My mountain summers....

Mountain mornings, crisp, chilly, the days are long and blue. The air is clean, clear, the clouds cast shadows that you watch as they travel across the landscape. In the evening, a fire is on order, the smell of wood smoke drifting after you. Picnic-like against the growing chill, you sit around the fire-pit, bare- legged, wrapped in blankets, seeing a million years of starlight as you have never seen it before. Shooting stars are regular, away from city lights. But still, so appreciated.

The old farm house on route 40, tractor trailers running through the night, 4 big beds with heavy quilts and sink-in mattresses. Comfort beneath the weight of cotton and down. The old apple tree, fruit falling, rotting...ammo. The horses fenced beyond the garden, riches from the earth. Sox walks slowly, old, along the irrigation canal as you look at the mountains, Timp, the hot pots.

Young, summer in the mountains. Cousins and aunts, grands, siblings. So much bounty, so easily bored. You go back in your mind, as you sit by a fire, in a canyon, at a park, by a river, on a lake. Wherever you can find that sky, crisp, clear, starry. With wood smoke drifting after you.

So tell me, what would bring you to the mountains in the summer? The arts, music, bikes, hikes...family? How do I coax you to find your version of this peace?

I only go to the mountains in the winter--to ski.

Is this a trick question?

Because John Muir said to.

Because they won't come to me.

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.”
― John Muir


Here are 70 more quotes by Muir.
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5297.John_Muir

Because Julie Andrews said to Climb ev'ry mountain...