual, goofy smile and pigtails making her appear not to have a care in the world.
Even though I’d been an amputee for almost ten years, I still thought it crucial that I “look normal,” so I wore my artificial legs with jeans and tennis shoes. After all the gear was settled and as Carla and kids pushed off from shore, Dave picked me up and carried all one hundred pounds of Linda and legs across the sandy beach, waded into the fifty-degree water, and slung me into the canoe, careful not to tip it over.
“Come on, kid. Can’t get anywhere just standing there,” Roger barked as he grabbed Brian and scuffled with him. In his early forties, Roger had thick, prematurely gray hair that belied his well-defined muscles and tan athleticism. The Marlboro Man without a cigarette, he’d have liked nothing better than to spend his life in the wilderness, sleeping on the ground and foraging for his existence. But he had a family, a PhD in forestry economics, and a job waiting for him at the end of this trip. We put all our trust in his outdoor prowess.
Since Roger’s canoe was the largest and most stable, Brian got in with him. Five years old, Brian was only about thirty-five pounds and three feet, six inches tall and just fit on the tiny, weathered, wood folding chair that was part of the Cox family canoeing tradition. No-legs-no-arm Linda had been plopped on the floor in the middle of his canoe, fake legs sticking straight out in front of her, visible from the waist up, a position from which she could be seen and heard but could not serve any other useful function. It didn’t take long before I felt the chill of the frigid water through the thin floor of the boat.
Tiffany climbed in unceremoniously and perched tentatively on the thin wood-slat seat in the front of Dave’s canoe, her stringy white-blond hair squished under a pink baseball cap. Her white T-shirt was already dingy and her blue jeans wet from wading into the lake. She and Brian were both decked out in cheap bright orange life jackets with black nylon-webbed waistbands and a flat neck support pad that rested on their shoulders. Brian was so small that we had sewn a crotch strap on his so he wouldn’t slide out of it if he went overboard.
“What are we waiting for? Let’s get moving!” Roger barked in his drill sergeant voice. As soon as we were out of sight of the rangers, we threw to the wind our stay-along-the-shore promise and headed straight out across West Thumb Bay’s five miles of open water. Neither Tiffany nor Dave had ever been in a canoe. Dave settled stiffly on the back seat and grimaced, his tightly clenched knuckles threatening to crush the paddles in his hands.
There was one major problem with this early morning scenario: Dave’s canoe seemed to be defective. While Roger and Carla’s plowed straight ahead, Dave’s went left for a few feet and then swung right for a few feet, over and over again, zigzagging across the lake. The ten miles Carla and Roger paddled that day must have translated into twenty for Dave. He’s going to be exhausted. Gotta pull my weight, gotta be useful, gotta make this happen. . . .
I began to sing, “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream . . .” Brian and Roger joined in. Our voices filled the gap between the canoes, and soon we were all singing our way across the lake.
Within ten minutes, a gust of wind whisked Brian’s baseball cap off his head and sent it skittering across the water. Instinctively, he lunged for it. The boat rocked and tipped precariously. “Brian!” I yelled. “Sit down and hang on!” He grabbed the thwart in front of him with both his little hands, squeezed his eyes shut, and clenched his jaw, trying hard not to cry. The canoe tipped rapidly from side to side. My heart beat wildly. Visions of the last moments of other adventurers’ lives blended with the reality of this moment: bodies in motion, no time to snatch a breath, the shock of cold, faces and hands above, the glint of sunlight through water, the press of empty lungs before a frantic grab for the surface, then a lifeless sink three hundred feet to the depths below.
We would not share that fate. Roger, ever the consummate guide, steadied our craft and coolly paddled on.
Breeze Point, Wolf Point, Snipe Point. Names on the map now had sandy or rocky beaches, evergreen trees, wildflowers, and a different vista as we rounded each craggy outcropping. I breathed deeply and opened my eyes wide—the eyes that led to my heart. Memory’s knife slid down my chest and opened it to embrace the vist
as and aromas, ensuring that they became part of my body and soul again.
Brian eventually rested his tiny body against mine. I stroked his soft hair as we slid through the landscape. My relaxation was complete. After all, we were in the middle of an enormous prehistoric caldera with densely packed forests of ancient lodge-pole pines lining the lakeshore. Volcanic mountains shaped the horizon miles away. Bald eagles and ospreys swooped in and out of the trees, dive-bombing into the lake, and soared back up with fish in their talons. What a majestic place.
Way off over the mountains, puffy white clouds painted the quintessential Yellowstone postcard. Unnoticed by me, the shimmering surface of the lake had come to life. Rolling wavelets had started to wear frothy caps. And then, in less than ten minutes, the fabled Big Sky morphed into huge, roiling thunder-heads climbing on top of each other and pushing a vicious wind across the water. My jaw dropped as I watched the storm line race toward us, pushing three-to-four-foot waves directly at us.
Roger and Carla brought their canoes closer together. Roger had saved us once, but he had his family to look after now. My stomach flip-flopped as I looked from canoe to canoe before locking on to Dave. How was he going to save us—a five-year-old who couldn’t swim, an eight-year-old who thought she could do anything, and a wife with one arm?
A few big raindrops plopped onto my jeans and splattered my glasses. Within thirty seconds, I was soaked and watching water drip off Brian’s nose and chin. In less than five minutes, I was floating in my own little lake in the bottom of the canoe. I looked behind me and saw Tiffany and Dave, heads bent low, squinting to keep the deluge out of their eyes so they could keep paddling.
I looked sheepishly at my family, all decked out in their jeans and T-shirts, and my heart sank. Suddenly, my vision of denim being a sturdy, durable fabric that wouldn’t show dirt felt like a stupid, naive choice.
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