Grand Canyon Morning

"I lay on naked rock, sipping nectar that  an hour earlier had been snow, and all around me the sun distilled voluptuous scents. A whiskered ground squirrel bounced onto a rock, froze, blurred, and was gone. Beyond shadow that still belonged to the night, a day's incoming sunlight streamed across the rock reefs. Noon pressed down onto the Esplanade, hotter each day, more ponderously silent. Evening came, and a softer, richer silence."

Photo via Discovery Channel.

My moms sent over a book, The Man Who Walked Through Time, by Colin Fletcher. Mr. Fletcher walked the entire length of the Grand Canyon in the 60s, all alone, and then wrote about it. My mom read it 30 years ago. Now me. An interesting cycle. Anyway, a quiet, relaxing text with much lovely language describing the hugeness of geologic time, the nature of beauty in the wild, and such. Made me want to pack up a satchel and split straight for the desert.