Kids in the car at 3 am.
A fill-up and the Harlem Shake at 3:15am.
That's just how we roll when we feel happy.
I know every one says that west Texas is a boring wasteland, but we were fascinated by all the space. You could look and look and still see horizon in all directions. As the sun broke over the eastern rim, the landscape began to separate and roughen. The colors turned into muted gray versions of green and pink and blue. We looked and looked.
We crossed over into New Mexico where the earth turned red and craggy and the sky dazzled. We looked and looked thinking that we had already seen more than we could imagine possible in 5 hours of driving.
We took the scenic route into Santa Fe, and wedged between tall hills were hidden adobe homes, scrub and rocks. We looked and looked.
Suddenly, snow and pine trees. Out of NOWHERE. We kept having to roll down the windows because we were fogging them up with our looking.
Then the two most recent landscapes merged, and we were back in the dust and scrub, but were looking at snowy mountains. All the space my Texas born heart could desire but with mountains crowning the edges of it and my soul grew.
We went to bed that night, tired and eyes-full and even when I closed them to sleep the landscape stayed with me. I know why artists live there. The colors and shapes burn themselves into your retinas and you can't help but want to echo back a grateful response.
"And if I were a painter I do not know which I'd paint
The calling of the ancient stars or assembling of the saints
And there's so much beauty around us for just two eyes to see
But everywhere I go I'm looking"
-Rich Mullins