Recharged

Each of us has ways of recharging our batteries... ways that relax us and give us inspiration and hope and enlarge our perspective beyond our own navels.

For me, it's a visit to the Colorado mountains. Having grown up in this area you'd think I'd tire of visiting them, however, they never fail to take my breath away with their majestic beauty.

We headed up Hwy 24 past Woodland Park and had lunch at the summit of Wilkerson Pass, elevation 9,507 feet above sea level. Here's a couple pictures from there.

We encountered small, skinny antelope along Hwy 24 in the South Park basin.

Traveling in our 1987 Camry provides for close quarters for the five of us plus our stuff (hubby is an Eagle Scout who now is a Boy Scout Executive and so we go prepared when we go anywhere! ::grin::)

Then we traveled on through Buena Vista, the whitewater capitol of Colorado, onto Leadville, which is two miles above sea level and is the highest incorporated city in the USA, where we stopped for ice cream at Wild Bill's like we usually do, then on to Turquoise Lake which is just a little north and west of Leadville. (Here's a bonus picture I found on the web, taken it looks like in late fall early winter.)

Sigh... what peacefulness! The lake was as full as I've seen it in many years. The shore area was really small compared to the last six or seven years. Still, I could have stayed on that shore indefinitely and listened to the lapping of the lake.

We only encountered less than half a dozen cars as we visited Turquoise Lake, besides a couple who were biking around the lake with their huge dog running beside them.

As we rounded the northern portion of the lake, the girls were being silly and S, who had been eating croissants, laughed so hard part of a croissant came out of her nose. At that point we all began laughing.

As we headed down the west side of the lake, we came to a waterfall and had to take pictures. The waterfall had icicles on it in the shade!

We have a tradition of taking pictures of our girls in various areas around Turquoise Lake in the fall. Here's the one from this year.

Thanks be to God for the gift of being their mother!

Heading south, we could see Mount Elbert and Mount Massive from the north with the sun to the west, and the bottom of these stately mountains were blanketed in thick, furry, green pine trees. Such grandeur!

Leadville is truly a rugged mountain town and is dotted with tin trailers, delapidated old wooden framed homes and buildings, along with rejuvenated areas, as well as new buildings and homes. You can encounter each of these within just a few blocks of each other, and yet, it seems homey and nice. The variety is refreshing and sure beats the cookie cutter layout of most suburbs and towns. I am tempted to get philosophical about it, but I shan't right now.

We were headed to some ghost towns that we've visited often, usually in the fall because if you are lucky enough to catch it just right, you'll have one of the most amazing drives in the quaking aspens as they turn gold and orange. Of course, we knew we were too late to catch that as the first freeze up there was a few weeks ago. Still we headed for Vicksburg and Winfield.

We were greeted with a big surprise as we traveled on County 390 in that Clear Creek Reservoir was drained. We didn't learn until we got home why.

We were not disappointed in rediscovering Belford Falls as we were not distracted by the changing aspens. To me, the falls looked like an icicle hanging onto the side of the mountain.

We talked about Colorado's mining history, laughed, ate in the splendor of the fresh mountain air -- and man, did it smell good, I just don't think you could possibly beat that lovely smell of pine!

We came back through Salida (I've gotta remember about the Western Mining Museum there and take a trip for the benefit of our state history studies) and then following the Arkansas River through the Bighorn Sheep Canyon.

R regaled us with a story through the canyon and one of the highlights was this line, "Do you take this woman to be your waffle wedded wife?" To which hubby responded, "Yes, with butter and syrup on top!"

To read more funny lines from our trip, visit S's blog, the October 9 entry.

Feeling more relaxed now than I have been in months!

The whole day reminded me of Psalm 121, which the minister read at my mom's burial. I am thankful that I can lift up mine eyes to such gorgeous mountains as we had the pleasure of visiting yesterday!