One Day or Many?

Here in northern Virginia, weeks of swelter have been replaced by cool nights, warm sun and low-humidity air. 

I feel like I'm in Colorado again, where you dress in layers that can be peeled off or piled on as the day's warmth waxes and wanes. 

It's an interesting way to live, temperature differences of 30 degrees or more in a single day. Does one get used to it over time, or does one day feel like many?

Family Reunion

We gathered yesterday in Ohio, more than two dozen of us: brothers and sisters, kids and grandkids, aunts and uncles and cousins. Some of us traveled a few miles to be there; others flew or drove for hours.

There were burgers and brats, iced tea and lemonade, potato salad and jam cake. There was a poem, a song, a prayer and a hymn. And stories, of course, so many stories.

Most of all, there was connection — not just to each other but to those who came before, to the absent ones. It was as if in gathering we brought them back.

There was the spitting image of Dad in the face of my oldest cousin. There were his sisters in the eyes and smiles of their sons and daughters.

And then there was all the life and liveliness of the newest generations. They are the future. But it's good to remember where they — and all of us — began.

Scent of Home

On a walk through my parents' old neighborhood in Lexington, where I sniff deeply of the mown grass to see if I can detect the scent of home. 

It's there, I know it is, though I can't put my finger on exactly what's different. 

Is it the bluegrass, full of calcium from the limestone-rich soil? 

Is it the way the light strikes the lawns and releases an aroma?

Or is it knowing that the bones of my ancestors lie in cemeteries just miles away? 

Copperhead!

Wednesday was to be a day of heat and humidity, record-breaking heat, and it would be just that. But it began with a snake-sighting. Not just any snake, but a copperhead. 

This deadly viper is, as I've noted before, "Reston's only venomous snake." Cold comfort when you reach down into your garden bed and one of them sinks its fangs into you — which happened to a friend who'd recently moved to the area.

That the copperhead I found was most assuredly dead did not totally dispel my discomfort. After all, I traipse through these woods often. What other dangers lurk beneath its calm facade? Does this critter have sisters and brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins? I imagine so. 

Having just returned from a place where coyotes call, mountain lions roam and bears break into suburban hot tubs, why shouldn't I come upon a copperhead?

Gas Giants

When I think of the western states we just visited, I imagine the gas giant planets — Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. 

Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona (we didn't stop in the latter, though we were within miles of it) have the same heft and proportions. Their landscapes are bare, alien, even dangerous at times (see yesterday's post). 

Yes, they have an atmosphere, so I won't take the metaphor too far, but there are similarities. They are near the outer edge of this continent, and are some of the last-explored places in the country. Their terrain can be hostile. Human effort appears puny in their vastness. 

Returning from a trip out west, then, is more like falling back to Earth, finding one's self again on safe, familiar ground. 

Flash Flood

Back home now, remembering our adventures, one of which was a little too close for comfort.

It was Friday evening and we had just returned from a day of hiking and sightseeing in Canyonlands when our cell phones began to blare with warning messages of flash floods. Scary, yes, but hardly cause for concern, we thought, tucked away in our motel on Main Street in Moab. 

What hubris! We had only gone across the street to dinner, but decided to browse in a bookstore on the way home. Not just any bookstore, by the way. Back of Beyond was started by friends of the writer Edward Abby shortly after his death in 1989. Its selection of environmental and place titles was phenomenal, and I was absorbed, as I usually am in the presence of great books.  

In retrospect, we should have been alarmed by the sandbags we stepped over to enter the store; we assumed they were just a precaution. But no more than 15 minutes after I snapped the rainbow photo above, I looked out the bookstore window to find that Main Street had vanished — with a river of brown water flowing in its place. 

So much precipitation fell so quickly that creeks overflowed their banks and water poured off the mountains that surround the town. We couldn't exit the front door of the store, but a helpful clerk let us out the back, where we walked several feet before finding that the side street we'd hoped to cross was just as flooded as Main Street. 

We searched for other routes back to our hotel, which we could see but couldn't figure out how to reach. By then it was pouring again, and we had lightning to worry about as well as the swirling stream. It wouldn't be pleasant to wade across, but we had no other choice. 

We took a deep breath and plunged into the water, which came halfway up to my knees. It was murky and brown, cold and deep. The current was brisk. Had the water been a bit higher the cars on the road would have been floating. As it was, I later heard there were people kayaking in downtown Moab. 

