My car once had a nice twilight zone look about it... please, allow me to tell you what happened.

In around 1989-1990 somewhere in that range I had gone back to Lake City, Colorado (I was living in Gunnison attending college at the time) for the summer and I went to work for the Murphys (see my ghost story). At the Lakeview Resort. They had sold Murphy's Restaurant (where I worked several summers) and the Lake City Market years before and purchased this prime Lakeside real estate.

From Dishwasher to Cook

I had worked for them in the capacity of a Dishwasher for many a summer since I was old enough to be allowed to work. I also would do a little cooking when they would let me. I later would work a lot of cooking jobs in the Gunnison area when it was not summer. This particular summer I became their Breakfast cook for the lodge, and I also would often come back and be prep-cook for dinner.

This meant I would wake up very early in the morning so I could go prep my kitchen for breakfast. I would drive 15 miles and past a good portion of Lake San Cristobal.

I generally would go home and take a nap during the middle of the day.

Fourth of July

Fourth of July is a big deal in Lake City, Colorado and was one of the most exciting times of the year to be there. My friends spoke about a party they were going to throw. I was always invited to every party because even though I was very anti-alcohol, and anti-drug I was weird and intense enough that they enjoyed having me around.

That day I didn't take my nap.

I was in shutting down the kitchen after serving the dinner at the restaurant and I was the only one out at the resort, as fireworks were starting to go off. (If you ever get a chance, sitting at the mouth of a canyon when fireworks are exploding overhead is an awesome experience)

I was in a hurry. Jumped in my Plymouth Satellite Sebring 1977 I believe. It was my grandma's car that had passed away and had a green color. I liked to drive it fast, I was immortal!!! It had a tendency to fish tail even at slow speeds on dirt roads.

So I am sleep deprived, jump in my car, and in a hurry to get back to town for the festivities...

I look down at my speed on a 25 MPH dirt road on the edge of the lake at one point and I was probably going 55mph and my slow mind thought "I should slow down".

A few seconds later my car went into a four wheel drift with half the U-Turn on the road and the other half suspended in the air over the lake.

My car landed with a nice cushioned splash

I had a ghetto blaster on the passenger side floor and it was blasting music. I remember thinking "I must be dreaming", and had to convince myself that what had happened actually happened.

I remember it was the dusty water smell and my stereo going silent that got through to me.

Years of boy scouts kicked in and I thought "what do you do in a car when it is going in the water?" Don't try to open the door, open a window My window on drivers side was broken such that I had to push it down while the door was open when it needed to be rolled down, so I rolled out down the passenger side window and crawled out on the hood. I am not wet yet It landed so flat in the water the hood was still above water.

I jumped to shore and landed in about 6 inches of water which splashed up to about my chest.

About 15 minutes later someone drove up. The car was submerged by then in the night with headlights still working under the water and moss floating around it.

He drove me several hundred yards back to the Lakeview where I called the sheriff's office from within the kitchen. Then I went back to the sight. Someone had dove in while I was gone (thus, don't leave the scene) to make sure there was no one in the car while I was making that phone call.

That lake is cold too.

So I go to the sheriff's office (years later I would be their IT person, and meet my wife there) and am filling out the report. The sheriff tells me the car I was driving has a record for some handling issues on dirt roads. Yet I was not looking for excuses, it was my fault. I drove that thing like I was immortal (it was my first car and had a big engine). I look back at that summer and some of the other places I drove like a maniac and had anything happened in those cases I would certainly have been dead. So the lake was a wake up call and a gentle one at that.

While I was at the sheriff's office I'd hear them send out cops to break up my friends party.

Later on my friends would all say "Beware of sober drivers"...

Dan Murphy (my boss) nicknamed me Aquaman which all of his family preferred to use for easily a decade after that.

The rest of that summer I flushed that engine repeatedly and rebuilt it. When I was done I had zero money left, but the engine worked. I could work on cars back then. I can't do anything on modern cars, they are very different.

So... to add to my tale of weird thoughts, and things I have done...

I drove my first car into a lake when I was 18.