Something really cool - literally!

On our trip to Red River we were riding behind my brother-in-law Harold Sexton and my sister Vicki. The road we traveled in that mountainous area was full of twists and turns. We rounded a curve and Dana throttled up the bike for the straight way which lay ahead when all of a sudden my brother-in -law made a very sudden stop followed my a u-turn and headed back passing us in the process. After a few chosen cuss words Dana followed suit. By the time we got turned around Harold and Vicki had pulled over to the side of the road and had hopped off their bike.

My sister Vicki was excited as she told us why we had made such a sudden stop. You will remember from my last post that although my father leased a small cafe in Red River for many summers I had not officially visited there until this trip. Prior to my birth my entire family spent many wonderful summers in Red River and all of my life I would sit and listen to them tell stories about those same summers. One of Vicki's memories was making the car trip from our home in Clayton, New Mexico up to Red River. She said that just before reaching Red River our father would always stop the car and let her and my big sister, La Vonne, get out of the car and get a drink of water from this trough made from a tall tree that had fallen and the mountain stream ran in such a way that the water came running down the length of the tree before dropping back into a stream. Whether natural or man made I can't say but Vicki told us that Daddy always stopped there for as far back as she could remember.

Now suddenly, going down the road Vicki spotted this old "rest stop" that she had not visited in 51 years.



We all bent down and drank from this ice cold fountain and marveled that it was still here after all this time. It was bittersweet - the occasion not the water - to think of our father and mother and our grandparents who had been such a large part of our association with Red River and to be here now without them. So much time has passed and so much has changed but the water, the water is still flowing...