Eye of the Beholder

Over the past two days, my eyes have been exposed to such unimaginable natural beauty it cannot be expressed... no words could describe it... no photograph could capture it... no painting could impart even a fraction of the awe-inspiring splendor I have seen since Sunday. The best I can hope to accomplish in this blog is to explain to you where I have been.

Yesterday, the wide open plains of Missouri. A rolling ocean of open land as far as the eye can see... interrupted only by thousands of hay bails for miles upon miles.

The Badlands of South Dakota... some parts are a surreal, Dr. Seuss land of water-eroded peaks and plateaus with tufts of pale green grass-hair. We rented a cabin in the park but it turned out they gave us the wrong key and we were forced to camp outside. Far, far away from the lights of any city, in the absence of any moon at all... truly the darkest, most silent night I have ever experienced. In this profound absence of light, I saw more stars than I have ever seen. A faint, milky band of light seemed to divide the sky in two. Dad explained we were actually seeing the plain of our galaxy on edge... I had always heard people talk about the milky way but I really had no concept of it... Last night, I could actually visualize looking out across the unfathomably vast galactic plain of stars from our tiny little spec of a planet... billions of people living on a single grain of sand amidst a million billion square miles of desert dunes. It was almost scary to look up and see so much vastness above my head.

This morning, we found ourselves in the Black Hills where Mount Rushmore is carved. The monument itself is impressive, of course, but pales in comparison to the mountains themselves. We followed the narrow, winding road as it led past one breathtaking vista after another.

Driving on from the Black Hills into Wyoming late afternoon, we found ourselves winding through Big Horn National Forest not long before sunset. The truck had a seriously tough time pulling the trailer up and over this 14K+ foot mountain range but it was worth it. Actually, I'd say the entire 3500-mile road trip was worth this 1-hour drive through the Big Horn mountains. I cannot even begin to describe the awe-inspiring beauty of these mountains. It's one thing to see a mountain range off in the distance and appreciate their beauty, but it's an entirely different thing to actually drive through them! One thing I never imagined... amidst the dense green forest were patches of trees on which every leaf had turned a vivid yellow. The low, golden sun seemed to light these trees with the most spectacularly vibrant flaming yellow brilliance I have ever seen... I'm not exaggerating this... I mean it was gut-wrenching!

Once over the top of the range, it was a steep downhill roll for literally 10 miles. With the engine in neutral, I had to ride the brakes continuously to keep my speed below 70 MPH! Just when I thought I had already seen the most beautiful thing in the world, we came out of the Big Horn mountains heading west just as the sun was setting behind the hilly, mountainous horizon. For another 30 minutes or so, we seemed to be chasing the sunset as it tried to hide behind the hills. Thick rays of sunshine seemed to shoot out over the hills in front of us... each time we crested another hill, a brilliant green valley opened up and it felt like we were almost catching up to the sun... but not quite... we'd then roll down into the shadow of yet another hill... and the sun slipped a little further away.

By then, it was all too much for both of us, my dad and me. We had run out of words. We drove on in silence, into the sunset, and I found it difficult to see without wiping the moisture away from my eyes.