Albaquerque – Colorado – Salt Lake City – the midwest

Involving the Albuquerque Balloon Festival, a midnight car crash, and beautiful scenery, as to which, if the photographs below are blurry, it’s because they have been resized – the originals are sharp.

This blog has long been a journalistic way to remember most of my travels within the US and around the world. I’ve never been in a milliseconds close to fatal car crash before, so I’ll start with that — and then to the photographs.

The scenery on the drive from Albuquerque to Craig, Colorado, was beautiful in so many ways. It truly was beautiful. Yellow aspens near glittering, winding creeks and rocky, mountainous craigs led to small towns with murals of beautiful dark-haired women holding flower bouquets and hard-working farmers in fields covering building walls, a surprising touch of artistry in the middle of small towns. Sunsets with dark clouds that ranged for hours along mountain ranges that seemed to refuse to set lingered in yellow and golden hues, then to purples, pinks, pale lavenders, then finally blue and dusk soon followed as the moonlit shone and night settled.

I saw a black bear on the road in Colorado along a high mountain pass, loping across it, and we did not hit one another.

On the way back from the places I had been, taking many photographs of scenic spots I noticed, the moon rose high (a day after being the Hunter Supermoon), still nearly full. Yet, the road was dark near Livingston, Illinois, and there was a crack! and the car I was driving was thrown towards the shoulder. What had happened? It seemed like I had been hit from behind. Did I hit a bear? That was my first thought. When I looked back, I saw with horror a dark truck with its front grill completely dented. The car I was driving had been hit from behind at nearly 50 miles an hour! Within a millisecond, within the peace of that dullness of night, near midnight, there was an impact, and for a second, the world was totally dark. Then I was once again in Illinois, and a trail of debris followed behind the scene on the road. After everything was settled, and, it seemed at the time there were no serious injuries on either side, the meaning of enjoying each moment became clearer and clearer. Time is infinite for us, and we do not know what will happen from one moment to the next. There was no way of telling that would have happened.

Enjoy each moment.

Perhaps life is meant to give new meaning to living at important times.

Since this particular trip really began with the Lotus Festival, where many great musicians played, these are two photographs, from the second night.