Sippin' on a Tall Boy

I've been coming to the Coco since I can remember a thought....the parents orange dreamsicle colored Vee-Dub microbus, driving us north out of the hell of summer into the cool of the pines.  Brother and I exploring the lava fields for hidden pieces of ice left over from the long winter up high....dripping through the spring and refreezing into icy recesses which never see the omnipresent sun.  I learned early that if you stick your nose to a Ponderosa in the sun, you will smell Butterscotch......this was, and is; Sippin' on a Tall Boy.

I've since gotten bigger.....and older....and yet I still find myself driving north in my own German-made vehicle....still sippin' on a tall boy......

......lets sling a little mud girl........

.....ok....lets do just that....

Riding and wondering....crawling through the grass.....stopping and appreciating this land is a short lived experience.  The blooms come late at this elevation and they don't last for long......

The 2-wheeled catharsis graces us with a way to travel light.....

Speaking of light....summer beers make their appearance as easily as do lightweight tires and Rocky Mountain Irises......

Long rides are taken at leisure, midday; with happy hour every 3pm coming with the warning that if we dare crack the bottle inside our heads, we might never get it back in....best to heed the sticker and not open.....

The gentle breeze sifting through scented pines occasionally flaps a loose fly on the tent sending a ripple of sound through the otherwise silent setting....the sharp report of a fly snapping brings me back to memories of past summers......

.....memories that act as a proxy to deeper thought......I peer upwards as I look down upon my iPod.....music filling my mind of times past.......emotions escaped and confronted, revealed and resolved....this is the place of adjudication for me......

As I add water to my dogs bowl, I see the needles come into focus......and of the dog that used to drink here last summer......

Studying the micro world around me, I admire the working edge of my cassette teeth highlighted by the ferrous particles of dirt clinging to them......a perfect arrangement of welds on the chain and seat stay junction add symmetry....symmetry in a world of chaotic movement and circumstance makes me happy....

.....as does a new ride for the summer.....a summer romance, too young to know better....everyone likes them a bit of strange I guess....

Graham studies strange sounds coming from beyond the treeline....

.....but remains close, ever mindful that dinner is about to be served....old enough to know that he can't catch the deer but smart enough to know that his job is still to point them out....

As the light fades, splashes of wine hit objects around us in random splatter patterns....how apropos....

My walk around the encampment ends in the skyline shot........

As I rode on the AZT the very next day, I spied a fiddlerhead and thought......I HEART summer days on the Coco.......