I thought I was completely off in my timing and my luck today. I had no sleep (thanks to a certain male person who stayed out late at the Great American Beer Festival last night, and who still got up freaky early this morning), and we got a late start to our day. We arrived in the mountains two hours later than we'd planned, but once I started losing horribly in the penny slots, I decided it was just as well. It would have been quicker to set fifty dollars on fire in a metal trash can, but only barely. That man had a little better luck than I, but he didn't seem inclined to cash out when he was up over a hundred bucks on the penny slots, and I held no high ground from which to criticize. We only stayed there an hour, thinking we were leaving in plenty of time to drive north to our next destination, but no. This weekend was just past the peak of fall foliage season, and every yahoo within range decided to go up to the mountains to take pictures of trees. Sure, I know I did it recently, but when I drove, I went the speed limit, not fifteen miles an hour under it, and I didn't choke off dozens of drivers behind me acting like I'd never steered a car around a curve before. It took us well over two hours to drive a distance that should have taken at most an hour and a quarter. Along the entire route, scores of vehicles were pulled over along the side of the road, and people were wandering around with their cell phones in front of their faces, taking pictures of everything. So naturally, as we went past, I took pictures of the tourists taking pictures. I tried taking a few of the fading aspen colors as we slowly rolled past, but there were few real winning shots to be had, even at that speed. I guess now I wait to see whether my little aspen in front of my garage will turn golden, or will it fall victim to the fungus that resulted from the overly wet spring this year.
After all the frustrations of the morning and early afternoon, right at three o'clock, our luck turned dramatically. Today was a very special day, and despite the best efforts of idiotic lowlanders looking at pretty leaves (yes, I know I'm occasionally one of them), we arrived with two minutes to spare for the ceremony that took us into the mountains to begin with. One of our dear family friends was formally installed as the pastor of his new church, and we were invited to come witness the event. We've been friends for many years, since we all survived the North Dakota winters together with good humor and good alcohol, and we were honored to get to sit with his wife in the second row, as his new congregation welcomed him to be part of their family. They kept saying that moving here has felt like coming home to them, and I am so glad to hear that. I was one of his biggest cheerleaders when he admitted that he was ready to find a new church, begging him to throw extra weight behind any openings that he might find in Colorado. How fortuitous that he found the perfect one here! I told one of the church elders later, at the reception, that I decided I would take all the credit for getting him here, even though she had been on the search committee. We laughed and agreed to share the credit equally. It looks like our friends truly have found the right place to call home. I was moved when it came to the part of the ceremony when the search committee and many of the other elders surrounded him to physically welcome him--forty people putting hands on him, or hands on someone else who was touching him, in a giant, extended version of a group hug, while a regional pastor read a prayer of welcome. I don't remember anything like that from my church as a kid, even though I vividly remember an associate pastor showing up during my high school years. (Long story, doesn't end well.) After the reception, we went out with the pastor and his wife, and two of their friends from down South who flew in for the ceremony. The good feelings rolled on, carrying us through a long dinner and chat in the parking lot under the beginnings of the lunar eclipse.
As we drove home, we tried and tried to get good views of the eclipse, and to force our little cell phone cameras to take a picture that wasn't grainy and blurry. We failed. We could see the moon as we wound down the mountain, every bit as slowly as this afternoon. And this time, as the twisty mountain roads were lined with people who had pulled over and were staring blankly at the sky, the mood felt a little less humorously benign. It felt like a blockbuster action movie, one where an alien ship looms over a city, and the citizenry just stands like cattle, waiting for the laser blast to blow them all away, or the point right after the people start turning into zombies, and the highways are a choked mess. At least we got to see the moon in real life, even if our digital recording devices could do nothing for it. As the shadow of the earth reached the farthest point of a full eclipse, the sliver of light on the right side of the moon revealed in three-dimensional glory the shape of the moon. It didn't seem quite so washed out, so over-exposed with reflected light, and for the first time in a long time, it really seemed close to me. I love that moment when you can feel the earth at your back (even from standing) and you can sense where the moon is hanging in real space, and though it is far away, it feels more real than when it's just a distant, glowing spot in the sky. How lucky to get to experience that tonight of all nights.
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