There is beauty all around...

The other day I decided to find out more about the Elko Peace Park. It's near our house. It's a cool little park with a walking track and Eightmile Creek runs through it. It's about half the size of Panther Creek in Morristown, and goes dry in the summer. But it's running gray with snow melt now. This bridge is over the creek. They are still building the park so there will be playground stuff eventually. We will live less than a block away.

Last week I drove up to Lamoille Canyon, about 20 miles south of Elko, in the Ruby Mountains. I was snowing so I knew I'd not get very high up.

When I got to about 8000 feet, it got foggy bad and was snowing. Visibility was poor, but the road is good. I found out they don't maintain it in the off season which is winter. Snowmobilers are about the only real users and they are on their own. More on that later.

I saw a "rock slide" sign. Who gives a rip? They are all over the place. Anywhere there is a hill, there is a sign. So what?

Then I took a look up into the fog at the rocky crags above. Oh. Rock slides. Oh.

A little further on and there was this sigh for the glaciers. There are a few small glaciers up very high, but this particular spot is really an ancient U-shaped glacial canyon left over from the ice age. You know, before man made global warming destroyed all the dinosaurs.

Then I came upon this slide of giant boulders. Imagine what that would do to a car? And the soft chewy center of the car?


















Then another slide of smaller stones but more of them.


















Then another slide...and something caught my eye to the left along the guard rail. Can you spot it?

It was a young big horn sheep ram. Almost came up to my window, but then walked around me.



















There were three of them altogether.

Then I returned home over the Elko Hills. You can see the west end of Elko in the Humboldt River bottom down there, with the Adobe Mountains in the distance. And will you look at that sky?! I love the sky here. I'm dead serious. If you want to come and sight see with us, just come. Sleep in our house and we'll go see things. You will love it.

So today I drove up Lamoille Canyon again, but this time there was not a cloud over Utah, Nevada, Idaho, California, or Arizona. Blue sky. On the left is basically the same photo as the glacier picture above. On the right is the little road down to the campground, across a wooden bridge over Lamoille Creek. Too muddy for me, yet.

On the way up the road today, several cop SUV's were parked, blocking the road. I pulled up and they told me I had to go back. They were rescuing a pair of snowmobilers who had crashed. I said, no problem, and the guy actually thanked me. I could tell he was pretty stressed out.

The rock slides were still there, along with a couple new ones. When the snow starts to melt, it all comes down.

Here is a picture of the clouds along a cold front that passed through the other day. I tried to stitch them together. Perhaps you can use your imagination a little and pretend I am good at photography and have a really expensive camera.

Ok, I love it here. I love the people, the sky, the ground, the streams, the desert, the mountains, and the hotel. Well, I DID love the hotel. I like the staff and management. I like the food now and then. I like my holding cell, er, room. But It's time to move out.

So far, the Lord has blessed us at every turn. What have I to complain of or doubt? He will continue to bless us one step at a time.

Usually I want time to stand still so i can learn and grow. I'm not ready to die, yet. But I just wish the next month would hurry up and fly.

The up side is that I AM learning a great deal here. So much that my brain is now full.