I was so immersed in the fact that I puked on the trip home from Junction that I forgot about this.

We were coming up on a small mountain town called Alma. It so tiny that it takes about 5 minutes to drive through the whole place. There are no stoplights. There are some small houses, some stores, a couple restaurants and bars. But no people. Never any people.

Dad pointed out this observation when we hit the edge of town. "You never see any people in this place. It's kind of creepy. It's like a ghost town." I had never realized it before but he was right so I started looking hard for a human being to point out. At the opposite end of town in front of a restaurant there was a minivan. In the back seat was a little boy who looked to be about three or four. He was waving at the road.

"There's someone!" I cried.

"Where," Mom & Dad asked in unison.

"In that van." We passed the van and climbing into the passenger side was an older guy with long white hair and a long beard wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt. "And there's a long-haired hippy Grandpa!"

"Where," they asked again.

"Right there in that minivan!"

"I don't see anyone," Mom said. Dad agreed.

"They were right there," I argued. "The hippy was getting in the van and the little boy was waving."

"Was he waving at us," Dad asked.

"Nooooo...he was kind of waving blindly." Dad then started flailing his arms about in an attempt to make fun of me. "You didn't see them?"

Mom and Dad exchanged looks. Then Dad said, "She sees dead people."

"I did NOT see dead people! They were there, how could you miss them?"

And all Dad would say after that was "She sees dead people."

It really kind of creeped me out. Were they real? Or were they phantoms from a time when people really did walk the streets of Alma, Colorado?

|