I'm not gonna lie, it was hard to build up a head of steam to get moving this morning. I spent the first two days of this trip trying to pack in all the fun and excitement I could. I had goals for today, and accomplished only about 3/4 each of two of them. And still I am ready to turn in by 9 in the evening, worn out from another full day. It's a good thing I have no difficulty sleeping on airplanes. Tomorrow is going to be a blur.
I had wanted to drive around in the mountains a little, maybe only going over the first ridge, to look for the late season aspen color. We ended up mostly driving through neighborhoods, and while the trees were spectacular, I felt awkward about taking pictures in strangers' yards, and I dislike trying to get a car stopped in traffic when I suddenly see something I'd like to photograph. I let my daughter take the wheel, and I got a few shots off while we drove around, but not as much as I expected to. I did find myself getting very excited for a few years from now, when we finally settle down and come back to live somewhere in this neck of the woods, in a forever house. I drove past a handful of properties out in the county that were for sale, and I could totally live out there. The views of the front range are beautiful from just a few miles out. And if we were willing to live outside of Boulder county, I might steer us somewhere we could catch views like are available on Dillon Road, heading west. I guess I'm going to have to pick up a camera with a panorama setting one of these days. You can't take it all in with just one point and click. It's just breathtaking, especially at this time of year, with snow just starting to grace the higher peaks, and all the gold and orange and crimson in the foreground.
After stopping at a fabulous local bakery (that I will visit again in the future), the girls and I did drive a little up one of the canyons that was badly damaged in the flood. It was difficult to look at how much was still so torn up. Out of respect for the privacy of the families, I tried not to take pictures of homes that had been partially washed away, or were still crooked and canted with a foot of dried mud throughout. But some outbuildings and remnants do appear in today's pictures. It is impossible to drive past these places and not feel your stomach drop, and feel intense sadness for the residents whose lives were disrupted in the floods. To see it on tv creates distance, which allows for some numbness to the situation. To get up close and personal with the mud and the washed out roads and missing structures makes it all so much more real. It's like the pain and fear are still imprinted on the land, like historical site markers. It's spelled out for anyone to recognize.
The flood has been my daughters' reality for a month and a half, and from a parental and property standpoint, mine as well. We were able to compartmentalize and put it behind us as we drove back to town. We came home and immediately set upon the pumpkins, carving for Halloween. My future son in law had never carved one before, and his first crack at it was as good as anyone who had been doing it for years. My daughter made two, one an apparently obvious Minecraft reference. (I don't play it, but I have a general understanding.) She put it in the crook of a tree, and lit a candle in it while we finished the others. As I tried to carve a dimensional Buddha face in mine, I looked up to see we had a guest. He came close to see what I was doing, backed off when the dog barked, checked out the Creeper pumpkin in the tree, and then proceeded to eat the tree pumpkin and all the seeds he could steal from right next to me. He seemed entirely content to pose for dozens of photographs. My daughter's fiancé announced that he is to be referred to as Gaius. And so he shall.
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