Cuchara, CO

I am long past due for a vacation, so when I received an invitation to join my longtime friend Rose at her friend Ginny's cabin in Cuchara, CO for a few days, I jumped at it.

We spent the first few days in a motion machine - we drove from Kansas City to Colorado Springs. Lunch with friends, staying with family. Garden of the Gods, shopping and catching up on each other's lives. Great experiences, wonderful people.

Back up to Denver, where we stayed with more family, picked Ginny up at the airport. Three stops on the way down to pick up provisions, we finally pulled up to the cabin around dinner time.

I opened the car door and stepped out to the scent of clean air and pine. 

Ahhhh.

All evening, I found myself taking deep breaths and sighing just a little. Time, finally, to stop for just a bit.

I got up the next morning, took the dog out for a walk across the meadow and up into the trees on the ridge. (I'm his new best friend in the mornings...) We found a trail, and walked about a mile in until the trail turned down the hill. I stopped there; I'm OK in the woods, but know enough to know that if I continued to follow the trail, I could easily miss my turn on the way back.  I have a feeling there's more than one spot on the ridge where there's a dead tree and a grassy swale to the left, a big pine to the right. We're pretty far up into the wilderness here - a wrong turn could lead to a night out in the woods, or worse. And, there's bears. There was fresh scat just a few feet from the cabin door this morning. I am really not interested in spending the night in the woods with the bears. So, I regretfully turned back around, leaving the trail for another day. (The dog wasn't quite as regretful as I - he was getting mighty thirsty by the time we got back to the cabin.)

Shortly after we returned, the rest of the crew decided to go check out a local lake, where one of our group hoped to fish. (He went back this morning, and caught a lovely trout.) I just couldn't convince myself to get back into the car, so let  them go on without me. I found a camp chair and a book and settled down for some quiet time.

For the next couple of hours, my only problem was that I had to keep getting up to move my chair so I'd stay in the shade. Let me tell you, when that's my biggest problem in life, I'm doing pretty darn good. I'd read a few pages, gaze out at the sun on the meadow for a minute or three, drink in the cool scented air, repeat.

In the quiet clean air, my heartbeat slowed, my breathing deepened.

Stop. Breathe. Relax.