The windows are open and birds are making noises outside. The sun is out and the wind is bending the junipers in front of the kitchen window. It feels like spring.
I start dreaming of the Tetons in the spring. We return each year in July and drive the same route. When I struggle to sleep, I begin thinking about the drive we’ll take to get to the mountains in a few months. There are so many images along the way that I love.
We leave Denver and breakfast on German sausage and eggs at Johnson’s Corner not too far from Loveland. It’s a great truck stop and I think the waitresses worked there when I was a little girl.
It’s still pretty early when we see windmills churning away north of I80. They break the empty Wyoming sky with linear technology. It is beautiful. Especially in a dark morning storm. We are 40 minutes from Rawlins and then we leave the highway and enter real western spaces.
I daydream my way through miles of arroyos, an occasional antelope, dried pools left over from spring storms, and then I rejoice when Split Rock is in sight.
Split Rock is pink when we see it headed to the Tetons. The color is different when we return home. Light does wonderful things in empty spaces. Georgia O’Keeffe knew this.
Before we hit Lander there is a spot in the road where the road goes on forever and yellowed grass bends in the wind. It reminds me of my friend Barbara who loves this same spot and reminds me that it doesn’t take purple mountain majesties or dazzling green forests to find beauty. Empty spaces are beautiful.
The last wide open vista on our journey is after we’ve been through Dubois. Dubois is a gorgeous little town and the last stop for gas before we head to the mountains and into the Tetons. We are an hour away now.
A half an hour later, the last of the big Wyoming vistas appears. The road curves and you can see Togwotee Pass and the first of the northwest mountains. The landscape is green and wet for the first time. The grass is green. The trees are green. The light has moved and the faces of these first mountains are dark against the sky and you can’t even see them if a storm is brewing.
There is nothing but forests and mountains from this point on–the kind you see on postcards. There is a moment when I first see the Tetons. I always cry. These mountains heal my soul. I cry when I daydream about them too.
The Wyoming Spaces Collection is all about my daydreams this spring. I just drew them this time.