Calvin "Wayne" Huffman

Natalie and Ross. I am sorry to hear about Wayne´s death. We once went camping in Colorado and hiked up mount Elbert and Mount Massive. I was concerned about his adjustment to the altitude but he had no problem at all. One night we camped out near Westcliff Colorado. We decided to drive into town to check out a somewhat rough biker bar. The experience turned out to be a good one and we even beat some local good ol boys shooting pool. Wayne had no trouble at all fitting in with the crowd. Later that night we had a bear come imo the camping area looking for food. We made a commotion and he retreated back in to the pine trees.
On the trip Wayne shared a lot of information about his trip to Nepal. His enthusiasm about the experience led me to plan a highly exciting trip there too. I hadn´t seen Wayne in many years so it was great to visit with him at Sue´s memorial get together last year. Wayne was a unique individual and I am glad that I was able to share some time with him on the road of life.
Ron Erwin

Natalie, I wish I got to spend an afternoon with your dad to hear some of his life stories first-hand and to get to know him. Condolences to you and the family.

I adored my Uncle Wayne. He was not only my uncle, but as I got older, he was my friend. Growing up, he was the fun uncle that I liked to endlessly hang off of; he was always in and out of my grandmother's house from some far away locale, full of adventurous stories and tales of what my grandmother saw as potential hazards that ended up with her almost having a heart attack. Which of course we all thought was so funny. One time caught "on the other side of the Berlin wall," which I pictured as a wall he could not get over, my grandmother did not sleep for months over this and from this moment on, I knew he had gone rogue and little did I know that this was how he was going to live his life. He loved an adventure and made one out of even a trail walk in his later years. We would go on a hike and end up in a place where amazingly we would find a margarita or a beer and sit outside and sweat and talk about life. I ran things by him that I struggled with; he didn't necessarily want to hear probably, but he would have a take that was common sense and I ended up laughing and not thinking it was all end of the world.
Wayne looked at life as a flow and fun and to be enjoyed; the glass was half full because there was so much to see and do.
One of our last adventures was going to his beloved Big Bend area where he had a compound in Alpine. He went back and forth and one of these backs, I accompanied him. How crazy can it be to go with your elderly uncle to a place that people go to commune with nature and enjoy a slower pace of life? Well, he drove like a bat out of hell and I couldn't tell if he could really see the road through his dirty windshield and even dirtier glasses or he just knew the road by heart. I was yelling over the wind blowing through the car as we were driving with the windows down because the ac didn't work. We careened around corners, went up and down blind hills; the whole time he's telling me to notice something which I couldn't really do because my heart was in my throat and I was trying to put my feet on his floorboards through all the crap he had thrown down there. Stuff was rolling around and I almost thought I could see the flashing road through a hole in the floorboard, a la Fred Flintstone. This fear was compounded by his stories of how AI and robots were going to take over the world and humans would basically become extinct. Now I'm freaked out physically and mentally; I don't know whether I'm going to be a goner from the robot situation or the drive. All was good though because we ended up in Terlinqua with a beer and a sunset and some damn good food and conversation.
He and my aunt Sue gifted me with my fabulous cousins, Natalie and Ross and we will continue his adventures and continue to toast his well-lived life.