All Year Through

Charles Dickens is one of my favorite writers. Hold back your hollas of agreement groans of disgust to hear me out. Yeah, he was a wee bit droll and - here, here - some of his longest paragraphs are about as desirous as a crocodile in your swimming hole. Nevertheless, the man knew how to tell a person's story. And stories - yours, mine, and ours - are just about my favorite beguilements on this planet o'mine.

Which is what most readers of the classics know. The rest of you just don't care. Which is just dandy because that's not my only point. (You wish). Nah, here's the kicker: Dickens had a thing for Christmas. If you've seen A Christmas Carol, then you already know he wrote about it. He also tidbitted the occassional interview with it, too. And, thanks to the handy internet, I didn't have to pull out my grad school books to find some of those very literary vittles. Thank you, Quote Garden (fave, fave, fave).

 I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

 Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home! ~ The Pickwick Papers

By far, though, this is the one that plays the sentimental chord on my heartstings:

I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

Emphasis added. Because I love that last part. A writer with a skilled pen captured the nugget that slips easiest through my searching fingers...and comes up with the truth that unites in lieu of divides on Christmas Eve and Morn.

It yums the festive up in families - mine included, for sure - so we can celebrate the traditions of the season. Like attending service on the Eve with my mother-in-law, Sandy, and standing for flash after flash (thanks, Kim!), until you get the one.

Or eating our annual family dinner out, opening all our presents, and then picking up Mom again for "midnight" mass...a relic from my own childhood alive in present day.

It's in the belly-laughs of the boys' "gut bumps" in their Eve jammies

and relishing the smells (new leather!), sights (an "It's Gross!" section), and subjects (Habba-who?) of Elijah's new Bible.

Along the way, we can't forget the rock stars in our lives - like Uncle Tim. They all wanted pictures with his gifts to them...rather like getting a backstage pass or autograph at the concert, I s'pose.

When we intersect on this journey, I find that Dickens is right. Again. Our hearts really do open: whether closed by the scars of pains long-carried or wounds and hurts only just buried, we catch a draft of hope here and there. We pause and breathe and remember the best of what we have rather than the worst of what we've lost.

For me, I see them

 and how only they can make this "us".

Seems to me, we could all remember a bit more intentionally that the folks to your left and right, before and behind, aren't just the schlubs rubbing you the wrong way or - flip the coin - the bests of the bestests, arms entwined with yours. We're all fellow passengers on a journey to the grave, and life is short -
    if I can get that into my heart, maybe I'll find it even easier to carry the Christmas spirit...
           all year through.

That Was You

11. What's so great about 11?

Yeah, if you don't care - I get it.
  And I normally wouldn't, either.
   Except that, today, I do.

Because it's the 11th year since she came.
And made contact.

And a family.

 And a dream come true.

In these pictures, I see the first time she held Aunt Jessi's hand; the first time she met her Nana and nuzzled her cheek - as she still does today.

I regard the way she engages the world with her simple approach of love mixed with authenticity peppered with gentle compassion and quickness to giggle at all manners of humor.

If children are hope for the future, then our "ahead" will surely be better than what lays "behind" for I have met few so abidingly pleased with the white-bread, everyday pleasures of a life spent simply living.

She has grown from baby to little girl

to young woman bloomed.

She is a sister twice over.

      Part artist...

       















part dreamer...

...if you opened her mind, horses would stampede out.

        
She is an in-the-flesh reason we know blessings exist.
The first in every category we'll face together.
Our original "you and me" come to make "us".

Perfect? No.
Polished? Maybe.
Paramount? Definitely.

What's so great about 11? The Story of Grace: much in the same way she made numbers 1-10 equally brilliant. Because she's perfect and ever-pleasing and without any flaw to force constraint, not so much.

But because she came.

And made contact.

And a family.

And a dream come true.

Yes, Gracie. 

That was you.

No witing About tmountains

Ahhh, Christmas cards. What say you on the subject? If taking a multiple-choice test, would your answer most likely be:

    A. Strangely curious fabrications of life and joy mailed solely to propagate falsities at Christmas?
    B. Mildly irritating notions on what can be labeled interesting, but products of the festive season
        nonetheless
    C. Enjoyable ditties on lives you love near, far, and in-between. Sure, why not?
    D. A critical imparting of soul juice for the celebration of friendship and family. Absolutely - how
        can you not?!

Well, depending on your letter option, you're somewhere between a craven Eboneezer or a candy-coma'd Cratchit. Wherever you fall, reflect on this: it's an option, not a requirement. It's a gift to receive, not a curse to begrudge. It's an opportunity to love and laugh - and maybe get a pretty good story, too.

