seal: (Default)
seal ([personal profile] seal) wrote2004-07-29 05:03 pm

Breaking the law can pay off

Today I violated a law, my first violation of American law, but it was well worth it.
I took a long walkabout, keeping a steady eye on the mountains to the west. I walked for 10 miles or so, and reached a nice big meadow, filled with various flowers. A sign told me it was private property and to stay away..but something made me violate this and walk into the high grass.
For all my moomin-loving friends on LJ, you all know that the character of Snufkin just hates signs about private property, he firmly thinks you should be able to walk anywhere. This is very Scandinavian I tell you (and Snufkin is sort of Scandinavian I guess..). Now, I know about protecting the landscape and such matters, and I can assure that I treaded carefully and did not pick or bend a straw, and I will probably not do it again...but it was SO well worth it.
I walked for a little while and admired the many flowers some of the rainy days had enabled to live in the high summer sun...and then I stopped dead, because there they were!

At first I thought they were just another pair of the lovely big ass dragonflies that inhabit this State..but these were just a bit rounder in their body shape, and the wings had a slightly different moving pattern, and when they came closer I saw.
So shimmering beautiful, but small in an almost freakish way... association patterns head towards insects instead of birds sometimes when you see them far away.
I was completely still and was graced with their presence a while longer, the pair of Hummingbirds, and my whole chest area was just filled with this moment.

It was pure magic.

[identity profile] kejn.livejournal.com 2004-07-30 01:45 am (UTC)(link)
i don't know about colorado, but down here you could get shot for trespassing. shot, and then asked what the hell you thought you were doing...

[identity profile] sealwhiskers.livejournal.com 2004-07-30 01:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, I don't think people are quite as gun-triggering around here. Many things are different to what you're probably used to friend. For instance I remember before my trip last fall, you gave me the firm advice to dress conventionally, in skirt, or fancy pants and matching jacket or such...and it turns out in Colorado you can very well go to a nice restaurant in shorts, as long as you are whole and clean.
Boulder is something of a hippie town to some levels, and you do see lesbian couples living openly together, as well as couples of different color. Neighbors here is an African American man and a caucasian woman for instance...

The sign was by the side of a well fared pedestrian and mountain-bike hiking track, a very calm place, I think this particular large meadow (no private or other buildings whatsoever) is either protected because of some special flowers or plants, or - sadly enough, might be picked out to be exploited for house-building or other such unfortunate matters...

Another thing that makes Boulder (and Colorado) different is that more people walk or ride bikes...it's rather sporty, not as much as in Sweden, but more so than many other places in the States - from what I've heard.