David Eagle dot Net

It was 1997, I believe.  I was in Colorado, in the rockies.  Springtime in the Rockies is incredible, you can see forever, and everything that you see is verdant, flourishing.  We were at this campsite for about a week, but there are a few moments that I can’t forget.  This was one of them.

I was standing next to my friend Matt a short distance from our tents, looking down into a rectangular valley.  We stood on the easternmost rim of this valley, and to the north and south rose hills, not unlike the one we were camped on.  To the west the valley was closed off by a mountain, 4 or 5 miles away. 

It had been a beautiful afternoon, and the blue sky above us seemed very sure of itself.  It was the impending doom of that blue sky which stopped us in our tracks.  Great white thunderheads had crested the peak of the far mountain, and were rolling toward us.  Billowing and shining in the sun they came, like a charge of cavalrymen clad all in white robes and capes.  In their wake a veil of rain obscured all.  Onward they rushed, and for our part we held fast.  Though it took minutes for these riders to cross the valley, it felt like seconds.  There are scenes in the natural world that are so transfixing in their beauty that it is impossible, in their presence, to account for the passage of time.  This was one such, even the threat of a thorough drenching could not uproot us, until we’d seen the riders vanquish the sky overhead.

Water brings life, and goosebumps in equal measure.  Nothing will shock you out of a reverie quite so well as a torrential downpour, and we realized that we were farther from the tents than we’d thought.  And it was completely worth every drip, every ounce of mud, every moment of cold.

One of my only regrets about living where I do is that I don’t see things like that on a daily basis…but maybe my lack of regular exposure to that sort of beauty opens my eyes to it all the more.