IF: "Spent"

I have "Spent" a lot of time in the mountains of Colorado. My dad was a Forest Ranger, we literally went " over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go." My mom, bought property full of dirt, stream and deer where we climbed the hills and avoided the rattlesnakes. Our church groups went to a camp called "Wilderness Ranch" where more rattlesnakes had to be avoided- and a few were caught by one of the dads- and cooked over an open fire- it tastes like chicken if you are wondering. I was a Girl Scout I know how to build a fire starting with a teepee of dry sticks.

My Step Dad had a cabin- that we were always at- where the elk roamed right below Long Peak and Estes Park- where now old enough I could drive myself, through the meandering canyons of the Rockies foothills- where I discovered a mountain chapel- nestled by black rocks and behind the infamous Stanley Hotel- the inspiration for Steven Kings- "The Shining"- Well years later when Jon, leaning against the back of a pick up truck- nestled in a hidden valley, near the elk and deer and below Kenosha Pass- and asked me to marry him- I remembered that chapel- and that winter we were married there- Elk graving  outside the windows.

Now- well you know where I am now- looking out at red dirt and sage- far south of where I grew up, but still up against the Rockies- the names replaced from French- like the Cache La Poudre river near Wyoming, meaning "hide the powder"- were I spent a lot of my childhood- - - now the river are in Spanish- "Rio de las Animas Perdidas" which means "River of Lost Souls" and Florida is not pronounced like the State- but Flor-E-Da as in Spanish.

Where you spend you time- changes you- I can dream of California and the ocean- or Europe- when other bloggers show me moss covered church and wooded lanes- I can "pine" for culture and other parts of the world- but this is where I have spent my life- this is what is in my bones and my soul and so this is what is my art.