Fun and Findings

The past few days have been so packed with activity that I don�t know where to begin. It�s also the reason I haven�t written a darn thing since I got here in Colorado. There just hasn�t been enough time or privacy to write anything more than a paragraph. Whirlwind. That�s what this has been.

I�ve had a great time, much better than I could have hoped. I even followed my training program while I�m here, which is another reason it�s been hard to write. When I get spare time, I work out. So I�m having fun and sticking to my commitments. I couldn�t have asked for more.

During all of this fun, I found how much I missed some things and how I have some regrets I didn�t realize. It�s been eight years since my family visited my parents here in Colorado. I came once and stayed a night when I drove them back here from Omaha one time in those eight years, but that wasn�t a visit. It�s been eight years since I visited our old vacation grounds in Wyoming and even longer since I camped there. It�s been eight years since I�ve been in the Rocky Mountains. It�s been at least eight years since I saw the white bark of the aspens, smelled the pine needles in the forest, stood in snow in summertime, ran out of breath when walking up a small hill, caught a trout, saw a marmot, elk or pica, smelled like campfire, gathered dead wood in the forest, and climbed over rocks bigger than my car. It�s been too long.

I want to stay here another week. I want to vacation here next summer instead of at the beach. The beach is nice, but we�ve gone to the same area for five years. I love the beach immensely, but it will never take the place of the mountains. If only I could have a beach at the foot of the mountains. Then I would be in heaven. I never realized how much I missed coming here until I came here again. Now I don�t want to leave. I�m afraid it will be another eight years.

I know it�s all up to me how long it is between visits to my parents Colorado home and the mountains. That�s why I�m making plans now to come out here in two years. It will be our family vacation. We will get the tent I keep saying I want and go to my family�s vacation spot in Wyoming and camp for a week. We will visit my parents. I will climb Medicine Bow Peak again. I will show my kids and city boy husband how pleasant roughing it can be. It will not be another eight years.

Actually, it might not be even eight months until my next visit. I think I will forego JournalCon and get a plane ticket out here instead for the same weekend. I told my dad I�d climb the peak with him if I could get out here. John said I could go to JC, so I�ll just see if I can switch. I�d rather spend time out here than in Chicago. I�ve been scared to death to go to JC anyway. I may end up regretting that decision too, but at least I�ll have something just as good taking its place.

So without really recapping what I�ve done, I did. Maybe I�ll write more details later, but I�d probably just get all sappy and poetic about the way the aspen leaves dance in the wind or the crunch of the trail under my feet. I don�t want to get too soft.