This is our card this year. It's got a story. I mean, other than the one written on it. 

What's the short of the long?

 There is no witing about tmountains.

The long of the long? I found a great deal that would, essentially, take a nickel from my pocket for each print. Yeee-aH: sold! I fast found this template and plucked it from the bed of options because it let me use some candids rather than a full family pic. Why not the full fam? Well, it's a whole other story involving hair and clothes and meltdown possibilities- mine, not theirs - so I'll spare you the brutals. Suffice to say, my happy equation that day was candids + letter space = done deal.

Course my joy took the fast way downhill. I open the template. I place the photos. And I begin to write our ditty...in 4.5 point cruel even to the biggest, buggiest, micro-vision eyes on God's green earth. I zoomed, I widened, I got glasses. I squinted, I scrunched, I groused. I gave up.

And now there's two typos. TWO! Yes, yes: I could give it up.
Let it go.
   Roast some chestnuts over an open fire.
     Put a partridge in my pear tree.
        But I cannot. Why?
          Um, because I'm book smart, street stupid:
            have we not met?

What's that mean? Future post, for sure. Summarily, it's a keen intelligence capable of recalling volumes of data but lacking any singular ability to often apply it common-sensically. Yeah. That's me. To an "A" - for Anal-retentive.

It bears no surprise, then, that while complaining to my treasured friend, Amy, badmouthing and blundering the bits for a good 10 minutes, Amy (I did call her treasured, yeah?) calmly...but with that quake of "Seriously, Candy, you really are prone to missing the simple, aren't you?") quips, "Why didn't you copy it, paste it into Word so you could see it?"

Well, oBviously, the answer is this:

Because there would then be no witing about tmountains.

Which could make for one sad card

            ...except that it turns out to be a pretty good story.           

The Numbers 101

I've been crabby lately. Grouchy groucherooski. Grumpster. Cranky lady.

You can tell I'm crabby because I'm resorting to these biting, annoyingly syrupy......ugh, they're so gross, I don't even know what they are. Which must mean they're epithets on the tombstone of wherever my happy place went and died.

Yet, I shan't be deterred: annoying can die and happy places can be resurrected. And, after a day of rest at home (fully!), I'm just about up to par. There are a few juicy tidbits that have helped along the way: receiving what I'm about to share is but one. It boarded my Happy Boat in blog post form some weeks ago, and I only just read it thoroughly. It's about students. And teaching. And writing. And the perils of teaching students "writing". But, if you've never taught high school or college freshman English, never fear: this is pert dern close to what you'd encounter if you ever had ventured into the depths of writing despair usually preceded by the numbers 101.

Have a giggle - syrup and epithets safe - on me.

The 25 Funnniest Analogies (Collected by High School Teachers)

Update: Tens of thousands of readers have found this post and hundreds of you have commented. A few have said that these analogies were actually taken from other sources and were not written by high school kids at all. Now, we have a link that ends the debate. These analogies are the winning entries in a 1999 Washington Post humor contest, and there are more than 25. Please look at the comments sent August 3, 2008 by “Jiffer” to get to the complete list and the names of the authors.


Original Post: I have to share these “funniest analogies” with you. They came in an e-mail from my sister. She got them from a cousin, who got them from a friend, who got them from… so they are circulating around. My apologies if you have already seen them.
The e-mail says they are taken from actual high school essays and collected by English teachers across the country for their own amusement. Some of these kids may have bright futures as humor writers. What do you think?

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a ThighMaster.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. 

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

30 Days of Thankful

Each year for the last three, I've purposed every day of November to faithfully carve time on Facebook to write one entry. It's quite the important entry, I dare say, because it's shaped my entire month - one 24 hour chunk at a time.

I hear the murmurs in increased numbers - the plaintive melodies decrying FB's lack of merriment, of honesty, of good 'ol kindness even. Okay. I see that. But I offer this in retort to said decriers: You do realize, do you not, that the networkers et al - NOT the actual network - are the guilty offenders? Because, see, the network's not alive: it's nothing without the content we put in it, post on it, spread through it. And - yes, yes - we can hide some posters, limit our feed exposure, or flat out unfriend, if you're really interested in spreading your point. But, then again, few people accompany their unfriend with any feasible explanation. So, here's the rub for you....

Why not change the content we post? Better choose what we spread? How about we claim Facebook for the beauty it can offer rather than the crud it can spew? (I suddenly feel a bit like Amy Madigan's character, Annie, at the PTA meeting on banning books..."Come on! Come on! Let's see those hands!" Yeah, think it. Post it. See it for fun.)

