Good Bye to the Lizard Head

Back to our trip - the day had come that we needed to move on from my favorite campsite with the expansive views of the Lizard Head and other mountains. My camera was out all night on our last night, taking photos of the stars.

Here's one of the photos from that night. If you look at the horizon, you can see the "Lizard Head", the volcanic plug that's like a small tower pointing toward the sky. Above the horizon, you can see the zillions of stars spinning around the North Star. Many stars were visible because the moon had already set.

I awakened at dawn to bring my camera into the LabMobile. The smoke from the western fires muted the light of the almost rising sun. However, I loved seeing the layers of ridges with haze settled between them.

Later in the morning, Shyla and I took one last mountain bike ride in the glorious wildflowers there.

We traveled a lot in Colorado this summer, and the wildflowers were incredible almost everywhere. However, I think that the flowers in the San Juan mountains won the "best in the state" award.

During our ride, Shyla and I stopped for her to take one more swim in the alpine lake.

And then to romp in the meadow near the lake one more time.

Whenever we visit the precious places that I love so much, the concept that our lives are finite seems clearer to me than at any other time. I wonder if all four of us will be back again next summer. I wonder how many more visits we'll get. I hope it's lots and lots.

It's not a morbid sort of pondering but, rather, it's a process of realizing, yet again, that I love this life and want to make the most of every day.

With those thoughts in my mind, I set off on a point-to-point ride to meet the pack near our next campsite. As I rode, I kept looking over my shoulder at the region I have come to love so much.

When I reached the highest point on the ride to meet the pack, I stopped to look over my shoulder one last time before plummeting down the other side, into a whole new world of ridges, valleys, and streams.

My point-to-point ride was uneventful - I didn't get lost or get too tired or have anything go wrong at all - which is a minor miracle for me! I rolled down next to a long creek to meet the pack in the LabMobile, almost right on time.

It turned out that our next campsite was near a gorgeous trail network for mountain biking and running. It was a new area to us... and I'll tell you a bit about in the next installment!