Hello fellow travelers,
I have been writing, but didn't realize it had been such a long time since I'd written on this blog. Editing and re-editing the memoir, developing a workshop I'm giving for the fall, leading the healing ministry group and the training, ushering at our wonderful Colorado Music Festival and a couple of other things--and finding time to hike in these beloved mountains--it's been a busy summer! This is the final week of the Music Festival. The usher part of me is ready for it to end. The music lover would have it continue though not with two or three concerts in a week. Last night after the concert as I headed down the hill to my car, I was filled with joy and gratitude that I could be at Boulder's Chautauqua Park for this inspiring series.
I am reading a book on hardwiring happiness in the brain. It has specific exercises that are useful. I also find that if I allow all the joy that is available to me for each blessing, however small, I'm happy much of the time. For instance, this morning I needed new flowers to add to a bouquet from yesterday's church service to replace two or three that had drooped too much to take to the lovely shut-in I'm seeing this afternoon. I also needed to replenish my gas tank so I can drive to Estes Park tomorrow. First I found a spot at the crowded gas station nearest the florist's without waiting in line, and then, when I explained to the florist why I needed two or three individual flowers, she picked three of the prettiest orange and yellow zinnias, wired them and gave them to me at no cost. I left the shop filled with joy and gratitude! Watering my flowers on my return home, I marveled at how lovely they are for this time in August. I couldn't wait to write about joy, though query letters wait to be sent to new agents.
There have been too many wonderful hikes to recount in one writing. Saturday's will suffice for this post. And you will likely recall another time when I wrote about the hike from the Fourth of July trailhead through the flowers to the narrow above-tree-line climb to Lake Dorothy. I didn't take a companion. It was, after all, a Saturday. I wanted to poke and look at the flowers without feeling rushed. I wanted to decide whether I was going past the 4th of July Mine site on to the Ridge or the lake as I reached that point. It had been two years since I hiked to Dorothy at a bit over 12,000 ft. It was later in the season, and I wondered about the flowers. They were lovely!!! It was mid-season for the flowers, but even then columbine, usually an earlier flower, dotted meadows and mixed with larkspur, monkshood, paintbrush, and alpine sunflowers.
Most of the alpine flowers on the high trail were gone, but the views on a cloudless day and watching my steps on the rocks kept me busy. Reaching the turn to Lake Dorothy, I treked on, feeling no fatigue. There were lots of folks on the upper part of the trail, as many as I remember seeing, so imagine my surprise to reach the lake with only a family group at one end of the shore, a couple in the middle and me! The woman from the couple came over to chat about the lake and a particular flower she wanted me to see. I ate lunch and enjoyed the lake. From their, I hiked up to the point on Caribou Pass--the spot where if I had taken another step, I would have been on my way down to a lake on the other side of the Continental Divide. There I met a younger man and his niece who had come up from the western side. A Kansan, he recognized my accent as belonging to the Missouri Ozarks, highly unusual out here. His business partner is from a town near Springfield. I perched on a rock and enjoy the view before beginning my trek down the mountainside.
Caribou Lake in the valley below the ridge
After passing and being passed by a man and woman hiking together, exchanging comments, we hiked together through the flowering hillsides, again enjoying the beauty. Stopping to enjoy the flowers on the way down this trail is a luxury. Often it is either raining and sleeting or threatening thunderstorms. We enjoyed our time together and exchanged e-mails. I left them taking more photographs at a waterfall and hiked my "going to the barn" speed to the trailhead and my car. Only the deep potholes and rocky ledges on the drive down reminded me that not all was paradise on that mountainside.
No comments:
Post a Comment