Of recklessness and water

Lately I've been itching to visit Flaming Gorge. I spent 3 years of my life there, and despite the fact that I hated my parents for making me move there, it is one of my favorite places in the world (you might consider it to be my Brokeback Mountain, although in a less gay cowboy kind of way).

My friend Flieswithoutwings put it well when he described living there as "being part of a magical place and time." I've thought about what it would be like to move back there some day, perhaps after I retire, but it wouldn't be the same unless all my favorite people moved back there too.

I'd like to pay a visit to the area during Spring Break, but don't know if I can afford it. I have a million stories about the area, and Flieswithoutwings has done a good job of telling some of them in his 'Chronicles of Cow Country High' series, but here's one that I thought of the other day and thought I'd share. Besides, I doubt this one is worthy of inclusion in The Chronicles.

Flaming Gorge Reservoir is a fairly large body of water, and approaches a depth of approximately 500 feet in some places. Late one summer night we went swimming off the docks at the visitor's center on the dam (even though it wasn't legal). I decided to swim over and touch the dam. I have to say that it was unsettling by the time I got there because of the amount of water that was beneath me. I had the feeling that if I were to sink to the bottom, my body would never be found. I followed through and touched the dam, but it wasn't a task I was eager to perform again.

As with any body of water that big, there were always rumors about bodies being found by fishermen who were trolling and would think they'd hooked a large fish only to end up netting a human body (in full or in part). Usually the stories stated that the body had multiple fishing lures stuck to its skin (a sure sign of an urban legend, even though the area was far from urban).

While I doubt the authenticity of some of the stories I heard while I lived in the area, there are certainly plenty of bodies in that lake. My mom had a cousin who drowned there when his boat capsized during a storm and whose body was never found. With water so deep, you could imagine that it would be a good place to dispose of a body. In fact, it is believed that Ted Bundy dumped a few of his victims' bodies there.

One day we were talking about how it was kind of creepy that we'd swim in waters where bodies were decomposing. Not that it deterred us, but it is kind of gross when you think about it. During the conversation one of my friends proclaimed, "You know, my missing aunt used to date Ted Bundy."