By the time we reached the hotel our shoes and pants were soaked. But we were overjoyed to be back on dry ground, and I have a new respect for flash floods. 

Taking the High Road

There are two routes from Taos to Albuquerque. The first is via State Road 68, a straightforward approach through the valley.  It's known as the Low Road or River Road because it parallels the Rio Grande. 

The second is a patchwork of lanes that weave through forests and hillsides, past small farms, galleries and old churches. Like any "blue highway," you feel the lay of the land when you drive it. And if you're prone to motion sickness, as I am, you'd best be behind the wheel.

At first we seemed destined for Route 68. We had a schedule to keep, after all, a flight leaving at 3. But the more I thought about it, the more the High Road called out to me. We wouldn't have time to stop much, but we'd have time to absorb the scenery as we drove through it. 

I'm hoping that those sights, sounds and smells, like all the sensory riches of the last 12 days, will become a part of us. 

Old Walls

Our accommodation in Taos, New Mexico, is a shoebox-sized room with thick adobe walls and a dutch door. The ceiling beams are hewn from thick logs and the bathroom is decorated with colorful tiles. 

In the lobby are potted plants, a small library, and more of those thick adobe walls. 

I think about the lives lived in these snug places, the coziness they promise, the insulation and warmth. In the garden, hollyhocks climb and a small stream ripples. Hammocks promise rest on warm days. 

It's a slower, older way of life here. I think I could get used to it. 

Canyonlands

Utah has five national parks. There is Bryce with its hoodoos, Zion with its waterfalls, Arches with its, well, arches, and Capitol Reef with its domes. And then there is Canyonlands, the park we visited yesterday. 

I expected fewer people and a longer drive from Moab. What I wasn't expecting was grandeur to rival the Grand Canyon. There were mesas and buttes and the Colorado River. There were rim walks and steep drops. There were vistas beyond vistas, and a view called Grand. Maybe not the Grand Canyon, but pretty darn close.

Rainstorm at Arches

I told myself I wouldn't take many photos yesterday when we toured Arches National Park. I'd visited five years ago, on a blue-sky May Monday, and snapped plenty of pictures then. Surely I didn't need anymore.

But the index finger gets peckish in the presence of great natural beauty,. It wants to preserve the vistas. It hovers and snaps, almost without my permission.

I'm telling myself that every photo was justified. Yesterday's weather was more dramatic. Dark thunderheads, lightning, and a driving rain (conveniently timed for our drive out of the park). But I took sunny shots, too. 

Utahhh!

We arrived yesterday in red rock country, Utah, USA,  Moab to be exact. 

The drive from Pagosa Springs took us through passes and canyons, mountains on the horizon.When we arrived I could almost hear the collective sighs escaping from visitors to this magical place. 

It's grandeur on a galactic scale. It reminds me of what our youngest daughter used to ask us on her first trip out west. "What country are we in?"

Can it possibly be the same one that includes Virginia? Doesn't seem possible. 

Chimney Rock

A thousand years ago, Ancestral Puebloans made their home in the desert southwest. Yesterday we trudged the trails they navigated a millennia ago as we explored Chimney Rock, a national monument celebrating Chaco culture.

These were sky-watching people, who learned that every 18 and a half years, the moon would rise between Chimney Rock (right) and Companion Rock, the two sandstone spires above. This alignment is made possible by a phenomenon known as Major Lunar Standstill, a time when the moon appears to pause for three years in its wobbly north-to-south cycle. 

It's believed that the Great House Pueblo we visited today was constructed in 1093 A.D., during one of these times. Another one is happening later this year. I wish I could be here to see it.

Elevation 11,700

We reached the Lobo Pass overlook on our way home from Creede, a quick detour. We piled out of the truck and into the pure air, dark clouds building and rain visible miles away. 

Once again, I tried taking a panoramic photo of the view in front of me, and once again I failed. Instead I tried to memorize what I saw from the pass: the never-endingness of it, dark forested hills in the foreground and sunlit peaks behind. A parfait of mountains, sky and clouds. 

We took turns guessing the elevation. I low-balled it at 8,800 feet, a rookie move since we're staying above 7,000 and this was much higher. Others estimated 9,000 or 10,000. Then we looked it up: 11,700. Almost 12,000 feet above sea level. No wonder it felt like we were on top of the world. 

Last Chance Mine

When we pulled into the cramped parking lot we had gone as far as we could go. Last Chance Mine, the sign read, and that's just what it seemed. Our last chance to visit a mine on this trip, since the Creede Mine was closed. Our last chance to turn around and find the loop road that was taking us around the mountain. 

