mountain streams

Three weekends in a row have been spent in the mountains, a place my heart feels most at home.  Chirping birds and cool morning air greets us when we wake.  The smell of pine trees and dirt accompany us on our bike rides and trail runs or even on our trips to the market.  The local barista asks what we are up to with our day and is truly interested (and not at all surprised by our ambitious response).  The stars come out at dusk and sparkle in the black night sky all night long.  The next day, it all repeats.

I know that you are aware of how I feel about city life, with its traffic and lack of trees;   so it probably comes as no surprise to you that the mountains are so special to me.

How did I fall so deeply in love with the mountains?  I wasn't raised in them, per se, but they were always there (5 are visible from my parents' house, when they are "out," anyway).  In fact, my hometown was named for one of those nearby mountains, visible from nearly everywhere in town. 

My family tends to be more water-people, than mountain, though.  Each Wednesday, my parents raced their sailboat on the Columbia River, while my sister and I cheered from our grandparents' river-front deck.  We ventured across the bar and into Canada on "The Pixie" (a small wooden yacht/ fishing vessel my grandpa helped build) and learned to row a small aluminum dingy while out fishing and watching for bears in the sloughs.  Summers were spent picnicking on Sand Island and being pulled around the river in inner-tubes.  Being on the water was a way of life for us.

 

But really, mountains and rivers are not very different at all, especially when you consider the mountain rivers, streams, and lakes available to play among.   They both provide that sense of happiness and freedom, sweet aromas and sounds of nature, and a chance to truly play. 

However, my outdoor activities have evolved from inner-tubing to hiking, sailing to kayaking, fishing to, well, fishing (but now it is with a fly rod in a mountain stream as opposed to a trolling the river in an aluminum boat!)

With any luck, I will be back in the mountains again this weekend.