"The Mountains Are Calling And I Must Go"

     Pikes Peak and the entire Front Range was covered in snow Sunday morning.  Absolutely breathtaking!  I grew up in Colorado Springs and except for a few years I have spend almost my entire life enjoying that view every day.  In those years that I lived elsewhere, I couldn't wait for the first glimpse of Pikes Peak when I was heading home. 

Photo of Pikes Peak taken the first morning after I returned from France

     The title of today's blog post is a quote by John Muir, a Scotsman who spent most of his life in the US as a naturalist, philosopher, writer, botanist, geologist and environmentalist.  He is often referred to as "John of the Mountains" and "The Father of the National Parks."  He was never happier than when he was in the mountains and spent most of his life in the Sierra Nevadas campaigning for the establishing of Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks.
     My love of the mountains began early.  My dad loved this part of Colorado so much that he was determined to live here and have me grow up in this beautiful area of the US.  So, when I was 3 my mom, dad and I moved to this lovely little town of about 40,000 people.  We spent many happy hours picnicing and hiking in North Cheyenne Canyon and up Ute Pass.  And then when I was 9 we got our first camp trailer and, oh boy, that was awesome!

Our 1953 Cadillac pulling our very first camp trailer

Me with my dad and our poodle, Pom Pom hiking along Tarryall River

     I shared in my dad's passion of the rocks and minerals that make up this section of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains - a passion that has been passed down to Andy.  We had a couple of books that identified the different rocks and in the evenings on the little table in our camp trailer, we would lay out the rocks we had gathered that day and identify them.  I can still recognize many of them - feldspar, quartz, iron pyrite, granite, amazonite, jasper. 
     When I first realized I wanted to live in France, I had fallen in love with a region called the Dordogne.  It's a beautiful area with limestone cliffs, deep forests, caves with prehistoric paintings, rolling hills, lots of castles and medieval towns.  And I had decided that this was the region where I wanted to live.  And then I spent two years in Liberal, Kansas taking care of my mom and realized that I have to have mountains.  It is a part of my spirit.  It's as though I don't recognize myself without mountains in my life.
     At that point I decided to look further south in France closer to the Pyrenees Mountains.  And so I ended up living in a region called The Gers in the department known as the Midi-Pyrenees.  On the hilltop about a mile from my cottage I could see the range of mountains.  Just about every Sunday that I lived there I drove towards the mountains and felt the same joy as I do in Colorado as they get larger and larger before my eyes.  They have a very different look from the Rocky Mountains, but they are still majestic.

Autumn colors on the Pyrenees

Snow-capped Pyrenees

Pyrenees on the Spanish side, taken from the French side

     For Christmas, Andy gave me some gorgeous crystals from his own dig which is somewhere not too far out of town in a secret location!  He has found numerous smoky quartz crystals of all shapes and sizes, from tiny fingernail sizes to one that's about 5 pounds.

My Christmas present!

     This earth is filled with wonders.  Ancient, forceful, awesome, powerful, beautiful, breathtaking wonders.  The mountains do call to me -and many others.  When we come to them let us do so with respect and honor and the desire to care for them and preserve them so that many generations to come can also enjoy their beauty. 
     The title of my blog, "Just around the next bend" actually came from our camping trips.  It was my dad's answer when asked if we were getting closer to the campsite and he didn't know for sure!  Sometimes you never know what's around that bend.  Even if we were lost - in the mountains - we were never disappointed at the views!
    Thank you for letting me expound on this, one of my many passions.  I wonder what I'll find to write about next week! Stay tuned . . .