6 November 1997
Crestone, Colorado
Crestone: Quick Look
In the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, 8,000 feet above the sea, there is less sky between me and the stars. The moon is lustrous against an obsidian background. It is so clear that I could be on a voyage towards it, towards the bright beam of Jupiter next to which it sits, in the cool mountain air.
The mountains exhale behind me. The snow-capped peaks release their breath onto my back. I turn to see their crisp cold glowing in the second reflection of the sun's light -- sun to moon to mountain tops.
During the day I wore only a t-shirt in the sunlight, took some color, sunburn from the intensity of the sun in the thin air. As soon as the sun sets, or goes behind a cloud, it is cold.
My car is still warm from the day's solar heating. I drove on the dirt road to my little house by the Aspen and Cottonwood covered brook. The coyotes have ended their call for the night. The elk and deer will not be back until dawn. Now is the time for reading.
I stop gaze across the thirty five miles of flat plains to the straight twinkling row of lights, the towns on the other side of the valley, our mirror image, at the foothills of their 14,000 foot peaks.