In spite of having visited my sister multiple times in the ten years she has lived in the area, and in spite of growing up in Colorado, this is the first time I've ever been to Colorado National Monument. I'm a moron. Look at this scenery!! There are pullouts all along the road where you are allowed to park and walk to the EDGE of the cliff for any purpose: photos, hiking, sheer (huh) stupidity, inspiration....I love Colorado. Edges rock! Unfortunately, I'm totally out of shape, and unused to the altitude, so every walk down to take a photo required at least five minutes of huffing and puffing to recover my equilibrium and breath.
We were stopped while the road was being repaired. This was the view. Somehow, we didn't really mind being stopped as much as we probably would have in most other circumstances.
Some twerpy kid is providing a cover for me to take a picture of the man in the background who was quietly playing an instrument made of string and a curved stick which he was plucking and strumming using his hands and mouth. Fascinating. He barely recognized that we were there, and we in turn kept our voices respectful of his personal interaction with nature. African music is hardly what you'd expect to hear here, but somehow it fit perfectly into the open sky and deep canyons.
I have discovered a new appreciation for my father's penchant for taking photos of trees. The trees of Colorado--we could do a whole coffee-table book on them just of my dad's photos over the years. Now I've started to add to the collection. But they are fascinating to look at. Each of them is different, not just because of species, but because of what the wind and water have done to them, how they've found a way to survive on dust and dry air. Each one is alone, there are no cozy little sprouts of family-member trees crowding around the base. It's survive or leave in this climate.How dry is it here? This is my sister's front garden.
Cactus. Lichen. Big honkin' rocks. Little itty bitty decorative rocks. On the other hand, it does snow here....
(This was taken the morning we left my sister's house.)We also visited Red Rocks Amphitheater while we were in Denver; this is a required stop whenever we have time in Denver. [If it looks vaguely familiar in the link, you have probably seen the U2 "Sunday Bloody Sunday" video.] I love this place more than I can understand. There have been some improvements since I was there last, including a gift shop and restaurant at the top of the shell, in a building that has been there always, but used to be used for...uh...something unknown and secret I guess. Anyway, here's that strange kid again:
The boy does like to scowl (ok, and he's looking directly into the sun, too). How you can scowl when this is the view in front of you 
is beyond me, but....When I was a kid, you could actually SEE the city of Denver spread out in front of you. It was just haze and smog. The people in down several rows in front of us had been having a picnic with the little kids. What a great way to spend a morning!
Actually, what a great way to spend a vacation.
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