Waking up at the base of Devil's Tower

It’s 10.29am here (is that 1.29 or 12.29 in Columbus?) and I just rolled out of my tent and am admiring the view of Devil’s Tower. I do not imagine that there is any way to make this, the first National Monument, look good in a picture with just a normal camera at the ground level. Perhaps you need to do a fly by or take a camera up the four pitch trad climb. Maybe an old 8x10 film camera with none of the bells and whistles – black and white film and long exposure times could actually show off these channels that look chiseled out and run the height. Much like large city, the sum is greater than all of the parts – you cannot capture all of the highlights in one shot or painting – although the artists in the streets of Montmarte are a bit more carefree in the positioning of Paris’s tourist landmarks in their paintings.

At the base of the tower’s ‘pedestal’ (looking for a word that is smaller than a mountain and larger than a bread box, I mean hill) – there are these deep red rock cut outs. Everything else is so gray and brown that you think you are looking at a two tone picture. After a while even the grasses look brown. But this red is just shocking. Now you can see the different shades of all the other colors. Brown grasses and trees are now pale green sage bushes, the seasonal change of leaves on the trees to these neon yellows. Bridesmaid dress green trees (Sorry Angie) and dark evergreens.

We are preparing to go for a walk around the park and play with the prairie dogs. The sun is shining and we are debating pants v. shorts. I think we have begun to unwind from the stresses of normal life because this decision is the hardest we have faced since we left Chicago. I must chase the man down because he is biting into one last Molly apples – no more until next fall’s Worthington Farmers Market

I miss Boo.