So, come October, I start compiling my list of 30 - which isn't a lot when you see your life through the lens of thankful, I note. I think of who matters deeply; what's changed me; which nouns fill my happy place of want; which nouns faithfully fill my treasured column of need. I reflect and pray and smile quite a bit actually because, in the end, I'm left with nothing but a cup running over...nothing but love.

So, come November, I practice what I preach. Some were on the list...some strolled in just by being.

Either way, it's good to contemplate your content. To contemplate your life. It's even better for the soul. Well, my soul, anyways. And just maybe yours, too.Which doesn't have to happen solely in the eleventh month.

  

     Thankful is funny like that: 

it's cool any month of the year, like a superpower that never runs out of juice.

So here's my contribution to the good juice...in the order I posted my thankful's.

For stacks of essays waiting to be graded that remind me teaching is who I am, not just what I do...I am truly thankful.

For a treasured friend - a necessary part of my core - whose quiet strength and Godly perspective signifies Comfort to all whom she loves...for Amy Roek Cunningham, I am truly thankful. Love you.

For 9 pounds 9 ounces of miniature Craig who has grown into 4 feet of his own soul-blessing self...I am gloriously thankful. Happy Birthday, Elijah: you will always be my best reminder to laugh hard and live big. I love you.

For words - long and short, skinny and tall, juicy and dry, clean and...not - for the way they are alive and fail only when they should: I am thankful for words.

For the "A-Ha!" moment that lights my students' faces when they get it, do it, and like it once they're done...for that singular moment of superb connection, I am thankful.

For the moments that have defined me and for the grace that made them sacred...I am blessedly thankful.

For a day to celebrate the birth of my friend who represents depths of loyalty and devotion I can only aspire to reach...for my hysterically insightful Jessi Chavez, I am beyond thankful.

(Here's to one that's true every year. Of course.) For indoor plumbing - and the creature comforts it so faithfully provides through cold, infirmity, and dark of night...I am blissfully thankful.

For having had the extraordinary opportunity to live in The Last Frontier, where all that is most beautiful remains still untouched...and called Alaska - I am an awe-inspired thankful.

For pumpkin. For bread, coffee, creamer, muffins, cheesecake, candles, lotions, and even the big ol' orbs we place on the stoop...for pumpkin, my scents are delightfully thankful.

For your bravery, your resilience, your valiant belief in duty before self and God above all...you are my daddy, my friends, and my beloved Craig most of all...for my freedom, I am humbly thankful.

For the Chai Spice walls of a cozy parlor awash in the glow of afternoon sunshine...and a Kindle to go along with it...I am thankful.

Because I woke this morning with his arm around me and listened to him breathing beside me...for the presence of my soul mate Craig, saturating every day of life until it's just the right side of dream come true - I am ever thankful.

For 4'11'" of golden locks, dimpled cheeks, artist's hands, blue-green eyes, and the warmest heart of compassion I've ever encountered...for my only begotten beauty-girl, Grace Abigail, my mothering heart is thankful.

For my Someone, my Peach, my reminder that wisdom isn't separate from humor and all that glitters really IS golden...Michelle Rice Zitzmann, there aren't words for the depth of thankful I am for you. Love you.

For lists that get trumped and goals that get traded in favor of what's better, grander, more beautiful than any I'd imagined...for learning to yield my Type A to His "Type Perfect", I am infinitely thankful.

For a warm bed to climb into come night's fall; for a roof that shelters the heart as much as it does the home; for a full pantry, a cool fridge, clothes that fit, and soap that cleans...for having everything I need more than than everything I want, I am thankful.

For coffee - all kinds; and its packaging - cups or mugs or paper carriers; and its smell - nutty, sweet, slightly bitter; and its warmth - through my hands, across my lips, down my tummy...for my sensory love affair with coffee, my taste buds are thankful.

Gettin' this one in under the wire: for the simple pleasure of cuddling with Elijah beneath a fuzzy blanket, belly-laughing-until-tears watching old The Cosby Show episodes...my merry heart is thankful.

For the gift of knowing and being known, for counting people as gifts and realizing, "They see me and let me seem them, too...no hiding required" - for the gift of acceptance, my friendship meter is thankful.

For Good Wife dates with Jill Singleton Bailey including decaf, pumpkin pie, pajamas (for me), and delightful chats on solving life's great puzzles...the plot of the show among them - for a 30 second drive to hang with one of the smartest, wittiest gals I know, I am thankful.

For my last name: a tangible gift my husband gave to say I belong to him. It's a reminder of legacy and of love. It's alliterative (and that's just cool) AND, even after 15 years, I never tire of being called "Mrs. Covak"...for a name far greater than mere signature, I am thankful.

