From Big City to Big Sky

In the last month, I've gone from city girl to country girl. 

I've gone from population half million to population 1,700 and from commuting 20 miles each day to leaving my car parked in the driveway and walking about a mile to get the mail.

The contrast is striking. 

I loved the pulse of the city, the choices of food and entertainment, and the strange anonymous community of public transportation. 

But I'm a small-town girl at heart, and the city often made me feel claustrophobic. That's why I jumped at the chance to do some ranch-sitting and writing in Montana. 

It is quiet here. Simple. I wake up with the sun, haul wood, start a fire. I brew coffee and make oatmeal on the stove. I feed the horse. I sit with the dog and scratch his ears. I watch the cats slink by. And I write and write and write. 

As the weeks go by, I feel my awareness of the world, and God, and how I relate to both, expanding.

  

 This is Wind. I find myself watching him with girl-like rapture often throughout the day.

  

  

 This is Duke. He is 19 years old and one heckuva dog.

  

 Howdy, pardner.

  

  

The walk to the mailbox. 

  

 

  

A little moonshine...

Warm and cozy.

Among gods

Beneath the 14,000-foot gaze of Pike's Peak in the wilds of Colorado, there is a garden. But it is no ordinary garden...

It is a garden of the gods. It bears craggy trees that bend and quake beneath the gods' passing shadows. White walls and fiery spires push through frozen soil, producing marbled red fortresses against wind, sun, rain.

Men dare to enter, and men dare to climb.

But they must humbly remember this garden belongs to the shadowy gods who ripple across its walls and walkways.


They must remember they are mortal. Fragile. A vapor that vanishes in the blink of an eye.

They must remember that here, beneath Pike's lofty gaze, men walk among gods.

Rocky Mtn. Chapel

I recently visited the chapel at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. It offered some pretty astounding architecture, capturing the majesty of the Rocky Mountains and the craftsmanship of aircraft into details like the shape of pews and windows, as well as its overall design. And boy oh boy, if you like angles and patterns as much as I do, it is hard to stop taking photographs.

The chapel offers catholic, Jewish, Buddhist and protestant worship. Also, it has a scientifically reproduced replica of the Shroud of Turin in the lobby. Fascinating.

Olympians to the ready!

Before I left Colorado, I did some sightseeing. My friend Ben and I went to Colorado Springs for a day. We saw the U.S. Air Force Academy, the Garden of the Gods, and the Olympic Training Complex. See this entry and others to follow for snapshots of our adventures.

Olympians have to carry a lot on their shoulders, apparently.

You gotta watch those athletes. Never know what they'll throw down the public toilets at the Olympic Training Complex.

Ben and I bobsledded. He won.

Ben and I snuck past the 'Off Limits' signs to the athletes' dormitories. (Which, really, wasn't that hard to do when we look so darn athletic.)

Olympians always have to be the biggest and the best. So they have a giant chessboard by their dorms for some friendly competition.

I won.



Go Team USA!