Scratch and sniff

Among the reasons I've become a lousy blogger is my inability to communicate non-visual aspects of living here. Like the smell of the sagebrush after rain. Yesterday we had a few rain showers - short, still-sunny, rainbow riddled affairs. Afterwards, the smell was unbelievable - I wanted to go roll around in it. (This is unwise for a variety of reasons). The system finally moved through around sunset, so the hills were bathed in perfect rosy light and everything looked so beautiful I wanted to take a thousand pictures and cry. Not necessarily in that order, but both would be about as effectual: the pictures would come out hazy and unfocused and the crying would make any observers think I'd gone nuts.

Sagebrush, for you flatlanders out there, does not smell like the sage you cook with. It is the same color, and the scent is pungently herbal (like cooking sage) but it's deeper and fresher.

It's refreshing in the same way stepping into a pine forest on a summer day is. Actually, the smell is a little piney, or at least reminiscent of pine.

Today there's literally not a cloud in the sky (and we have a lot of sky here) and it's that insane deep blue that you only get at altitude. Denver & Boulder have the cloudless days, but you have to climb a hill (well, mountain really) to get the true Colorado blue above the city haze.