Beautiful View
Buena Vista means, I think, beautiful view. What were the English thinking when they ignored such lovely Romantic possibilities as buena and bella and landed on "beautiful"? Who is ever going to name somewhere Beautiful View even if it is??
Buena Vista, CO lives up to the ads: it is much like our Columbia Valley - broad with farms in the bottom and steep peaks sawing the sky on either side. The only difference was the rather institutional looking buildings with tall pillar boxes along the outside perimeter. Hmmm... what is it about prisons that they all look like prisons?? This piece of local information was not included in the tourist brochure.
There is another kampground there and when I rolled in asking for a cabin (so I could spread my gear out and then sort it into the smallest possible space and avoid paying for an extra piece of luggage on the plane) I landed the one on the furthest western edge with nothing between the front porch and the fields far below but the neighbour's rocks with their No Trespassing signs attractively arrayed along the barbed wire. As I wasn't sure if the rocks belonged to an actual person neighbour or the actual prison neighbour, I decided to pay attention and enjoy the buena vista and my last beer from the porch while the chipmunk investigated and the sun slanted day's end.
Dinner. Did I "need" food or did I "want" food? The balance was tipped by the people in the koaoffice: a list of various places relatively enthusiastically spoken of and then "Well, there's that new place. What's is called? mmmmm.... Mothers." I'm thinking 'diner' until person #3 wades in. "Yeah, Mothers," says the guy, "but the food's mostly that vegetarian stuff and the portions aren't very big." His hand gesture indicates that, instead of the mound of food that is presented as normal in the youessofay, there might be only a half-mound.
Mothers was not as the people in the office advertised. Mothers was delightful and delicious and not vegetarian at all. The waitress poured me tastings of wine until we got the right match for my dinner and then took my dessert off when it was a too-sweet lemon tart. ("I never eat it for that same reason, " she said) The portions were beyond half-mound by a goodish bit. The koapeople are missing a good thing.
Drove back to the cabin and the glistening dark. Stars I haven't seen in years here in the light pollution: Antares and all of Scorpius, Sagittarius, Aquarius, Capricornus and the drift of the Milky Way.
Silence.
Breathing.
Still.
Buena Vista, CO lives up to the ads: it is much like our Columbia Valley - broad with farms in the bottom and steep peaks sawing the sky on either side. The only difference was the rather institutional looking buildings with tall pillar boxes along the outside perimeter. Hmmm... what is it about prisons that they all look like prisons?? This piece of local information was not included in the tourist brochure.
There is another kampground there and when I rolled in asking for a cabin (so I could spread my gear out and then sort it into the smallest possible space and avoid paying for an extra piece of luggage on the plane) I landed the one on the furthest western edge with nothing between the front porch and the fields far below but the neighbour's rocks with their No Trespassing signs attractively arrayed along the barbed wire. As I wasn't sure if the rocks belonged to an actual person neighbour or the actual prison neighbour, I decided to pay attention and enjoy the buena vista and my last beer from the porch while the chipmunk investigated and the sun slanted day's end.
Dinner. Did I "need" food or did I "want" food? The balance was tipped by the people in the koaoffice: a list of various places relatively enthusiastically spoken of and then "Well, there's that new place. What's is called? mmmmm.... Mothers." I'm thinking 'diner' until person #3 wades in. "Yeah, Mothers," says the guy, "but the food's mostly that vegetarian stuff and the portions aren't very big." His hand gesture indicates that, instead of the mound of food that is presented as normal in the youessofay, there might be only a half-mound.
Mothers was not as the people in the office advertised. Mothers was delightful and delicious and not vegetarian at all. The waitress poured me tastings of wine until we got the right match for my dinner and then took my dessert off when it was a too-sweet lemon tart. ("I never eat it for that same reason, " she said) The portions were beyond half-mound by a goodish bit. The koapeople are missing a good thing.
Drove back to the cabin and the glistening dark. Stars I haven't seen in years here in the light pollution: Antares and all of Scorpius, Sagittarius, Aquarius, Capricornus and the drift of the Milky Way.
Silence.
Breathing.
Still.
posted by Another Joan at 8:44 p.m.
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