Thursday, September 20, 2018

Hot Trip On To BLM Land

One of the things LC and I both love about where we live is that we are only a few minutes from the mountains, a few minutes from the lake, and a few minutes from BLM land.
Water is five minutes away.
An alpine environment is about 15 minutes away.
The "desert" is about 7 minutes away.
We have been in our home for a couple of months now, but the novelty of where we live has not even begun to wear off yet.
Truthfully I hope that it never wears off.
Sometimes we look look around us, and then look at each other and smile.
"We live here".
It's a good place for us.  A good fit.
And knowing that FEELS very good...........

It is now closing in on the end of September in Cody.
The days have been warm.
The nights have been increasingly cold.
But only two weeks ago, when these pictures were taken, it was VERY hot.
Today has been cold.
Yesterday was cold.
By Saturday it will be in the mid-70s again.
And so it goes in the Rockies.  In the west.  In Cody.
The weather is all map..............

On this particular Sunday we walked out of the house and made the spur-of-the-moment decision to wander on BLM land with our dog.
It was a beautiful, sunny and warm day.
Only.............by the time we pulled onto BLM land, slowly made our way to the hills a mile or so across open public land, and reached the rock formation we had chosen as our destination, we climbed out of the Suburban and groaned.
It was HOT!
This wouldn't be the lengthy roaming and wandering that we had anticipated after all.
Looking around us, I searched for our dog but Kory was already gone.
Disappeared into the hills in front of us.
Already in the midst of a wonderful puppy-adventure.
Life is so simple and straight forward for a dog..............
This was mid-September.
It wasn't SUPPOSED to be this hot in mid-September, was it?
A couple of weeks earlier it had snowed in the mountains.
In August.
But as LC and I slowly climbed up into the rocks and the hills, the dryness and unyielding heat quickly enveloped us, and then overwhelmed us.
The world was silent and beautiful, but this would indeed be a short trip.................
Our supposedly long hike only lasted for 30 minutes.
Long enough to climb up into the rocks, to follow the ridge line a short ways, to drop down the back side and then pick up a double track trail that would circle us back to the vehicle.
Thankfully also long enough for puppy to run and chase a rabbit and stick her nose into multiple gaps in the rocks in search of interesting anythings...............
When we got home we climbed out of the Suburban and looked at each other in surprise.
It wasn't hot at the house.
Less than 10 minutes away.
The rocks and the sage and the sandstone hills of BLM land had simply been holding heat that the area surrounding it had not.
We haven't been back there since this last visit.
Now that fall is gradually moving into the area, it might be time to take another trip...................

The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and there a yellow leaf shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many.... September is dressing herself in showy dahlias and splendid marigolds and starry zinnias. October, the extravagant sister, has ordered an immense amount of the most gorgeous forest tapestry for her grand reception. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894), "Autumn," The Atlantic Almanac, 1868

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