For some reason this morning I decided to check the weather report for Monarch Mountain back in our old home in Colorado. I was curious to see what the conditions were even though I know that no snow has fallen for several weeks up there. The mountains were bare as I expected them to be. It won't take that many more weeks though until the snows return and sooner or later the ski season will open up once again. Skiers by the score will come and go each weekend and during the holidays to enjoy a sport that I never once had the desire to try out.
They live for it. This "accident prone" nearly 60-year old woman does not.
Monarch Mountain and its summit at an elevation of nearly 12,000 feet was always kind of a scary place for me in my drives to and from our home in Montrose to my old home in Hutchinson, Kansas. There were times when I crossed over the pass in the darkness of the early morning hours and many of those times were in the dead of winter. In fact the very first time I did it was in January of 2013. I had absolutely no idea of what I was doing or where I really was. I knew that I was climbing in elevation because the engine of my old Honda Civic was telling me so. For the entire journey from the base at Salida until I reached the bottom of it about 60 miles from Gunnison, I was the only person on the snow covered road. Looking back at it now, I am so glad that I had no idea where I really was. Mike and I would probably have never met if I would have.
I miss my dear friends and colleagues back in Montrose and Olathe, Colorado. Their friendship saved me from myself so many times. They helped me to get through my homesickness which in turn saved Mike and I a whole lot of grief. I miss the sight from our kitchen window there. Each morning the San Juan Mountains were there to greet us. Old Silverjack was always there too. The beauty of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and the Grand Mesa are not seen here in Wichita County, Texas. It's true that the scenery of Colorado is beyond compare sometimes but one other thing is also true.
I do not miss the worry of having to cross over Monarch Mountain if I want to go back home to Kansas to see my family again.
Geographically we are now in a totally different realm. We live in the area called "Texhoma" and it is called that for good reason. Just a couple of miles up the road is the state line for Oklahoma. Even after being here for over 3 months now, we still find it kind of strange to know how quickly we can go from one state to the next. The land we now live in had just come out of a 5-year drought when we arrived. Two weeks before we left to move here, they were in record breaking flooding. Mike and I had no real idea what we would find before arriving here. We came with an entire moving truck filled with our belongings, a cat and a dog, absolutely no jobs for either of us and oh yes, one other thing.
We came with faith.
Faith that we were doing the right thing.
Faith that God would provide for us.
Faith that even if we ran into trouble, we'd make it ok.
Now over 3 1/2 months later, we are alive and well. Thriving and surviving here in this new homeland of ours. Both of us found jobs that we love to do, Sally and Crosby have acclimated themselves to new surroundings, we no longer get lost as we drive around town, and we are pretty much a straight shot (kinda/sorta) 5 hours north back home to Kansas.
I got an email this past week from an old friend back in Hutchinson who wondered how things were going. She asked if we felt like this was "home" now. The answer to that is pretty simple.
"Yes. We do."
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