Colorado, Day 4

July 21, 2014
          Day 82

One of the funniest things I've seen up here in the Rockies are signs that say, "Scenic Area" followed by a parking lot or pull-off area.  What's crazy and funny about this is, of course, the fact that everywhere you look, there are scenic areas!

Today we went to the beautiful ski resort area of Vail, Colorado, but of course even before and after that area, we were told to look around us through these signs.  Do people not look around?  Do they not see what's right in front of them?  Hmm.  Maybe that's our message for today.

Saint Augustine once said, "Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering."

We have had a ton of amazing vistas reveal themselves to us in the past four days, and it's difficult to truly appreciate them the more they surround us.  It's constant.  Nature is constant.  Mountains and meadows and hawks and trees are all constantly revealing their beauty over and over again.  So the longer you look on them, the more you realize it is not they who are changing and growing, but instead it is us.  We are changed by their majesty, and we are grown by their beauty.

As we close out our fourth day here in Colorado, we are exhausted and overwhelmed.  We are exhausted by the driving and the doing, and we are overwhelmed by the size and scope of these mountains.  As we marvel at their heights, we are humbled by their scope.  We are just two small souls wandering over the many huge mountain tops in our rental car.

When we finally arrive back on Long Island this Wednesday night, we won't see any signs for scenic vistas on the parkway as we drive home.  Signs like that are rare, but if you think about it, they're also unnecessary.  We have so much worth seeing all around us everywhere we travel on this planet, and the revelations of the journey are always happening inside and not outside of us anyway.

So open your eyes.  Really open them.

And see the beauty all around you...without being told which way you should look.