> OK, I assume you all remember Howard's Beautiful Places thread. At least, most of you, we have a few newcomers. Well, I'm going to add yet another section. Yay for me.
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> I live in a beautiful place and I just reaffirmed it. I got home yesterday and, since there was nobody else to do it, I took the dog on a walk. We were planning on one of our normal walks, only this time I got to lead. (The last time she lead, she went straight to a pile of what I'm pretty sure was bear poo-- it was raining so the pile was obscured, but I was too muddy by that time to really care about it save that it gave me an excuse to turn around and *try* to find the thing that passed for a trail that'd gotten us there. I decided it was my turn.) Well, there was smoke coming from somewhere that was forming a rather large ring around the mountain (though I'm in a valley, "the mountain" is universally referring to the ski mountain, Alyeska) so I walked up to investigate. Well, looooong story short, I decided to drag the dog up the mountain. It was perfect. The best hikes are spur-of-the-moment. We just walked up the service road. If you can call it a road. Since it's not only after frost, it's after several termination dustings (well, only the first one's termination dust, but you get the idea), nobody in their right mind would hike up. Ski season is, of course, not yet open. We had the entire mountain, save the small part at the bottom where they were burning, to ourselves. I tell you, it was perfect. The chill in the air mingling with the wood smoke. The cottonwoods that were orange but actually still had their leaves next to the darkening evergreens. The motionless, unkempt ski lifts looked like rush-era relics. Coming back down, I stopped to look at a puddle. It had a perfect reflection of the part of the sky where the sun was trying to peep through the clouds and smoke. We stopped and you could almost feel the silence. The dog was quiet-- I didn't know it was possible. You could hear the silence. And looking out at the town from so far up... it was magical. I always loved that view. I'd stop and smell, or listen, or look around, and I'd face this dilemma-- it was too beautiful to blink for fear it would dissolve away into a dream, but I knew even more beautiful sights awaited me further up.
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> You'll excuse my ramblings. Moose in the driveway-- it took forever just to get home, I haven't been outside.

Chris, do you realize how beautiful your prose is? It's absolutely wonderful.