Ahhh summer! The time to be spontaneous and enjoy every moment you can outside! This morning we woke up bright and early (which for me during my summer vacation is epic ;), packed a picnic lunch, and headed west. I really could do without mountain driving, but there is no other way to find yourself lost among the beautiful and wild mountains than to put up with those curvy twisting roads. We drove through the town of Estes Park- it was crowded and full of tourists milling around- so much different from the last time we were there in mid March. So we decided to keep driving until we came to Lily Lake.
The shaded trail kept us nice and cool along the lake and I braved through the swarms of bright blue damselflies...I've never seen so many dancing in the air before. They really are quite pretty with their turquoise blue bodies. I only lost my cool once when some sort of mayfly lodged itself between my eye and sunglasses...yes you read that right. gross. I immediately thought back to when I was in elementary school and my dad and I would go out to the nature areas with a huge bug net and catch critters for my bug collection...or maybe that was my twin sister because that literally doesn't sound like anything I would do...ever :)
The 4th grade teacher in me has to tell you that this is our state flower, the Columbine :)
We found a little bench and enjoyed our lunch overlooking the lake. Off in the distance we heard a violin playing as people were gathering for a wedding. What a beautiful place to be married.
It was nice to escape even if just for a few hours. I feel like these past few weeks have been filled with so much up and down emotion and uncertainty...life feels a little out of control for me at the moment as my husband is doing a little of his own soul searching and deciding what he wants his future career to be. Sometimes I struggle to understand, I've known that I wanted to be a teacher since junior high. But Martin has always had so many dreams and he really is so so talented at many things that I think it becomes overwhelming to decide which path to take. Someday we'll look back and see how everything was connected and that without this job or without this journey we wouldn't have made it to our final destination. I feel like my faith has been quavering lately, but I know everything will work out...it always does.
It was definitely you who had the bug collection...not me! :) Nothing like mountain air to help with the soul searching and to help keep your faith.
ReplyDeleteI still can't believe I did that! :)
DeleteLooks like you had a great time. I think both you and Kate loved to collect insects.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure we got first place in the Science Olympiad Bug Identifying Competition :)
DeleteWhat a wonderful place to get rejuvenated. My family wants to do one of our big camping trips to Rocky Mountain National Park, not sure if that's near this or not (haven't looked at maps lately!) but I'm sure all of the Rocky Mountains are incredible.
ReplyDeleteThe columbine is my mom's favorite flower. They don't flourish too well here but she and her husband have a very special plant of them that they keep healthy.
And I feel you on the soul searching. We've had a lot of up-in-the-air feelings lately too as our house that we've rented for nine years is getting sold and the market here is crazy so we're not sure we'll be able to buy it even though it's kind of a dump! On top of that, my husband is feeling torn about his career future as well, as much as we love the bookstore, we aren't sure if and when we will ever be able to take over ownership so it's a lot of risk to stake our lives on. But meanwhile these babes depend on us and our family lives just keep truckin on and the summer is glorious and we just try to keep a positive spin on things all the time!