I like everything about this photo. This was taken in June on the way up to the top of Mt. Evans, one of many 14ers in Colorado. The snow, the blue sky, the reflection in the window of the Jeep, and the fact that the only way I got this photo was simply leaning out the backseat since most of the top was off. It was 90 degrees an hour before this was taken. THAT is why I love Colorado. She’s a harsh and unpredictable bitch. But she holds what I believe to be, all the beauty and magic in the mid west, and she knows it.
HOW DOES SHE DO IT?
Well first by taking your breath away, literally. There is barely any oxygen where this was taken or pretty much in the state at all. She likes to keep your brain and body slightly on the edge of an aneurysm at all times…ESPECIALLY when viewing her prettiest of landscapes at higher altitudes. Until you finally just get dizzy and want to vomit. Yea altitude sickness is her merciful choice. Then there’s major unexpected temperature changes regardless of season. It can be 90 degrees for pumpkin carving and snowing on Mother’s Day with golf ball sized hail perfect for your 4th of July picnic.
Secondly she does it by cleaning you out. The dry air in Colorado is one of her calling cards. It is for sucking your struggling body dry from any and all moisture. You need H2O to live? Funny, she’d rather take your sweat and rip it clean-off so you have no proof of it ever being there except for a smudgy trickle of salt.
Thirdly and not at all lastly, she does it by trusting her human dwellers 5,000 feet closer to the SUN. Yea the fireball in the sky keeping as alive has a homeostatic distance to be away from to avoid harm. That distance – well – she laughs at it. Think 5,000 feet closer to the sun is bad, theres all this great land to traverse with high peaks, those peaks are over 13,000 feet closer and many over 14,000 feet. She makes you painfully aware of the smell of fried skin. Then she throughs the cherry on top. While you're getting ferociously burned wearing 70 proof sunscreen on one of her high peaks like Mt. Evans theres also a probable likelihood of also getting stuck by lightning.
SHE DOES IT BY FORCE
The most cruel of all her antics is the gaping hole in the soul of every person that has had the privilege to face and admire her head on. That hole is made to fit her. She forcefully goes in and burns it entirely and all at once. It can be filled by nothing else and is always a constant reminder that nothing and nowhere else is like her. No version of yourself outside of her border is the best version. She knows it. And you know it.
