Among the Leaves and Spray

"So, where are you headed today," Jane asked at breakfast. We were tired of buildings, we told her. We want to get out in the woods, walk around some; perhaps see a waterfall or two. "No problem," she responded. "We've got those."

We ate, we returned to our room to gather up a few things; and when we descended the stairs Jane had printouts all ready -- "Your day all planned for you," she said with a grin. And, indeed, there was a hike and a waterfall. And, again, a GPS.

We set off in the designated direction, and six hours later returned home, having gotten spray-close to falls and walked a couple of miles up and over and down a mountain and back again. So what did we see?

Sometimes, though a word guy like me hates to admit it, a picture really is worth a thousand dimensions of vocabulary.


Just as an example.

"...softly and tenderly falling down."

It snowed last night -- a dusting, is all, that whitened the road but little else. Still, in a season when the ground should be covered with it -- in our own Iowa, to say nothing of here in Vermont -- any glimpse of it in this globally warmed era is welcome. I recognize that mine is a plaintive voice in a rather small choir. Not everyone loves snow and the chill that accompanies it. But I have yet to know anything as calming, quieting and strangely beckoning as a blanket of new-fallen snow; anything as magical as standing beneath the falling flakes with palms and tongue out-stretched, catching, tasting, just for the joy of it.

Besides, it is a part of creation. If I wanted desert I would visit Arizona; rainforest, Brazil. Geography is supposed to be diverse. I have no interest in the mall-ification of the world, where one part looks pretty much like another, like Gap stores and Chili's restaurants no matter the local style or cuisine. I've come to Vermont for snow. OK, I've come to Vermont for the romance of it, the mountains of it, the evergreens of it, and the nostalgia of it -- but also the snow.

And during the night it acquiesced.

And as if to compound blessing, it decided to have fun with the entire day, with flakes thickening and the sky whitening throughout the hours. And now nearing sunset, that longed-for blanket is laid.

And here, like nowhere else quite like it...
...it's Vermont