Thank you, Andi and Randi. You are both wonderful!
My wife climbed mountains
... but not with me
I knew she loved to climb. I just didn't know how much.
There are mountains around the world that attract climbers like magnets attract some metals. Lori was one of those climbers.
She and I had been dating just a short time when she started talking about mountain climbing. She told me that she and some friends of hers had climbed a couple of them. I asked a couple of basic questions that launched her into a two hour dissertation which took three beers to finish. I learned the A-B-C's of climbing and was never so disinterested in anything in my life. I was, however, interested in her. She wasn't a raving beauty, but she was very attractive and built like the proverbial brick shit house.
I was sufficiently up to speed on her friends and their hobby while she and I were at a bar eating the best cheeseburgers and fries in Southwest Louisiana and washing them down with ice-cold beer. The bar was, coincidentally, where we met, and I was responsible for making those burgers. I worked there as the grillmaster. The name of the bar was "Geaux Joe's" (Pronounced Go Joe's). She and her friends used to come in, sit at two tables and enjoy them. She came in alone a few times, chatted with me and we ended up dating, but I had no idea she was wealthy until we went on our first date in her Ferrari.
We had been together several months and were sitting in the bar enjoying our burgers, beers and fries when Jim and Liz, friends of hers, joined us.
The first thing out of Liz's mouth was to ask Lori if she was ready. "Of course. Are you two? "They were planning a trip to Colorado for another climb.
"You bet your ass we are," Jim answered immediately.
Early in our relationship, when she told me about her passion for climbing mountains, she told me that she and five old friends, including Jim and Liz, had climbed Mt Denali in Alaska, and Mt Elbrus in Russia. Her family was beyond wealthy, had a house in Colorado and she would go there to practice on the 52 Mountains in the Colorado section of the Rocky Mountain Chain that are at least 14,000 feet high. They're called "The Fourteeners".
It became something of an irritation that she wanted to go there twice a month on extended weekends just to climb. Rocks, ice, anything she could climb... even me.
Climbing made her horny as fuck, so that part I didn't mind. It was the constant chatter about climbing that got to me. I likened it to a man who was a fanatic about sports, or any other obsession and wouldn't shut up about it.
Despite my being of tired of hearing about her and her friends and their mountains, and my not showing the slightest interest in joining them, we decided to get married. I felt I could change her. Ha!
Our honeymoon was Africa and Mt. Kilimanjaro, where I went on a safari while she and her friends climbed the mountain. The month before the wedding was spent more on planning the climb than the wedding. I would venture to say that our wedding was different because the groom, which was me, spent more time planning it than the bride, which was her, and I got sooo fucking tired of their chatter about mountains. I seriously considered breaking our engagement more than once because I felt that I was number two in her life; not number one. Actually I was number five after Denali, Elbrus, Kilimanjaro, and Aconcagua. Aconcagua is in Argentina, and was to be their next climb after Kilimanjaro.
I had met the whole group and always felt like the odd man out. Whenever they were at our house; which seemed to be daily, it was me who kept them in snacks and drinks while they relived all of their climbs starting with Longs Peak in Colorado when they were teens. I never quite learned how six people from Southwest Louisiana, developed a passion for mountains thousands of feet above sea level when their elevation in Louisiana was approximately 12. One would think their preferences would be more in the arena of bayous and marshland.
The group started in middle school, where they first met as classmates and were assigned to work on a project together. One group had to build The Alamo, another the U.S. Capitol Building. Lori's group got Mt. Everest; and so it began.
Her family has money. Lots of it, so she could afford the equipment, trips for training and the cost, but only one of her team members had that kind of money. The rest were everyday, blue collar workers. It was none of my business, but I did ask her about it a couple of times. She said she had no idea, and left it at that.
We were married, and two days later flew into Nairobi then Arusha, the city from which the climb started. We flew First Class, as we always did, and met her team in Arusha. The climb took eight days, and while they were climbing I rode around in an open truck with other tourists looking at animals. I never told anyone I was on my honeymoon.
When they came down, there was a big celebration, and I, again, felt like the odd man out with nothing in common with those people. They shared the photos they took and passed their phones around while telling stories about what was happening when the photos were taken. I was shown some, but they meant nothing to me. I remember hoping that once we got home, I would, finally be the center of her world.
We settled down in the big, new house her parents gave us, and drove around in the new Ferraris Lori bought for us. It was great for over a year. I was a really spoiled guy who didn't need a job. I tried to keep my job at the bar, but Lori's travel desires superseded that, so I quit.
The initial thought of that jet setting lifestyle may be tempting, but it started getting old after the first year. We talked about it, but she wanted me to not work and just travel. "We need to enjoy life while we're young and are able. Do you know how many people dream of a life like ours?"
"I can only imagine." I answered, not saying what I really thought.
I muddled through that year, schlepping her gear from one fourteener to another or to Mt. Rainier. The group was getting ready for Argentina.
I was waiting for her after her second climb of Rainier that first year we were married. "I can't do this anymore. I'm not asking you to stop doing something you obviously love, but I am asking you to take me into consideration and at the very least, cut down on travel and climbing."
"I'm sorry, Jamie. I promise I'll do better." And she did, until time came to concentrate on training for Aconcagua. Her crew started working toward their climb, which was to be in January. She and I spent Christmas and New Years in Colorado, with her hiking up and down mountains and checking and doublechecking her gear.
Then it was time for her to leave to meet the crew in Mendoza, Argentina. She would fly into Santiago, Chile, then to Mendoza, meeting the crew and their guides before starting the climb. It would take them two weeks to get to the top.
We were in Colorado when she left. We took her gear to the airport, checked it and she got on her plane. She was to fly to Miami, change planes, then on to Argentina. That was on Saturday. The climb was to begin on Tuesday.
I was on my way back to her parents' house in Estes Park. I was scheduled to fly home the next day. On my way, I received a call from her phone. "What's wrong?"
"Uh...Is this Mr. Fontenot?"
"Yes."
"We found this phone in the boarding area of Denver Airport. It has you listed as an emergency contact."
"How did you call me? Wasn't it locked?"
"Yes, sir, it is, but when you push the 'home' button the word Emergency is at the bottom, and even though we couldn't open it, we could press the Medical ID button and your name and number showed up as an emergency contact, so we were able to call. Anyway, apparently she left it in the boarding area."
"Well, could you hold on to it? I'll come back and get it." I had no idea they could do that. I looked at my phone, and they were right.
"Of course. It will be at our ticket counter in Terminal B."
I turned around, retrieved her phone, then went home, planning on calling her hotel in Mendoza the next day, but she beat me to it.
On Sunday, after she arrived in Santiago, she called to tell me she lost her phone, her gear never made it and the airline didn't know where it was. "Find my gear and get it here. FedEx, UPS, overnight... just get it here. Other than telling me she had lost her phone, it wasn't mentioned and she never gave me time to tell her I had it. Her main concern was for the gear. I started tracing it and discovered it had never left Denver.