Beautiful Colorado Drive near Larkspur

Once upon a time just over a year ago I was out for a drive with my brother and his wife. We were off the beaten path (not on the Interstate), and found ourselves winding through hills and valleys that did not seem like Colorado to us, but maybe more like Sweden or somewhere old and less industrial where sheep may bleat down the path. It was greener than Colorado usually is. 

I tried to go back a few weeks later, but couldn’t find our route. I still found some unfenced fields, which blows my mind in America, and I took some pictures. 

This year I did more research on Google, and I am still not sure if I found the same special sights, but it was lovely. Obviously experience is better than pictures, but I wanted to share them, because in searching for evidence we weren’t just dreaming, the internet had precious little to show for this part of the world. I think it is partly in Greenland Open Space, or near there, and the especially beautiful parts (to me) were on Upper Lake Gulch Road. Some of the earlier route was also near Castlewood Canyon south of Franktown. And the later section is a long north-south road called Perry Park (maybe Highway 105). The towns I drove between to get my photo journal were Franktown, Larkspur, Sedalia, and Littleton/Englewood. 

After the pictures I am putting the directions for the route I traveled. Go in early spring for better green, but after winter or else Upper Lake Gulch Road might be closed. 

Mainstreet & Parker in Parker, Colorado

Parker to Hilltop, turn east

Hilltop to Flintwood, turn south

Flintwood to 86, turn north

Short stint on 86 to 1st left on Deerfield, turn west

Deerfield to Russelvile, turn south

Russelville to 83, turn northwest

83 to Lake Gulch, turn west

Lake Gulch 3.3 miles to Garton, turn south

Garton 1.8.miles to Upper Lake Gulch, turn south

Upper Lake Gulch turns sharply west

Upper Lake Gulch under 1-25 to Spruce Mountain Rd, turn south

Larkspur, Colorado

Spruce Mountain to Perry Park, turn northwest

Perry Park Ave to 105 (Perry Park Rd), turn north

105 18 miles to 67/Manhart Ave, turn north

Sedalia, Colorado

67 .6 miles to 85, turn north

85 16 miles to Hampden, turn east

Englewood, Colorado

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Sudden

Winter was dragging on.  More out of defiance than comfort, I’d been outside without my coat.  The nights still dipped well below freezing.  Dreary clouds came from the east, shading the still-brown grass and smooth-branched trees.

Overnight and into the morning snow fell.  Big flakes layered across the ground, mounting to over half a foot – for the third time in ten days.  I pulled on my clunky shearling boots and plodded out into my day, bereft of sunshine, pining for summer.

When I got off work the snow was only asserting its memory in patches of well-shaded remnants and dirty piles on parking lot edges.  The sunset gleamed on the wet runoff skimming the pavement on my weary drive home.

And then the next morning I woke up.  I got out of bed and went upstairs.  Blew my nose, suffering the symptoms of my annual spring virus.  Washed my hands at the kitchen sink, ignoring the running water while I watched the back yard.  It needed watching.

When I hadn’t been watching, even while I slept, the world had transformed.  Green struggled through the old year’s lawn growth.  Tiny buds swelled on twigs of bushes and trees.  Birds were singing!

All sudden and without warning.  When a snowstorm had driven back expectation of spring anytime soon, beating me down with the power of winter to persevere past decent dates.  Last time I looked, no sign of renewed life.  Now, everywhere.

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Spring is My Lady’s Domain

Spring is my lady’s domain

Autumn the field of her brother

Winter waits on yarning old women

Summer sweeps in young children’s laughter.

 

Time is the tale of seasons

Space present in jumbles of ways

My friends dance in the streets of lifetime

God catches men home full by joy-worn days.

 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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The Welcome Ache

My bones ache dully like an old woman’s when it storms.  There is nothing unbearable about it, and I feel as if nothing can be done.  Rubbing or stretching often are done, with no effect.  Just now I’m feeling this way, and gazing at the skylights – such a romantic word for the only romantic part of the industrial steel box in which I work.  Outside is a storm.  Spring is still here, its violence the infant compared to the full grown warrior of summer.  Today offered one blast of thunder, the long, patient rumble accompanying darker skies and a bit of rain.  I wouldn’t exchange the storm for freedom from pain for anything.  The pain may even awaken me to the conflict outdoors. 
 
Weather is a conflict, a paradox.  Bodies of air move over or under each other, affecting each other, fighting and at once altering.  It is a bonding and a divorce, a war and a peace.  The clouds hide the sun that formed them, only to be dissolved again or blown away by the solar powered wind. 
 
There are some kinds of pain I hate.  I rebel.  They are senseless, pure war on life and love.  Yet love always carries pain, the truth of pain against the empty imitation.  I would not give up the love to banish the pain.  They work together even, much as the weather, in its dance of wholeness and growth.  Love sometimes explodes in thunder, accompanied inseparably by the curtain of lightning for a moment giving sight to reality. 

 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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April by GA Studdert-Kennedy

APRIL
by GA Studdert-Kennedy

BREATH of Spring,

Not come, but coming,

In the air.

Life of earth, not lived

But living,

Everywhere.

Promises, not made,

Nor broken,

But the token

Of promises that will be made.

Sunshine seeking shade,

Red earth, that smiles,

And asks for seed,

And mossy woodland paths, that lead

To where the yellow primrose grows.

And so for many coloured miles

Of open smiling France,

While noisy little streamlets dance,

In diamond mirrored suns,

To meet the stately Mother stream that flows,

With shining dignity,

To greet her Lord the sea,

And far away, beyond the hills, one hears, —

Poor village Mother, hence thy tears!–

The muffled thunder of the guns.

(Emphasis mine.) 

To God be all glory. 

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