My family’s thoughts and prayers are with those in and around the countless areas still being ravaged by wildfires nationwide, who will be coping with the aftermath for what I pray is a much, much shorter time frame than it feels. I can’t begin to imagine the gravity of living face-to-face with such a situation. The online reports and footage have been heartbreaking to hear and see in every area that’s reported them.
In the case of Colorado Springs, our humanitarian interest contains the slightest tinge of selfishness.
Every year we devote our family vacations to embarking on a road trip to a different location, then posting summaries photos and travelogues for our online friends. One nice advantage to living in Indianapolis is its four outbound interstates that provide convenient access to any number of states within twelve to sixteen hours of driving. Last year we dared to make our first foray into astonishing New York City; the year before that, Philadelphia and other places along the way; two years ago, our longest road trip thus far, out to Rapid City, South Dakota; and so on back to 1999, when we started small with an out-of-town comic book convention.
This year we’re planning on taking our very first steps into Kansas and Colorado. In all our vacation history, this may be the first time a natural disaster requires us to rethink our plans.
Our original itinerary began with a straight shot across I-70 from Indy to Topeka to Denver. After spending sufficient time there, the next step would be a left turn on I-25 to visit the wonders of Colorado Springs, then heading down and to the left for CaƱon City, doubling back to the Pueblo vicinity, then heading home by daring to venture east through the southern half of Kansas without benefit of interstates and hopefully without a surprise stopover in Children of the Corn Town.
Now that some of my MapQuest routes are on fire, some detours may be in order. The official website for the Colorado Springs hotel where we have reservations says they’re closed for the time being. Google Crisis Response (yet another previously unheard-of extension of the sprawling empire of ConGoogleCo Dynamic) has a convenient map tracking wildfire progress. I’m not sure if its 8-bit graphics are advanced enough to incorporate real-time updating. All I know is, where Colorado Springs should be, the ostensible halfway point of our road trip now looks like a Missile Command base that someone failed to protect from enemy bombing. CNN.com reported as of 9:47 p.m. Friday night EDT that the wildfire was 25% contained, but I’m not convinced that a 75%-contained fire the size of a ZIP code qualifies as a supervised fireworks display.
We have a week until takeoff. We have limited time to decide how to go forward, how much of the area to circumnavigate in advance, how much of our vacation to improvise as we go, and whether or not it’s appropriate to approach a scene of chaos and destruction while wearing a Hawaiian shirt and wondering in obnoxious, stentorian tones where to find all the kookiest roadside attractions.
At the absolute very least, I resolve to stop whining about our local weather this week, which has only been figuratively combustible rather than literally so. I plan to be extremely grateful we didn’t schedule our vacation two weeks earlier. Some charitable effort might also not be out of the question. Whether that’s on location or from afar remains to be decided.
Presenting the panel in a poorly lit room were (left to right) original co-founder/editor Mike Gold, who would later move to DC Comics for a memorable time; other co-founder/publisher Ken Levin; and original art director Alex Wald. Not pictured but also on hand was Bill Willingham, more of a household name among comics fans as the creator of Fables, who transitioned from illustrator of RPG materials for TSR to comics artist via First’s first series, the sci-fi anthology Warp (a little before my time). Willingham was double-booked for another panel, but hung out for the first fifteen minutes as a nod to the thirty years passed since First’s startup, and in acknowledgment of their value as an important career stepping stone.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 