Turns out, the name had another, more colorful meaning. A long-ago prospector, Ralph Granger, having struck out on other claims, was about to give it all up, move to Denver and become a city boy. This was his last chance to hit it big, he told his cronies down at the bar. But when Granger went to collect his burro (the sale of which would be his ticket out), he couldn't find the critter. He looked around town to no avail, finally locating him 2,000 feet up the mountain. 

Granger was so angry at the wild goose chase that when he reached the burro he beat his hammer on a rock to vent his frustration. And that strike revealed the apex of a rich silver vein that ultimately yielded over $2 billion of the precious medal. 

We toured the mine yesterday, getting a taste of mining life circa 1891. It was fascinating and creepy. The best part: after an hour and a half they let us out. We made our way down to the old Wild West town of Creede, its main street dead-ending in a box canyon, and celebrated with ice cream. 

Ice Cave Ridge

When I was a kid, I liked to explore the farm behind our house. It was mostly a cow pasture, but my romantic 14-year-old self once mapped it, naming one sheltered section the Land of Eternal Snows. 

I probably made this discovery in early March,  and I imagine that the small amount of white stuff that remained was gone the next day, but the Land of Eternal Snows it was.

Today I walked past fissures so protected from the sun that snow can last in them well into June. Since we were hiking in August, these were simply caves, not ice caves, but to peer into them was to see the earth revealing itself, layer by layer. 

What was most impressive about this trail, though, were the views off the ridge: mountains beyond mountains and a brow across from our trail, higher and more impressive than the one where we stood. I stayed well back from the edge. I always do. 

A Golden Day

We arrived during the"golden hour," that magical period of shadows and slanted light, and the arrival time seems to be casting its glow on the whole trip: The view from our place in Pagosa Springs, which goes on forever. 

The funky downtown, with its hot springs, river and old general store.

The late-day walk we took with two doggie friends — short legs, big hearts.

And moonrise over the San Juan National Forest. A golden day from start to finish.

Great Circle Route

It was a clear flight most of the way into Denver yesterday, and I had a window seat. I snapped a few photos and today discovered where they were: Wellington, Ohio; Bellevue, Ohio — places a little south of Lake Erie, whose shores we flew over for a while. 

Less than an hour later we were sailing above the clear blue of a large inland sea: Lake Michigan. From there we angled down through southern Wisconsin and Minnesota, crossing the Mississippi not far from Prairie du Chien. 

Clouds moved in as we traversed Iowa and Nebraska but they cleared as we approached Denver, long enough to see the irrigation circles in eastern Colorado. It was a geography lesson in a nutshell, a lovely morning in the heavens on the great circle route. 

Skipping Ahead

Today we travel west to Pagosa Springs, Colorado. There's family there, and a lot to explore. 

It's been a while since I've driven through the American West, and I'm looking forward to the feeling I get there, a sense of limitlessness, of big skies and possibility. 

As a daughter of parents who drove across the country on their honeymoon, who thought nothing of cramming four kids into a station wagon and heading from Kentucky to California, skipping any part of a land journey feels like cheating. 

I should be driving to Colorado, a part of me says.  But the older, wiser part disagrees. Are you kidding, this is what you always wanted when you were a kid, to skip ahead, to forgo the tedium of familiar landscapes for the crisp, pure difference of western terrains. 

Skipping ahead is what we plan to do today.

(Colorado's Great Sand Dunes, 2019.) 

A Cabin in the Woods

As I re-acclimate to a quieter life from the whirl that was last week, I keep seeing our cabin in the woods. It's a tucked-away place but close to hiking trails and sand beaches. 

Seeing it empty, as I do every year in the final minutes of our stay, making the rounds to check that windows are locked and trash is emptied, I'm struck by how much people animate place.

The couch and tables, beds and chairs, even the perfect porch that spans the back, are nothing without the daughters and sons-in-law and grandchildren who animate them. So even though I'm missing the cabin, I'm missing the people more.

Rock Maze

The rocks appeared when we were told they would, a half mile into a fern forest. They seemed to emerge from the center of the earth, massive shelves of rock, dim and cavelike, green with moss. 

Rhododendron trees twined their roots around and through the rocks, and fissures erupted where you least expected them. It was an accidental discovery, a place found while looking for somewhere else. It was eerie and awe-inspiring, a glimpse of another world. I'm so glad we explored Maryland's Rock Maze.