June 10 - 14, 2008

‎We had purchased my father’s midget race car sometime in late 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.  My brother-in-law Gilbert 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. 

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 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 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 news.  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 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, owned a grain company and was extremely well off.  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.  We also found out that Charlie was travelling in his personal Lear jet.  The woman said that Charlie was thrilled to see the midget was finally returned to the Scott family.  It then became clear why he sold us the car for half of what he had invested in it and half of what it was worth.

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 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, looking at guns, on the way to Oklahoma.  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 I didn’t have anything else to spend my money on, so 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, 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 never had the opportunity to develop it with the divorce and 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 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, but we couldn’t buy it since we were from out of state, even though I was a cop.  We tried in every state that we found a sporting goods store from Nebraska to Nevada but no luck. 

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, clouds.  The radio was reporting tornado sighting 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.  There was a McDonald’s attached.  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.  As I walked towards him I remember thinking how grown up and capable he now was.  A few years earlier and I would have been concerned about the quality of his work.  He finally had me convinced that he had arrived, that he had his act together.  I recall now how he’d get upset if I questioned him or didn’t trust that he could do something.  He always helped me do handyman work around the house while he was growing up.  He’d sneak away to play, but he 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.  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 tornado 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 watching the news and a high rise building on the 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.  Daniel and I listened to my dad’s stories.  Dad’s not much of a listener.  In the morning, more stories and some coffee and toast, then we headed home to end our last adventure.  We travelled over 3500 miles in five days, made my dad’s Father’s Day one that he’ll never forget, and got to spend time with my son, not knowing that in less than 2 ½ months he’d be gone.

In a few days it’ll be one year 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