Notes From New Mexico - Day Three

Yesterday was all about me, me, me, the tumbling Rio Grande River, and millions of acres of Ponderosa Pine and Aspen trees in the high-meadows of the Rockies around Creede and Lake City, Colorado.

When Willow and Forever Amber's (Willow's friend) impassioned conversations about spiritual re-birth and other such things that I know nothing about, began to pick up momentum, I knew it was time for a little alone-time for SueAnn. It's not that I don't respect "new age" spiritualism, or whatever it is called, it is just that I am ignorant about it all and sort of like it that way. So I did what I love to do, I got in Suzette (my car), turned on an audio book (A December Wedding by Anita Shreve - my Aug. book club selection), and hit the road.


As I negotiated the hairpin turns of the climbs and descents through Wolf Creek Pass, and listened to the characters in the book talk about the similar climbs and descents of their lives, I couldn't help but ponder what magnificent geological occurrences, sculpted these dramatic landscapes, and how in heck the pioneers ever got in and out of these canyons.

My minor in college was geology, so I'm fascinated by the violent and more often s-l-o-w and ongoing reconstruction of our earth. I picture the wide swaths of glaciers that sculpted the sheered-off cliffs and the miles-wide rivers that ran through these valleys when those glaciers began to melt - to today's dwindling feet-wide, but still vibrant, cascading rivers, streams, waterfalls, and creeks that ramble along obvious to the Obama administration or my search for cheap gasoline.

I see the crumbling rock slides and am reminded that mountains crumble and valley's fill, over millions of years, and what was high becomes low and what was low becomes high, and I try to wrap my mind around the enormity of it all.

The colors are almost iridescent, as if the thin air at high altitude allows their brilliance a less obstructed passage to my eyes.

Not looking forward to driving the interstate to Colorado Springs today, but grateful for the warm and fun hospitality of Forever Amber, and for the good company of my dear friend of 30+ years, Willow.

My thoughts, prayers and love go today to my dear friend Orlinda who lost her brother. Tienes mi corazon.

Until Manana....

SueAnn