Approaching the Rockies

My quest to walk across the nation, like vaunted pioneers of old, started in Maine six months ago, post vlogs of my progress for folks. I am deep in Wyoming now, and I’m on my third pair of shoes, brown grass beneath, cropped by cattle, in front the prairie meets its end. It’s a spread of foot-hills at first, low and slashed by gullies, canyons, their slopes half-forest, half-open, perfect space for elk to graze. Cannot see any up there now, though a few buzzards wheel about, behind them loom big, granite waves, frozen forever into peaks. Not the first to just stand and stare, nor am I the last, I suspect. There are goats up there, snowy white, and grizzled bruins, huge and brown. Mulies with their tall, forked antlers, and charging, spiral-horned sheep, darting amidst blazes of aspen, near soldier-strait ponderosas… Snow still clings on, up near the crests, I don’t think it will ever leave. Nearby, a decrepit wagon, old wood bleached by endless sun. Is it a relic of the past? Or decoration of today? Who knows, but its path ended here, mine continues, right through the peaks.