For our house - more than walls and paint and windows, it's a dream we built together with sacrifice and faith, stitched together by three hands intertwined...His, Craig's, and mine. We've brought our babies home to this house, watched them take their first steps here and, one day, will watch them walk out of it to build their own homes. For the realization that a house loved becomes a home where your story begins, I am thankful.

For the perspective of joy: realizing I have a blessed life is rarely based solely on circumstances and always based on perspective. When I see through eyes of love and peace, I don't see circumstances...I see the bounty of the good life. And I am blessed. For the perspective of joy, my happy heart is thankful...and hoping yours is, too!

For the Day After traditions: halls are decked, leftovers consumed, carols a playin', and pizza is gettin' eaten. Welcome Holidays!

For beer. That's right - beer. For blondes and pales and schillings and every seasonal there is. For the foam and the hops and the finishes, too. For the pilsner, the stein, the pint, and the weizen...for all the fashions in which beer arrives to please the the palate, I am thankful. (No belching, please.)

For LG 47, boys, girls, men, women - Christ the center of all: you are a rich group who make me laugh and think and feel and DO better and bigger than without you...for Steve, Michelle, Jessica, David, Lynne, Micah, Becca, KJ, and Craig, my never-alone heart is thankful.

For my second-favorite lefty who's all giggles and smiles...until he's not; who lives life all in and teaches me what it means to love with heart wide open, especially when he says, "I love you, Mommy" about 50 times a day - for my miracle Judsen Ames, my smile is surely thankful.

For the unexpected gifts that rearrange moments, days, and even years of my life: for every one from snow days to drop-in guests, from marriage proposals to sticks with two lines, my life has been full of rearranging...and I am thankful for it.

(And, to be posted tomorrow….) For the memories of what made me then, the adventures carving me now, and the dreams and hopes deferred for tomorrow…for His promise of “the best is yet to come”, I am eternally thankful.

33% Bliss

The months between October and January are a marathon, not a sprint. 

For lots of us. Let's get real: for MOST of us.
In a world where "different" is the new "same", the quest of getting-through-holidays-with-festive-zing-intact is the uniting thread that might - gasp! - actually get us through the holidays with festive zing intact. Radical, I know.

In our house, the race gun fires come October 31st - for you, this may be because, Hark!, it's Halloween. For us, too. But it's also our anniversary: add an Elijah's birthday chaser mixed with a shake of Thanksgiving, a stir of Gracie's birthday, a splash of Christmas, and top with a two-olived pick of New Year's and Craig's birthday, and you've got one heck of a marathon martini.

Wait. Was that entire analogy centered on liquor?
Well, that was entirely on purpose.
        I mean, subconscious.
                I mean, accidental.

Like you, we're also paying the bills, cleaning the house, hitting the gym, cheering the kids, scheduling the meetings, gassing the car, shopping the stores, and...well...living the glamorous life.

So who has time for blogging? Well, sadly, I haven't prioritized it...though other rock-stars have maintained the pace (props, people. Props). And who pays the price?
We-ellllllllll....me.
       I mean, us.
           All right, I mean you.

Because you've got the sandwich post that throws the first third of the leg at you all at once...I like to think of it as 33% Bliss.

Apologies in advance.

Grace and her friend, Ally, had a piano recital just before Halloween. It was themed. How can you tell?

 This year, the Covak's became the Scooby Gang...complete with Scooby, Velma (seriously, Grace hardly looks like Grace, right?) and Shaggy.

LOVE! Thanks, Zitzmann's for taking it in our absence!

 

 

 

  Not afraid to be eclectic: our traditional Halloween with the Z's found us lost in the land of Mystery Gang/Zombie Sweet Witch/Ahoy, Matey!/American Werewolf in Colorado...makes a  heart happy, this shot.

 

Look at his little body! Cute.

And, as always, we marked the Pumpkin-palooza with painting (yeah, we don't carve...WAY too much work for Momma and Daddy). Each kiddo gets his own and her own wee gourd, and then we all paint a panel on the family pumpkin.

Here are the "fruits" of their labor.

2 more 33% Bliss's to go!

Redefine Disgusting

Life is all well and good until chunks of vomit are cascading down your underpants.

What?!!!!???

A truer statement may never have passed my lips. Or echoed from my keyboard.

You're speaking metaphorically, right? Like a euphemism, right? Like letting the curses fly when it doesn't go your way? Something like, "Oops, I forgot to stamp that card...chunks of vomit cascading down my underpants!"?

