Foggy Bits n Pieces

Today is the first sunny day we've had in about a week. Actually, I don't remember the last time we had this much sunshine. It is wonderful.

~*~*~*~I love fog. I don't like gray days, but I love fog.

~*~*~*~Growing up and living most of my life in Colorado, well, there aren't very many foggy days in Colorado. Clear blue skies, deep blue you can almost reach out and taste, blue that draws your eyes up up up into the vast bowl of atmosphere.

The only other place with a sky bigger than Colorado is ... Big Sky Country - Montana! The first time we traveled through Montana, from south to north, Mel and I were amazed at how truly big the sky is there. You can practically see the curve of the earth (you can do that in Kansas and Oklahoma and the panhandle of Texas, too) and the sky is deep cornflower blue, beautiful, clear, and wonderfully big. Like the ocean and canyons, the sky makes me feel small and insignificant.

~*~*~*~When I think of fog I automatically think of the mountains and forrests. I don't associate fog with the prairies - prairies are 'big sky,' not 'fog.' Yet, the last time I was in a thick fog was about a year ago, out on the prairies of eastern Colorado.

Mel and I went out to visit friends of ours who live almost on the border of Colorado and Kansas (hi there, M and K!). I was still recovering from my double knee replacement surgery, the ride was long and I needed to get out and stretch my legs.

We were in the middle of a winter storm. There was some snow, but mostly we drove through miles and miles of fog. There were country roads branching off the main highway every so often along the route. Sandy country roads that led off toward ranches or small towns off the main highway. I asked Mel to stop on one of those and let me get out and walk. There had been very little traffic but I didn't want to take a chance walking on the side of the two lane highway.Pawnee National Grasslands, Colorado (Imagine fog, whisps of snow and frost on the grasses in this photo :) )

We turned off and drove for about half a mile down a dirt road. Mel pulled over in the ditch and we got our coats, hats and gloves on. The wind was howling, the temperature was cold with windchill down near zero or below. And it was foggy.

I am not sure Mel was thrilled to be out in that, but I loved it. I was energized. Slowly I started walking. My legs and new knees were still learning how to get along with each other and I had lost a lot of my endurance. I set a goal - the top of a small rise that I could see off in the fog a ways down the road. Mel walked beside me.

When we got out of the car, one of the first things that struck me was the smell - Colorado prairies - and I was immediately remembering times in my childhood when we would go visit my grandparents 'out on the farm' near Rush. The 'farm' was actually a small ranch - I don't know why we called it a farm, maybe because my grandfather was a dairy rancher for awhile before he did strictly beef cattle, grew some feed for them for a few years and thus it bacame a 'farm'? I don't know. I loved going there as a kid and have a lot of wonderful memories.

I've written about it before, I know, but one of the things I love about the prairie is the way it smells. Clean. Very hot - or very cold. Sagebrushy. Sandy. Unique. So, as I got started walking down the road, I took deep breaths of air (through my scarf - it was cold!) and let my mind wander back through many memories.

Yucca and sagebrush, dried prairie grasses, cowpies, barbed wire and wooden fence posts - all were covered by a rime of frost. Fog swirled through the air, hiding the distant view, then suddenly giving way to a view of a ranch house down the road a couple miles in a hollow of the prairie.

Silence. Total silence save for the sound of the wind blowing through the yucca and swooshing rattle of the dried hoary grama and buffalo grasses.

We reached our goal and I pleaded with Mel to walk a ways farther. He agreed, reluctantly. And when we finally reached that second goal, I could go no farther. My dear husband turned around, walked back to the car and drove up to get me. :)

That short walk was a balm to my soul.Hoar frost on the prairie grass by AstroBuff101