Bill and Cathy McArthur on the Road 2004: 16
On Tuesday, March 23, we followed the same morning schedule. During late
morning we drove to the Aspen Park Drugstore to pick up some prescriptions. Then
we went into Conifer Perk coffee shop to buy some coffee and get on the
Internet. Our laptop wouldn’t connect to the Internet and we worried that maybe
the computer was going bad again. We drove on to the Evergreen Public Library
and got connected there. We returned back to the rental house for lunch. Bill
did a 2:30 – 3:30 PM shift with Jack
and walked up; Cathy delivered a bunt cake with the XTerra.
Later, we walked from the rental house to Jack and JoAnn’s
and back. Bill jumped in the spa afterward. We ate a dinner of rice and beans
and a turkey burger for Cathy in the rental house. After dinner, Bill soaked in
the spa again.
Wednesday morning followed the usual
schedule. We said goodbye to Joan and the girls as they left for the airport
around 8:30 AM. We drove to the
Evergreen Library for a computer session and then parked in downtown Evergreen.
We enjoyed coffees in the local coffee shop and then took a nice 1.5 mile walk
around Evergreen Lake.
We ate lunch back at the rental house and then Bill walked up for his afternoon
shift. Afterward, we drove to Historic Golden and walked along Clear Creek for
a while. This very pretty area is probably crowded in summer, but it was
sparsely populated as we walked. We ate dinner at the Chart House at exit 254 of I70. The seafood
was surprisingly good for a place so far from any ocean. We discovered that the
Chart House restaurants were founded in Aspen
by a couple of surfers/skiers from Southern California.
The prices were similar to Cape May’s restaurants. We
had a bit of a scare when the waitress failed to return our credit card after
dinner. Bill noted a bald waiter picking something from the floor near the
salad bar and give it to a man standing behind the
salad bar. Bill surmised that it was our credit card and the guy with it was
probably speeding to a store where he could charge a
$800 item. Our waitress was perplexed when we claimed that we hadn’t received
our credit card. When Bill described what he had seen, our waitress asked the
bald waiter about it and, sure enough, the manager had our credit card. Since
we had lost one credit card in Cancun, we didn’t want to
lose another on this trip.
Bill did his Thursday morning shift with
Jack and we said goodbye to John and his partner Mike. John was heading to California
for a few days and Mike was heading home to London.
We shopped at King Sooper for ingredients for a
Chicken Divan dinner for Jack and JoAnn’s house.
Their daughter Julie, husband Dave, and baby Jillian were arriving during the
afternoon. We drove to Central City through the beautiful Clear
Creek Canyon.
Central City and its neighbor, Blackhawk, are old mining towns that are now
filled with casinos; it’s not inappropriate, but it seems somewhat incongruous.
We ate lunch at the restaurant of one of the smaller casinos and had a
satisfactory meal. We started to drive on the “Oh my God” Road, but Cathy nixed
it because the road is mostly unpaved. We headed back to Historic Golden and
did a short-form tour of the Coors Brewery. We just visited the gift shop and
bought a couple of items for our friend Jim Matthews (Carol’s husband), who has
Coors Light running in his veins. Cathy prepared the Chicken Divan and we
delivered it to Jack and JoAnn’s house around 5:30 PM. We had a chance to meet baby Jillian
and visit with Dave and Julie for a while. We returned to the rental house and
ate turkey burger and rice pilaf dinner. We watched NCAA basketball until the
conclusion of the St. Joes game at about 10:30
PM. Although I didn’t root for St. Joes (no respectable Villanova
grad could or should), I wasn’t displeased with the outcome as St. Joes won the
game.
Friday morning was 38 degrees as Bill
drove to Jack and JoAnn’s at 6:05 AM. By the time Cathy arrived at 8:00 AM, it was in the 60s, thanks to the bright sun. We
drove to Georgetown, another
historic mining town about 25 miles west on I70. The Visitors
Center is large and modern, but the
town is very small and of little interest. Georgetown
has an elevation of about 8400 feet and sits in a valley surrounded by cliffs.
It is very picturesque, but doesn’t get much sunlight. Bill decided to drive up
to Guanella
Pass, a scenic drive on a mostly
unpaved road. Cathy decided to stay in the Visitors
Center. It was a beautiful 8 mile
drive and no worse than many of the roads that we drove in the Mexican
mountains. At the top it was 47 degrees and windy, but spectacular with Mt.
Evans and Mt.
