1951 Dodge

When I was 18 years old, I lived part of the year camping in the back of a 1951 Dodge 2-ton Stake Truck with my friend Joe Lopp. We camped all over the Colorado Rockies and explored many of the peaks and valleys along the way. We would pull off the road and just start climbing up a ranchers trail in that awesome truck that was high off the road and had a first gear that allowed it to climb almost anything. That truck took us to places I never dreamed I'd see. We would set up our camp kitchen by digging a fire pit and dragging a week's worth of firewood out of the forest to use under a rod iron cooking rack that would let us hang a pot over the fire. We had a 2-quart cast iron cook pot with a lid that made some of the best chili, chicken and biscuits, fried fish caught 20 feet away right out of the river, and sausage gravy that was to this day the greatest I've ever had.

Our camp included a huge tarp cover that we would suspend about 12 feet high from three trees in such a way that if it rained the water would be diverted away from camp keeping everything dry. We kept our supplies and bedding in the back of the truck making the whole show feel very much like a modern day wagon such as the pioneers had used only a hundred years earlier. It was just the same except for their horse power was ox power and ours was under the hood!

We were young hippies… just out of high school without a care in the world. It was an incredible summer. There were days when we would pack enough gear in our backpacks to climb up and up and up for hours just to explore what was there. A few times, we stayed out for a night or two just hiking and exploring and swimming in the glacier lakes where perhaps no one had ever been before. This was a summer that I would not trade for anything. It wasn't always easy and it came with its own set of mistakes and difficulties, but the sense of accomplishment and independence and freedom of knowing that this was our brief window, our moment in time before we moved away from childhood into the responsibilities of adulthood. In a sense it was like living in a movie…except it was my reality and I write about it now in amazement! I wore colorful long skirts with tie dyed shirts, mountain hiking boots, and a bandana in my hair. We smoked pot from a bong every day, climbed trees, chased the wildlife, and swam naked in the rivers. One day while hiking well above the tree line in the peaks east of Aspen, we heard a loud crash/thump noise. It stopped us in our tracks for a minute before continuing. A few minutes later we heard it again… it was coming from the other side of the hill we were climbing. We quieted our steps and slowed our pace a bit while at the same time trying to hurry in anticipation of what could possibly be causing this loud crashing thump noise. The air was clear and thin and we had to maintain a steady pace stopping frequently to catch our breath. Crash..We heard it again! It was really loud now. As we made our way, one slow step at a time coming over the top of the hill we saw there in the meadow two big horn sheep opposing each other about 60 feet apart just starting to run full speed toward each other and CRASH THUMP they blasted each other's horns and twisted their heads together for a minute before pacing backwards to their perspective origins only to repeat the steps again and again. We watched in amazement not believing our eyes. Two big horn sheep ramming each other to prove themselves to be the finest. We stayed back by an outcropping of rocks, the wind was in our faces so we knew they couldn't smell us… we were undetected for several minutes before they sensed that something had changed. Then one of them bounded down the hill to it's own hidden valley and the other seemed to wander that way in no hurry at all….

I know it doesn't seem like this story has anything much to do with cars, but for me, this is just one of the memories of a 1951 Dodge 2-ton Stake Bed Truck that we would park under a tarp in the trees when it rained. These memories have given me an amazing source of energy to face the things of life even all these years later. Oh my, what a ride!

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