Summery day in April(!)

As we drove through town around 1:00 yesterday you could sense, if not hear, the exuberant thrum.

A swell of people appeared, pouring from doorways into yards brandishing trowels and clippers, or onto sidewalks hippety-hopping to the grocery store, or into every vehicle they could steer, like us, toward the highway. Outta here! We got blue sky, a warm, dry day for the first time in months. Gimme a stretcha road, scenery, places for fun, greenery!

We drove past Dexter, up the winding little highway, and then on to the road to Eagle's Rest. Higher, higher. I'd been craving altitude like a drug. We greeted tall firs, our old friends, on each side dangling a branch or two after winter's harsh treatment. We rounded curves into open air, imbibed the view.

Then we met snow, still bunched and blanketing the ascending road. A refreshing whiff of chill on a solar-stimulated day. We couldn't make it, yet, to the Eagle's Rest trail. But it awaits us, as does Mt. June much farther up, more deeply buried. Beneath whiteness, though, now stirs a warming sensation growing, set to reach the fever pitch felt joyously below in our town for this one out-of-season afternoon.