Sometimes I find G-d out-of-doors, when I'm not looking for Him at all.

Colorado is beautiful and wild. If I were a pioneer girl (a fantasy harbored as a child by reading loads of Mary Ingalls Wilder Little House books that I continue to have today), I don't think I'd have made it all the way to California or Oregon, because every state I passed through, I'd be sure nothing come upon further down the dusty trail could be better. In leaving the "big city" of Baltimore, I now find myself past Illinois and Kansas, venturing once in a while down to the plains of Colorado, but living in the Rockies where Henry David and his family once settled on the same property camp is on. Indeed, that homestead, where the David (Davis?) family spent more than a few rough years far from civilization, electricity, and indoor plumbing still stands, is used at camp. Sure, there's a chicken coop in the bathroom, and the kitchen's not much to look at, and nothing, nothing is flush or level, but sturdily it stands. That being said, one of the most beautiful experiences, aside from hiking and viewing Mount Meeker, Meadow Mountain, and Long's Peak from 8,000+ feet, was my drive to Vedawoo, Wyoming, where we spent time on the open range where free-range cattle graze on the rolling prarie. G-d's land, they call it, some people. And how can you not see where wind, water, erosion took place to shape and mold the stone in unfathomable ways? I guess I'm remembering it sort of romantically, but I do miss it. Hopefully I get to do a camp with rock climbing this week, keep your fingers and toes crossed!