Unforgettable Moments, Part 1: Oh My God Road

I got to thinking about this after a conversation with my hubby regarding an upcoming camping trip of his.

It was the summer of 1992. I was 16, and my "Mom" (Grandma, who raised me, thus earning the title) and I had flown out to Colorado to visit my aunt Denise. We drove to Central City and spent the day there. It was full of casinos, but "Mom" and I found some other things to do. We browsed in antique shops, we visited a museum, and we even took a little tour of the local church, which had been there since the town was founded. My aunt Denise and aunt Bernadette both spent a few hours in the casinos.

So we get ready to leave and go back to Denise's apartment, and the parking lot attendant tells us about this "shortcut," out the "back way." "It'll shave off almost an hour of travel time for you," he says (or something to that effect anyway - what do you want from me? That was 15 years ago!!!). So we, being the fools we were, say "Great! Let's go!"

Oh. My. God.

See that twisting line on the photo above? That's not a natural tree line, that's the road. And we started waaaaaaaay up at the top. It's not even IN this photo.

Every time Denise turned the wheel, my "Mom," my aunt Bernadette, and I would scream "OH MY GOD," because we were SURE Denise was going to drive us right off the mountain. To say it was a "harrowing" experience wouldn't even do it justice. We SERIOUSLY thought we were going to die.

So we get down to the bottom, and we stop in the first gas station we come to (in that town there in the photo). We all get out and hit the bathroom, because we nearly pissed ourselves. *lol* Then we go in, and we're talking about our near-death experience when the gas station attendant pipes up. "Y'all come down the mountain?" he asks. "Yeah," we tell him. And then we proceed to tell him how we nearly died of a heart attack. "Well," he says, "you know it's called Oh My God Road, don'tcha?"

What?!?!

He whipped out one of his maps and showed us - sure enough, the road's ACTUAL name is Oh My God Road.

To this day, I don't know what's worse. Actually driving down the road, or finding out afterwards that somebody way back when had the cheek to CALL it Oh My God Road!!!! *lol*