Yeah. No. I mean, one minute I'm talking to Grace's teacher in the back of the gymnasium before the curtain rises (Did I mention Grace was a pirate? Tried out for the play and everything? Been memorizing her lines since August?). Next minute, Judsen's sounding all panicky, like he's the first to spy the white horse riding on the horizon cloud. Then I hear, "My tummy doesn't feel goooood." 

Oh crap. I know where this is going.

With teacher still talking and concern sharply peaking, I ask, "Do you feel like you're going to be s --"

And then, yes. Yes he was. Like a hose. Aimed right at my chest. Curled into it, if you really want to know the horrors. Then, as I was moving like I, too, had seen the apocalyptic horsemen, he did it again. And, just as I hailed Elijah to go get Daddy - quickly - he did it again. And again. And, just for good measure, one more time. All before we made it the bathroom.

Um. 

Ew.

Yes. Yes it was. After finally getting him to the toilet, up he chucked twice more. Outside the women's room, I could hear Grace's teacher telling Craig, "Just go in. Go in! It's all right." Of course, when Craig came 'round the corner, he was a most exceptional shade of green. I don't think he thought it was all right. Wife covered in vomit traipsing its way steadily south. No, not all right at all. But still he passed the near-useless (not his fault) brown school paper towels like a motorized arm on the "just to help you scrape off the chunks" conveyor belt of mercy. 

Yeah, that simile isn't helping the "ew" factor.

Yes. Yes I know. When the last retch had ceased, I wrapped the boy in my sodden jacket - yeah, I did type sodden - and told Craig to stay for Gracie while I headed home with the hurler (and I don't mean the throwing kind). By now, the spooge (um, didn't know how to spell it, so Googled it. Turns out, that's NOT what that word means. Triple ew.) vomit has oozed a path down the v-neck (how often do I wear a v-neck...come ON!), over the belly, and well into the underpants.

Wow. 

I'm just incredibly disgusted by this whole post.

Yes. Yes I am, too. Try motherhood. It'll redefine disgusting every time.

And, while you're basking in the merry land of pondering, here's another tittle worth excogitating:

Life is all well and good until chunks of vomit are cascading down your underpants.

But Colorado

Colorado is beautiful country. Grant you, it's no Alaska - but it's got it's own brand of spit and shine. So, whenever we've the chance to get away, if only for a few days, we pack up the clan and head out to some as-yet unexplored nook of the Centennial state.

Our latest trip was especially notable, though, because of the absence of what otherwise makes for a busy trip: our three children! In honor of our 15th trip around the sun, we headed to High Country for some days away from the normal grind.

I love High Country: most recently, I wrote about it's beauty on our annual summer trip to Dillon.But, this year, we headed even higher to mountain views yet seen...in Winter Park. Neither Craig nor I had been, and if ever there was an occasion to embark on a new adventure together...

The drive was beyond words (but, since this is a blog, after all, I'll give it a whirl). The best one-worder I can contrive is crystalline. They'd just had a massive dump of snow and, being as how they're ski country in the off-off season (think winter's answer to a western Ghost Town), it was absurdly quiet. Silent, even...much like I'd imagine it would be inside the glass of a snow globe.
And when I say we were in the mountains, I mean we were in the mountains.

That's the Continental Divide below. (In case you're not familiar, the CD is the line of demarcation running north-south that separates water flow between the Atlantic and Pacific. Rain or snow runoff to the east heads towards the Atlantic; to the east, the Pacific.) And, considering you can't be just anywhere to see it, it's pretty cool when you actually do.

There's nothing more breathtaking on the initial stretch than this shot.

 Because, until you see it, you're climbing in elevation all gradual like...until boom...Hello, Rockies!

Along the way, we ran across these...my pictorial homage to the Colorado brand of mountain humor.

That's a moose beneath the sheeting and a watermill starring as Jack. Yeah. We shame our landmarks here.

Like Alaska, you can't let Colorado's snow or cold or otherwise challenging weather snafus hold you back: you'll only become a sad hermit if you do. Besides, why else do we have cocoa and toddies if not for nipped noses and tingly toes? So, lest we surrender to Old Man Winter, we spent an afternoon on this gorgeous hike. Think the forest scenes in Narnia when first they leave the wardrobe and you've just about got it.

  We hiked about four miles to the sound of Adams Falls...

Agh! A rare glimpse of me...and just me...I really do appear in photos without my friends or family...I think.

Until we came upon this.

And heard this.

Yeah.
You heard it right.
Nothin' but the water.
Absurdly quiet.

Crystalline.
Like the inside of a snow globe.

But Colorado.