<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t usually like to drive.\u00a0 <\/span>But maybe that\u2019s because I\u2019ve spent so much of my life living in the Mid-Atlantic region of the country, smack in the middle of several huge metropolises \u2013 Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore \/Washington, D.C.\u00a0 <\/span>The traffic can be a little intense at times in the greater Philadelphia area.\u00a0 <\/span>So imagine my surprise when I came to realize I rather like road trips out in the Southwest.\u00a0 <\/span>Driving out here is a completely different experience.\u00a0 <\/span>Generally one doesn\u2019t have to worry so much about other drivers.\u00a0 <\/span>Instead one has the opportunity to take in the considerable beauty of the scenery that passes by – over and over and over again.<\/p>\n A few days ago I drove south from Denver to Colorado Springs and the next day I drove south then west then south again, heading back to my hometown on the western edge of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.\u00a0 <\/span>After I got past the rush hour traffic in Denver, I just gloried in the beauty around me.\u00a0 <\/span>I was feeding on the beauty.\u00a0 <\/span>I was being nourished by the beauty.\u00a0 <\/span>It lifted me up and made me grateful to be a citizen of this planet, this beautiful Earth we live on.<\/p>\n Tall mountains and rounded hills, forests of aspen and pinyon, green valleys, wild rivers, rocky canyons, wildflowers and chamisa, amazing skies\u2026.\u00a0 <\/span>Magpies and chipmunks, deer and hawks, and when we\u2019re really blessed, antelope, bear, elk, eagles. Then there are the sunrises and sunsets, the moonrises, the thunderstorms, and the rainbows.\u00a0 <\/span>There is just so much to revel in.<\/p>\n I\u2019m an artist, but driving through country like this is so much better than any gallery, so much better than any TV show or movie.\u00a0 <\/span>It is just miraculous how beautiful this world can be.\u00a0 <\/span>What have we done to deserve such beauty?\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n I often wish there was some way I could capture the beauty \u2013 not in a photograph, but in my memory.\u00a0 <\/span>I want to hold onto the beauty in some way, tuck it into a corner of my heart where I can pull out the images from time to time and relive the wonder of the experience.\u00a0 <\/span>But I don\u2019t have that capacity.\u00a0 <\/span>I can perhaps remember how I felt or what I saw, but I can\u2019t remember the details.\u00a0 <\/span>I can\u2019t bring up the the picture like a slide in a show.\u00a0 <\/span>I can\u2019t exactly recall the smells or sounds.\u00a0 <\/span>Beauty is fleeting.\u00a0 <\/span>And perhaps that\u2019s what makes it so special.<\/p>\n My hope is that I never tire of this world.\u00a0 <\/span>I hope I never take for granted the beauty that surrounds me every day.\u00a0 <\/span>I want to always remember how very blessed I am to live in the midst of such beauty.\u00a0 <\/span>I want to rediscover it around me every day.<\/p>\n How very blessed we are.\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s never forget it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I don\u2019t usually like to drive.\u00a0 But maybe that\u2019s because I\u2019ve spent so much of my life living in the Mid-Atlantic region of the country, smack in the middle of several huge metropolises \u2013 Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore \/Washington, D.C.\u00a0 The traffic can be a little intense at times in the greater Philadelphia area.\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":553,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,3,133,283,123,280,284,282,281],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beauty","category-blessings","category-earth","category-mid-atlantic","category-mountains","category-rivers","category-road-trips","category-southwest","category-trees"],"yoast_head":"\n