alpenglühen

hello hello blog team! i am rachel from living lab, and i am delighted every day to be deb's upstairs neighbor, 'other mama' to her kitties, and friend. the minute i got word of deb and jim's holiday plans, i could feel my brain start to dig into the archives of some of my best memories of the west. back before i lived there, when i was still just falling in love with it, i got my fix by spending a great deal of time in a sleeping bag on slabs of granite after miles of hiking and countless blisters.

there were all kinds of high-points about being in the mountains for weeks at a time (and a number of lows), but i thought this blog post (in honor of deb's and jim's adventure) could be about just one of them. my favorite. the one i still get butterflies about when i think of it, and occasionally long for.

the first time i experienced 'alpenglow' (from the german alpenglühen) i literally had my breath taken away. its an optical phenomenon when the sun has set, but there is still an indirect reflection of the light on a mountain peak. they love to make those inspirational posters of these kinds of things, but obviously, if you've seen it you know, you cant really beat the real deal.

cheers to mountain light, summer holidays, memory making in the american west and my girl deb. come home soon! xx

photos: widerange.org, galen rowell, jack brauer, dee golden, jack brauer

We are going here

Yellowstone and The Grand Tetons from here

and here

Glacier here

Blackfeet Reservation from here

Roadtrip from here

Actually these are places we'd like to go. We're going on a roadtrip, flying into Denver and driving with our tent and some gear and hoping we'll sleep somewhere good. And see some beautiful things. And meet some interesting people.

These are places we want to see but who knows where we'll end up. This summer's vacation is about feeling a little free. It will be good after this week's chaos.