I shall call it "Kelleys' Pam-o-Rama"

The snow is melting quickly from Mt. Evans.  A quarter moon is hung in a cloudless dusky sky.  Today the haze from the huge wildfires in Arizona has diminished.  I doubt that the fires have diminished, just a change in the prevailing wind.

There are no drapes on my bedroom windows, and I sleep with an open window.  I can see lights below at night, something I have never seen from previous homes.  This morning when the light came in and awakened me, and realized  that there was no sound, only quiet.  No birds.  This seems strange, because bird life is plentiful here.  Our previous Evergreen home was "infested" with magpies, raucous early birds who liked to hold voice lessons for their young at around 5 am.  In Cary, lots of loud and obnoxious birds chatter and chirp and peep away at first light.  I will listen for several more mornings to see if this quiet is typical here.  Just now the hummingbirds have found the feeder I put out yesterday.  Their metallic whirring is coming in loud and clear at the moment, as they stock up on sweets for the night.

The drive out to Colorado from North Carolina was actually quite fun! I did it in three days, by myself (with Thatch and Nella, the Borders).  Either the adrenaline or excitement helped the time pass and kept road weariness at a minimum.  The first few days here I was exhausted, more evidence that I had been on an adrenaline buzz during the trip.  I took a slight detour to see Aaron in Indianapolis the first day out.  Spent a day with him, serenaded by tornado sirens and news of Joplin's devastation.  The second night I stayed with my sister-in-law Karen Kelley and her family in Columbia MO, getting to know her three boys better.  Then the long, last push from Columbia to Evergreen, about 750 miles, most of it KANSAS.  If you have driven through Kansas you can relate.  And sympathize.

I figured out several state budgets on the trip.  North Carolina makes money by imposing heavy gasoline taxes.  West Virginia makes money by charging $6.00 just to get to Charleston on the highway.  Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois make money with speed traps.  Missouri saves money by not removing dead animals from the roadways.  Kansas makes money by brainwashing you with billboards touting roadside attractions, such as six-legged cows, all along the freeway. But not gas stations, towns, or hotels. Those you have to leave the highway to find. However, some of the Kansas exits have closed up and the establishments that were once there have disappeared.  Colorado saves money by not fixing roads, especially huge, hidden potholes on bridges and overpasses in the eastern part of the state.  I feared that I would split a tire!

Some of you may know that to get to our house, you leave Interstate 70, and head south about 8 miles into the older part of Evergreen.  After passing Evergreen Lake on your right, you come to a traffic signal and a rounded right-hand yield by the dam.  Thatch, who lived the first three years of his life here, began to whine right about the time we got to the  turn at the dam.  He had been remarkably quiet during the three-day drive, so I couldn't help but wonder what he recognized.  Was it the smell of the lake or dam?  The scent of the downtown?  The curve and bank of the turn that felt familiar from his youth?  Or was I emitting some aroma or pheromone of happiness?  We  will never know, but the uncanny things that these dogs do, really make me wonder what goes on in their little craniums.