Bierstadt
both towering above the 14,000 foot mark nearby. On the drive down from the
pass, Tom called on the cell phone and reported that Katie was doing fine after
a successful medical procedure. Bill reported that good news to Cathy after
rejoining her at the Vistitors
Center. We drove to the Evergreen
Library to use their wireless network. Afterward, we walked around Evergreen
Lake and searched for a copy of “Angels and
Demons” for Bill who had just finished “The Da Vinci Code” (and liked it). We
located a copy in the Walmart near I70. We also
dropped off some supplies to Jack and JoAnn and
headed to the rental house for a dinner of a frozen Healthy Choice entrée
(Cathy) and Red Beans and Rice (Bill). We watched some NCAA basketball in the
evening.
On Saturday morning it was foggy and
chilly. Bill did his morning shift with Jack, who was very talkative and in
good spirits. We ate lunch at Starbucks in Golden and then went to the Golden
Public Library to get on the Internet. We picked up John at the Denver
Airport and discovered that the
airport declares all flights “on time” even if they’re late. John’s flight from
San Francisco was 40 minutes late,
but we saw that it was on time on the flight board and were told by two
different airport desks that it was on time. We delivered John to Jack and JoAnn’s house and picked up the box of mail that Katie had
sent to us. We sorted out the mail and then went to El Rancho Colorado
restaurant for dinner. We deviated from the good meals that we had last time
and ended up with lesser quality meals.
During Sunday morning’s shift with Jack,
Bill noticed Jack’s condition deteriorating somewhat. This was reinforced by
the hospice nurse later in the morning. We drove to Golden and ate a great
pizza for lunch at Woody’s. The temperature was in the 30s and we had
intermittent snow and sleet. Then we went to Kinko’s and downloaded a printer
driver and updates for our four versions of Turbo Tax. We returned to the
rental house and worked on our income tax. We left around 5:30 PM to visit and eat dinner with our friends Nancy and
Larry at their house in a suburb of Denver.
Since we met on the RV tour in Mexico,
we enjoyed recounting events from those 44 days. After a good meal and good
conversation, we headed back to the rental house where it was 30 degrees
outside.
Monday morning, Bill did his morning shift
at Jack and JoAnn’s. Jack was mostly unresponsive
during the day. We ate lunch at Jack and JoAnn’s
house. Then, we drove to Evergreen to process emails at the Evergreen library.
Afterward, we parked in Evergreen, got mochas at Baskin and Robbins and walked
around the Evergreen Lake.
We dropped off a rotisserie chicken at Jack and JoAnn’s.
When we got back to the rental house, Bill soaked in the hot tub and then we
ate dinner. After dinner, Cathy baked a cake for JoAnn
and company while Bill worked on income tax.
Tuesday morning Bill picked up Dave to drive
him to the airport at 5:30 AM. When
Bill returned from the airport, we brought the cake to Jack and JoAnn’s. We returned to the rental house for lunch. We
finished up our work on the income taxes and printed them and then walked back
up to Jack and JoAnn’s. Jack and JoAnn’s
daughter Joan arrived from the airport shortly thereafter. Later, we walked
back to the rental house and drove to Evergreen to process email. We both
wanted to have a “California Dreaming” pizza for dinner, so we drove to
historic Golden and ate at Woody’s.
On Wednesday morning, Bill showed up for
his morning shift and found that Jack was hardly breathing. Evidently it had
been a long night for JoAnn, Julie, John, and Joan
because Jack was having spells of sleep apnea and not breathing for up to a
minute. Nobody else in the house was getting enough sleep. Although Jack was
completely unresponsive, Bill took an opportunity to say good-bye to him. We
drove to Evergreen to mail our income taxes at the post office. Then we did
some shopping at King Soopers and brought some cold
cuts and fruit back to Jack and JoAnn’s for their
lunch. We ate lunch in the rental house. Bill took an hour-long walk and then
we both walked up to Jack and JoAnn’s house. We left
around 5:00 PM and walked back
through an elk herd to the rental house. We ate dinner at the rental house. We
got a phone call from Jack’s son John that Jack had passed away at 8:45 PM.
Jack died in comfort with his family around him. The hospice nurse, Nancy,
continued to be a great help to everybody. Memorial contributions can be sent
in the name of Jack McArthur to
either of:
Mt. Evans Hospice, Inc.
3271 Evergreen Parkway Suite 9
P.O. Box 2770
Evergreen, CO 80437-2770
Samaritan House
c/o Father John Lager
2301 Lawrence Street
Denver, CO 80205
Bill and Cathy