WANDER 📺 TUBE: Montville Nature Loop trail @ Mosca, CO
Short and beautiful trail near the Great Sand Dunes National Park (more video to come from that!) in Colorado. I took this trail from the campground to the visitor center to pick up some maps.
The snow was melting off the mountains, feeding ice-cold water into the creeks below.
For those wanting longer hikes, the Mosca Pass trail picks up from Montville and runs around 7 miles in a loop.
I was camped at the nearby Pinon Flats campground for a couple days. While it’s not my typical kinda campground (i.e. too big, too many people, too developed, etc - most national park campgrounds are this way) it was actually pretty nice and you’re camped right next to the sand dunes, making for great wanderings.
I’ve deliberately muted these videos so you can experience it as I do as a deaf person in the wild. I know some of you will miss hearing the surrounding audio but think of total silence as different auditory experience.
A strong, tingling energy descended through my head into my heart and rippled throughout.
I know it’s her because the “feel” of her energy is her unique thumbprint.
It’s an indescribable feeling of forever love — the kind that spans multiple lifetimes.
It’s doesn’t happen often but when I feel her thinking of me, my defenses fall away and let her in.
Hard edges soften, melting into a warm and fuzzy feeling of love received.
And I send love back in sweet communion.
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I remember in the beginning when my heart cracked open to her, my head later cracked open metaphysically and I started to physically feel her connection to me. Whenever she thought of me or sent love, I’d feel it ripple through.
For a long while I struggled to understand this new kind of communication, a telepathic connection of some sort.
I gave up trying to pin down the science behind it and accepted it as something beautiful to behold and experience. Maybe one day they’ll be able to measure and document these strange energies beyond our physical realms?
All I know is it’s love made manifest no matter where we are or how separate we live our lives.
That I can still feel her after all this time comforts me — I know I’m not alone in these feelings and love is reciprocated across long miles and long years.
Over my travels the past few years I’ve gotten into the habit of capturing quickie panoramic-style videos (around 15-30 seconds) while on many hikes.
I forgot about them until now so I’m sharing some of ’em for your viewing pleasure. Many of them will make you feel like you are right there with me as the scene unfolds before us.
I’ve deliberately muted these videos so you can experience it as I do as a deaf person in the wild. I know some of you will miss hearing the surrounding audio but think of total silence as an auditory experience of a different kind.
First up is the view from Needles Overlook — it’s the kind of view you don’t truly experience unless you’re there. It really does feel like a different planet out yonder:
I camped nearby at the Ledge Campground — it’s one of the few BLM sites that charge but it’s worth it to be close to wondrous sights.
I’ve been very tired lately — not a sentence I like to open with but it is what it is with chronic fatigue. It comes when it comes, often with no rhyme or reason. It just shows up like an uninvited guest.1
And it comes bearing gifts of ugly sweaters in the form of a 50 pound weight attached to your body and another 50 pound weight attached to your spirit as it pulls down physically and mentally.
Overall I’m stronger than I was a year ago. I also hoped maybe the chronic fatigue would go away. Maybe it will. At least it’s making less frequent visits but it sucks when it comes and drags you down just when you start feeling good again. Meh.
It probably explains why I haven’t felt much like writing lately.
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If I feel crappy I may as well do something to help my body get stronger, right?
So I dragged myself over to a nature preserve and went for a short jog through the woods. Man, I was wiped afterwards but my body felt a bit better. Running (or anything cardio-wise) seems to help clear some stuck gunk out of my body.
A quick dip in a local pool afterwards helps recover from the run. I like to prop my elbows on a corner and close my eyes, feeling the cool water swirl around and work its healing magic.
I’m going to make it a goal to at least run or do some form of cardio every two or three days whether I feel good or not. Especially when I don’t as long as I can walk out the door.
All part of leveraging moments of weakness into strength — making lemonade outta lemons.
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Lately I’ve noticed the “rage machine” has slowly infiltrated my Fediverse and Micro.blog timelines. Prior it’s been blissfully free of it.
I’m not sure why the change since I’m pretty much following the same folks as usual. I was hoping the rage machine would stay isolated to Twitter and the mainstream networks but where there are humans, human-ness inevitably follows.
It’s okay to see rage now and then but when I’m seeing it daily in my feed it takes away from enjoying seeing what my friends are up to and what’s new and cool, etc.
All is not lost however. Thanks to the wonderfully un-algorithmic nature of the Fediverse and Micro.blog it’s relatively easy to clean up one’s timeline by muting or unfollowing the more discordant voices out there.
I’ll miss their regular posts but better that than to see constant discontent in places I’ve come to enjoy.
I read somewhere that health is one of seven things you’re not supposed to talk about. It did give me pause since health is technically a selfish subject but I want to be an open book here chronicling the wandering life — good, bad, and boring.↩︎
So strange… After being on a tear the past month with being able to write and write, the well just plump dried up. Like the wind, I can’t force it — she comes when she comes. Hopefully soon… I miss her.
