Today I decided to take a Mental Health Day for myself. I haven’t taken the time to drive up to the mountains to see the turning leaves for several years, and I decided today I needed to get away from the email, the internet, and the news…and do some Forest Bathing. Mason our oldest son came with me, so we had time to catch up on some larger topics in our lives.
We drove up Golden Gate Canyon to the Scenic Byway called the Peak to Peak Highway, and continued on towards Longs Peak and Estes Park. Along the way we were thrilled to see a Bald Eagle circling over the forest, and there were many groves of Aspen turning gold.
I have an Annual Pass for the Rocky Mountain National Park this year, as a way to help support the struggling park system. We turned off into Wild Basin, and snapped some photos of a fly fisherman down in the clear mountain stream. We drove along the dirt road and found a place to picnic, and were joined by 2 dazzling Sapphire Blue Jays who undoubtedly were wishing we’d toss some crumbs from our picnic lunch. The sky was blue, the Ponderosa Pines whispered in the soft breeze, the birds twittered, and I was able to leave the world behind for a few hours…
As we descended into Estes Park, we started to see the herds of elk, each one with a large buck, many cows and calves. To the North we saw the column of smoke from the 125K acre Cameron Peak Fire.
The photo above is the biggest buck we saw. He was hanging out by the lake with his harem, bugling to warn off younger bucks circling on the periphery. He limped as he walked – his harem of cows and calves were hard won, no doubt. But wow, he was a big boy.
We drove down towards home, and once we were driving along the foothills, we saw another column of smoke from the Williams Fork fire Southwest of Boulder. Today the wind was blowing due East, and so we are sitting between 2 columns of smoke, relatively clear until the wind changes again. That’s just how I feel after my day out in Nature…in a clear space while the storm rages around us. I hope you are able to find some time to center into a calm clear moment, in Nature, sewing, making art, or spending precious moments with your loved ones.
with hope for the future…
Luana and Paul
p.s. The photo was taken with a telephoto lens!
What a lovely idyllic blog today…excluding fires! As a Montana born and raised girl, I know exactly what you were describing…just add a few grizzlies! Lol…..I now live in NE Washington state which has its own beauty. I go crazy except reading your FB posts and here….and enjoying the gorgeous quilting fabrics. You don’t know me (Edel Weiss on FB) but I have bath therapy with your influence every afternoon……I have the Japanese show catalogues I bought from you the last two years and read and reread my issues salivating over the beauty and talent EVERY DAY. They never get old. And I have bought almost everything you sell that is Sashiko…just haven’t had time to do them YET!
I have made 669 masks…all donated to first responders , teachers etc and now am longarming a pile of quilt tops my friends donated to deliver to fire victims. God bless you and your family. I’ll send a pix of a RBG mask I made for my daughter and my Stitching Project for the refugee/immigrant project.
Carrolyn vidal
Great post, Luana – Yes, it helps so much with mental health to go out and appreciate nature, away from the demands of work, family, worry. Keep up the wonderful words.