Back by the Arkansas River

Morning fog at sunrise in the Everglades

The softness of the air on this morning of January 9th 2016 was so different from the crisp air here in Colorado in January. In this picture looking out toward the Bay of Florida through our tent door I felt drawn out. We were car camping at Flamingo Campground down on Florida Bay at the very end of the main body of Florida. Going out on a pontoon boat through the rivers and lakes of the Everglades, we saw crocodiles, alligators, Ipis, heron.  This was the last of our southward traveling and the next day we started back north to Colorado, though we would take five days to get back to Salida. 

Back here by the Arkansas River we found it still to be the cold of winter with snowpack lingering and packed icy roads. There was ice formed along the sides of the river still and ice chunks floating by. A far cry from the 78 degrees in that picture above. I talked in an earlier blog about the friendliness I found in driving across America, a big difference from the drone of the news, with tragedy and dysfunctional politics seeming to be our national dialogue these days. But then I was of no permanent interest in my passing through. Still it seemed to always be an enjoyable experience when ever we were talking with people wherever we would stop. So even after driving through so much of the south and southwest I am unsure of why we have to have so much dissension in our political dialogue these days. I have heard it is because people are unhappy and fearful, and while I am sure those people are there, I didn't meet them in our travels. 

      It is nice to be back in our community and picking back up some of our responsibilities in the county. I get the feeling sometimes in my travels that I am not among my people, here I never feel that. For good or bad, dissent or not I feel at home here by the Arkansas River and it is nice to see it flowing by, even if it has ice chunks in it!