As most of you know Wendy my gorgeous wife paints houses now and then with her sister Christy. Their most recent accomplishment was wall papering a "castle" outside of Delta (Delda for those who speak Deldonian). I call it a castle because it sits on the south side of Grand Mesa, is 11,000 square feet and has just a magnificent feel to it. A secret door, a giant tiled living space that could fit a half basketball court in it, a kitchen that makes cooks like myself drop to their knees exclaiming "I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!" Anyway you get the idea. It's a nice place. Last week I was in "Delda" with my two boys while Wendy and Christy were working at the castle. It was one of the very snowy days of the week and I'm in our Buick Lasabre with bald tires and the castle sits 7 miles off the hyway straight up the extinct volcano's reaches. I, now 47 years of age, hesitate to take the journey as it's a blizard in "Delda", but adventure awaits and my boys' sense of adventure is getting to level six on "Skylanders Swap Force" video game and the snow is lifting a bit.
The journey up goes by a ranch house with old dead monstrous cottonwood trees on one side of the road and an abandoned small orchard on the the other. Then it comes to several chicken raising barns and then the final ascent to the castle is steep. We make it up no problem. After I tour the place and determine its castle-like status we venture back home after a farewell smooch from my lady. The snow now is back with a force and our visibility is down to 50 yards. I put the Buick in low and we just creep down getting up to a top speed of maybe 20. I start expounding on the moment with my boys, for what we can see is only just what's ahead. "What if there's only what we can see and nothing beyond?" I exclaim to the somewhat worried looking boys.
We then approach the old ranch and we can see as we near the cottonwoods several Ravens and they are fighting with a Golden Eagle. Whiteout of snow around us and God clashing before us in battle with our enemies. There's no show of fear from the eagle even outnumbered 12 to 1 and we in the old car as mere spectators to their clash. The boys just exclaim (raised from their 80's era father) "cool!"
A week later I'm taking my oldest son Quinn to his tutor outside of Montrose. She lives about 6,000 feet and has had some accumulation after several days of heavy snow so she says that her husband will meet us at the bottom of the hill to help us with the journey. Sounds like another adventure to me so I take our SUV. We get to their driveway and see there is probably a foot of new snow. I roar the SUV down the drive in four wheel drive slipping a bit several times to the side of the mile long treacherous driveway. I take extra care to go beyond the limits of a 100% safe trip down the drive just to exhilarate my son a bit. On the way out I take my time viewing the covered landscape covered with the engineered frozen crystals that transformed the mesa to something magical. Millions of tiny mirrors reflecting beams of sunlight. Odd shapes of snow covered trees make a rounded lumpy white terrain. The trail is just a moment in time going through a free tour of Gods transformation. No troubles exist here for this mile is God's orchestration.
Later that day I pick up Quinn in town from his tutor and he wants to go to his favorite pizza place for lunch. Colorado Boy is our local fire brick oven pizza/brewery. The responsible father in me that thinks we have sandwich stuff at home is easily swayed because I too like the pie at Colorado Boy. While I'm there I usually help the place out and purchase a pint of Irish ale, just to be a good patron of local business. I hold several gold medals for eating slowly and savoring the food and beverage of the moment. However, Quinn is now a definite contender of eating as slow or slower than his old man so, we are not in a hurry. It's getting past 1:00 pm and with the fill of beer and pizza and the view from the gunfighters seat in the booth of the quaint restaurant it all goes kinda slow motion. The place is clearing out people are talking, laughing, enjoying the atmosphere of the fire brick oven and the brass laden bar, I see God again. He's enjoying the moment with us. Father and son, no words need to be spoken. These are moments I cherish and wish they could last forever.