My Happy Place

                    I have it figured out.  Finally.  The river, any river is my happy place.

Desolation/Grey's Canyon of the Green River

I can' t decide if it is the actual river itself, the people the river attracts or even the lack of people attracted.   I encounter a few like minded people.  People who might understand my attraction for muddy water, steep cliffs, and flowing rapids.  Maybe I don't see anybody at all.  It is just me and the Blue Heron sharing the river bank.  I know for sure that the drunk driver passing me on the highway will not be on my river.   The "Colorado" attitude of push and shove, get there fast, pull a fast on over on someone to get ahead, or entitlement, it is not allowed on the river.  The river washes all this away.  It makes us all equal.  The people I meet are different, even off the river they are different.  I can spot a river person by the way they dress, the way they hold themselves, by they way their world is just so much slower paced than that of everyone living in boxed houses.  These people they have river water for blood.  It pulses through their hearts and gives them life.

Yellowstone River

These rivers I have come to love- The East Rosebud, Stillwater, Yellowstone, San Juan, the Green, Middle Fork of the Salmon.  Their waters pulse through me. Every new river encountered mixes with the old.  They are my life blood, flowing through my arteries and veins.  They are but a map model of the earth and its life giving river systems.  

It is the quiet connection of the water to all life. The one link to all.  Nothing survives without water.  It is the commonality to all living things.  The moss on the rocks takes nutrients from the water, the fish eat the moss,  they get eaten by the Eagles and Herons.  The otter and the beaver build houses on rivers edge. The deer and goats eat the green grass watered by the river.  The bear eats the deer.  I float by on the river knowing that I would not survive the scorching dessert heat if not for the cool waters of the river.

In the mountains all rivers are born.  Born of melted snow and ice.  Waking up in the geological young mountain tops. Running quick and cold.  White bubbling down the flowered covered hillsides. Red, Yellow, Purple, flavoring  the water with the sweet scents of mountain flowers.  Always growing becoming bigger, more powerful. Sculpting great canyons and deep valleys through the land.  The  Contentental Divide deciding which ocean to travel toward.  

Sticks flow by, bubbles swirl on, the river is moving. Always changing.  I cannot step into the same river twice. There is new water every second.    I can find the river on a map. The rapids will be there. I park my car at familiar accesses.  It is an always changing constant in my life.


Fall on the Yellowstone River

Away from the river, I am offended by the sights and sounds of the asphalt world I live in.  Alarm clocks and time schedules replace the natural flow of morning bird calls and the brightness of the sun.  Grocery stores and artificial lighting lead me to an artificial time zone.  I open the window in my home only to hear cars and traffic noise.  Where is the gurgling of the river?  Where is my life pulse? I look back on pictures of river trips hoping to regenerate the feeling I get while on the river.    It is only a memory.  Something to hold on to until I get back o the river.