Steamboat Springs.

September 1, Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

I always liked the name. Steamboat Springs.
It sounded exotic, as if it didn't belong where it was, more reminiscent of the marshes of southern Louisiana, say, than the mountains of West. It had always goaded my imagination. I was not disappointed this morning when Dylan woke me up and I looked out the window on to the mountains around. There's no mistaking we're in Colorado now, the mountains are finally there, green, beckoning, the air cold, cold even in the warmth of the sun as the morning gets late, the spruce, the fir, the peculiar aromas of altitude. There are mountain bikes on people's cars, a Jeep passing me as I was walking with the stroller with a "Life is Good" tire cover on its back.
And the green, the green, I feel my lungs come alive again, my eyes drinking it in, can't get enough of it. Somehow I had always assumed that the Rockies were as dry as the mountain ranges of California or Utah. I'd driven through Denver, Boulder, and up to highway 80 on my way to a photo job in Logan, Utah, and that's as close to the Rockies as I'd ever ventured, not wanting to go back then, disappointed, longing for the Alps at home and their baby green slopes. Steamboat Springs has finally proven me wrong.