A lifetime of trails, one after another.
From a reservation marina in Arizona to a carnival lot, an Army post, a bucket truck, and a stage built from driftwood: the real road that led to Lost in Colorado.
Ten stops on one long trail.
Arizona, the carnival circuit, the Army, the sky, the trade, and the river. Scroll the path from the very first mile.
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San Carlos, Arizona
Boots before books
Born in Gassville, Arkansas, to a single mom and adopted at birth by his grandparents, Everett and Velma, who ran the Coolidge Dam Marina on the San Carlos Apache reservation where he was one of the only Caucasian kids in his school. When his grandmother came down with MS, they relocated to Tucson for better care, and when the medical bills ate through their savings, he and his grandfather became fruit tramps up the West Coast: picking fruit, cutting asparagus, picking strawberries and zucchini.
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Age elevenRunning off with the carnival
As his grandfather's grief over losing his wife turned to a drinking problem, life got hard, and at eleven Tom ran away and joined a traveling carnival. Tall and tough for his age, he worked several concessions and was treated like family by the Siebrand Brothers Circus and Carnival owners. By thirteen he was driving a semi-truck hauling a small roller coaster from town to town.
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1966-1975Answering the call
In 1966 Tom moved to the Salinas/Monterey area of California, where he found his biological mother working at a truck stop and briefly attended Alisal High School. In 1969 he enlisted in the US Army, serving active duty until 1972 and reserves for three more years, through the Vietnam era.
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Seven summersTouring the Maritimes
Tom's life kept moving: he toured the Canadian Maritimes with the Bill Lynch Shows, owning and operating multiple carnival concessions every spring and summer for seven years.
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1975 onward
Wheels up
Tom built his first aircraft, a ROTEC ultralight, and never really stopped buying and flying real airplanes, flying airshows on the West Coast, and eventually floatplanes into the backcountry.
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1982Sparks and steel
Tom got certified as an electrician and opened Seidel Electric in Salinas, doing industrial and commercial work primarily for the big produce companies. His youngest son, Chase, still runs it today.
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Many stints, many trailsAdventures in between
Alaskan fishing guide, gold dredge operator, working the mines of Wyoming, and in 2006, a trip to Louisiana to help with the Katrina disaster relief: just a few of the stops along the way.
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A partner for the trailHis wife
Somewhere along the way, he found the woman who'd share every mile of the adventure that followed.
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After retiringA song and a stage
Tom built a resort on Idaho's famous River of No Return, sponsored a music venue on the Driftwood Stage built from logs he dragged out of the river himself and added a boutique RV park at the entrance to Idaho's Hells Canyon. Most nights, he's still the one behind the mic.
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TodaySome trails don't lead home
He spent twenty-five years writing Lost in Colorado and is already deep into book two of the trilogy: a new adventure in the twilight of a life full of them.
Still behind the mic.
When Tom's off the water and off the page, he's usually got a guitar in hand on the Driftwood Stage, the music venue he built from logs pulled out of Idaho's River of No Return.
From runaway to fruit tramp, to the carnival to the electrical trade and it hasn't stopped yet. This is just the next adventure.
Lost in Colorado
Some trails don't lead home.
Twenty-five years in the making. Two lifelong friends follow an elk trail into Colorado's San Juan Mountains and step into something that doesn't belong to this world. Book two of the trilogy is already underway.