Homecoming

     The trip from Texas took forever, or three days depending on whether you were ten or thirty-three.   I was ten. The miles crawled by at a snail's pace, sometimes literally as the 1960's carburetor in our Rambler station wagon chugged along, its gas to oxygen mixture acclimated to the plains of Texas and New Mexico, not the high peaks of Colorado.

  We were coming home, or it seemed that way to me, even though we lived most of the year in Austin. Our summer place, an old one room school house hidden away in the Ophir Valley, a few miles from Telluride awaited our arrival, surviving, we hoped, another long winter in the high country.  We pulled in as the sun was going down, having stopped in town to pick up a few groceries.  I piled out of the packed car as soon as the wheels stopped turning.  My brother, baby sister, and the dog, tumbled out after me. It was a jail break, as if wild animals had been released after a long captivity. 

  

  It was going on twilight. Dead ahead, the peaks known in those parts as The Needles, glowed purple, their rocky tips still reflecting the orange waning light of the sun as it dipped below the San Juan Mountain Range in the west. 

  I ran the hundred yards to the beaver pond, so named because we were hoping for beaver, not because we had actually seen any evidence of beaver. I scanned the water for a new dam or lodge blocking the spring that fed it. 

  Behind me, my mother turned on the bare electric bulbs that hung from the ceiling, in the asphalt sided school house, the lights casting a soft glow throughout the one large room that served as a mountain cabin, divided into living area, and sleeping area. The kitchen was an afterthought slapped on the back of the structure.  It was a place that made my mother happy. Having grown up on the plains of North Dakota with no electricity or indoor plumbing, she was comfortable with 19th century amenities. The huge wood stove in the kitchen posed no problem.  "Be useful, pick up some sticks and dead fall, I have to start a fire for supper."  

 "I'll bring water from the spring," I hollered wanting to continue my exploration of the grounds, a survey to see if anything was different than last year. Leaving the wood gathering to my brother, I grabbed the water pail, and ran down the hill.

   

  "Wash it out first," she yelled at me as I made my way through the gathering dusk. The water was frigid, burbling through the meadow, terminating in a small waterfall, that flowed down the mountain side.  I stopped to dip my hands in the clear water, chilling my fingers as it rippled over them and paused to drink. I rolled the cold liquid over my tongue. No other water tasted like this.  I filled the bucket, trying not to slop on my shoes, I made my way back carefully. The sharp tang of pine filled my nose.  The path curved back towards the yard.  To my left I could hear the rushing water of the river a thousand feet down, beyond the old carriage road that ran along the edge, over the lip of the gorge that separated our valley from the mountain on the other side.

  The door of the Franklin Stove clanked shut as my dad built a fire to warm up the room. His next task would be to unroll sleeping bags on our beds, until blankets and linens could be washed and freshened.  Snow still clumped in spots in the yard not touched by the sun, as well as clinging to the tops of the mountain ranges surrounding us.

  Our neighbor from down the valley pulled into the drive.  In the last glimmer of sunset I could see a stringer of trout dangling from his hand. He had seen our lights and stopped by to drop off dinner.

  Leaves rustled in the quaken' aspen, an occasional peep erupting from their depths as the birds settled in for the night.  Dark descended on the Ophir Valley, black and liquid, the only light visible emanated from a sliver of moon in the eastern sky. A Pinprick from an early star was barely visible. 

  Tomorrow would be a day of work, cleaning out cob webs, washing the floor, cutting wood, and washing the windows. But that was tomorrow. Tonight I stood in the yard with my bucket, water dripping on my foot. The school house looked cozy and inviting as the cold clear night crept down from the mountains. I was home.

-Photo of The Needles courtesy of Pintrest