~of mountains, mesas, marijuana, men wearing cowboy hats and a thousand other ways that I realize "I'm not in Kansas" anymore~

     It was within the first week of my living here in south western Colorado that I made the trip down to the Driver's License Bureau  just off of Main Street to switch out my Kansas DL for a new one from Colorado.  I hated the thought of it but realized that without a current and proper ID, things wouldn't run very smoothly for me here.  With reluctance I went there and kept it together pretty well until the last part, you know the part where they take your old license from you.  The examiner, a 40-something woman who definitely had not won my heart, looked at me with an evil smile and said as she stamped the word VOID on my old license "Looks like you are not in KANSAS anymore!"  With my eyes stinging with tears and a "I'm not happy about this" look on my face, I left.  She was right and as the days went on, I found out more and more just how different life here would be for me.

I came home that morning, took this photo and promptly tucked that old driver's license back into my wallet.  So if it is illegal to carry an old one in my billfold, well then I guess that it is.  I had carried one of those for over 40 years and I wasn't about to stop now :)

From that day in early June, I realized just how weirdly different life would be here in the West and have seen numerous examples of that in the days that followed. All around our home here in Montrose there are mountains, mountains and more mountains.  And when you run out of mountains to look at, well then you can look at the mesas.  I had only read about and seen pictures of "14'ers" when I lived back home in Kansas.  Now it is the view that I see every morning as I sit here at the kitchen table.  Sometimes when I look at them they don't seem real and their appearance gives new meaning to the word surreal. It's as if someone painted them onto the skyline and it's only when I get literally next to them do I realize that hey, THOSE are mountains.  I have enjoyed taking pictures of them and I would be the first to admit that they are indeed beautiful and a magnificent thing to see each day.  Do I love them yet?  Nah~but I can live with them now and that's a big step for me.

The view I saw this past January when I came to visit Mike here in Colorado.  This was along the way to Ouray one Sunday afternoon.  We followed the curve in the road and there this was, rising up from the landscape.

     I have gotten used to the fact that around here folks wear cowboy boots and hats, jeans and belt buckles, not because it is "Dress Like a Cowboy" day in Montrose but because they really are cowboys.  Students come to school in a similar manner and I no longer find myself staring at boys wearing black felt cowboy hats on the playground.  I used to wonder why they did that and now I know.  I only had to make the mistake one time to realize that here farms are not farms any longer.  They are ranches.  And the guy that rides his horse to town every day wearing full cowboy garb?  Well, he does that because, well because that's what he does.  I have learned, rather quickly.
     Last evening when I got home from the school Halloween carnival, I sat down with Mike to perform my very first civic duty here in Colorado.  We'd received our advance voting ballots from here in Montrose County and it was time to sit down and fill them out.  Because Colorado was one of two states last year that voted to legalize recreational use of marijuana, I shouldn't have been surprised to see the first ballot issue pertaining to how certain taxes should be collected on its sale and where the proceeds of those taxes should be distributed.  Yet, I was surprised and the fact that I was voting on that kind of a question for the first time in my now 58-year old life, just reminded me of the fact that what the driver's license employee said to me five months ago was true~"I am not in Kansas any more."  I voted, sealed my envelope and with that, I guess that makes me an official resident of the "Centennial State".  
     I'm learning about life here and day by day it gets a whole lot easier.  Shoot, I can drive to Olathe and back with my eyes closed now but I promise you that I won't.  I don't get lost nearly so often and I actually have found myself with many friends now.  There was a time in the early days that I wasn't so sure that would ever be the case.  I'm alive and well here along the Western Slopes.  I live in a "fish bowl" now,  nestled into the valley that lies below the towering San Juan Mountain range.  It's a view I see every morning when I arise and when I lay my head down to sleep at day's end.  Take care of yourselves my dear friends and family.  Be at peace with life, stay well and surely happy.  See you my Kansas friends and family at the end of this month.  Thanksgiving will mean even more to me this year.

Getting ready to read that book on the right, Nothing Daunted, that tells the story of two women who came from way back east to teach here in Colorado back in the early 1900's.  They sound way too much like me, right down to the snow shoes :)