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Tucson tried, but failed, to keep us there with a beautiful soft sunset our last night before heading back to Colorado.  It had been a tough month of wanting badly to be elsewhere, not to mention the searing heat and the late monsoon.  We did the trip right this time, with a layover in Albuquerque after a seven hour drive.  It seems we had to leave home to experience rain, which we did a few hours south of our first day’s destination, and we were treated to a lovely view across the Rio Grande valley, filled with rain, to the brightly lit bluffs to the east.

Travel day number two found us anxious to get on the road.  We had another seven hours of driving to do, plus some brief provisioning stops, just enough for a few days as we wanted to catch our contractor, Brian Shelton, onsite before he headed home for the weekend.  Turning west onto 24 out of Colorado Springs, we climbed through the gorgeous Ute Pass with a passel of other travelers pulling trailers and pop-up campers and ATV’s, all trying to get a jump on the weekend.  We gloated that we were heading up for weeks, not days.  Arriving, we could see the framed peak of the cabin from the road below, and whooped at the top of the drive as we saw the cabin with most of the siding and windows in place, and the roof half sheathed.  It was our first complete view of the shape of the cabin and we were thrilled.  My husband even had a couple of hours to pitch in with the work before Brian and his son, Brett, headed out.

Over the weekend we cleaned up around and in the cabin, my husband moving lumber into sorted piles, beginning his work on revegetating our abandoned down road, having a little chain saw therapy, and both of us sweeping up inside the cabin.  We can look out all our windows now, the actual windows, and the views are just wonderful -- somehow taking on a very precious quality from the limited lines of sight framing specific sections of our panoramic view.  There are now five gorgeous 4x12 beams across the living area which not only give it a very massive lodge-like feel, but which will be great for the hanging of kitchen and dining room lights.

The weather is lovely here, cool overnight and warm by day.  Sleeping is delicious and deep, under a blanket in the trailer bedroom that is barely bigger than the queen-sized bed, and with windows open on three sides.  The days generally start bright and clear (no jacket required), but over the course of the day clouds appear overhead out of nowhere, and to the south and west they build behind the mountains, slowly sliding north and east later in the day.  Afternoons often have a soundtrack of thunder growling across the valley, though we’ve not had much rain here either since our arrival.  The birds are out in full force, and we are enjoying the bossy rufous hummingbirds, a stunning iridescent burnt orange.  We had dinner with our friends across the lake on their deck and it was hard to concentrate on the excellent company because of the antics of a myriad of birds -- woodpeckers, black headed gross-beaks, pine siskins, chickadees, and nuthatches -- and the continual zooming by of hummingbirds, so close you could feel their wind wake on your cheek, to the half dozen feeders ringing us.

I realized that I’ve never been here this time of the year.  After jumping the gun the first year we had the trailer, five years ago, we settled into a pattern of last week in June/first week in July and a return trip of a week towards the end of September to see the aspen turn.  Our first trip this year in late May/early June was chilly, and we often resorted to fleeces if we sat in the shade midday to read.  Now it’s jeans or shorts and t-shirts weather, and I haven’t touched a jacket.  We’ve yet to sit inside to read, even in the early morning or late evening, in fact we’re hardly reading at all since we outside working or wandering from sun up until it gets dark after 9 PM.  For those like us who aren’t happy being inside all day, this is heaven.

We can’t help but think forward to next year when we’ll arrive at the beginning of June and stay through late September or early October.  Our cycle will be determined by the aspens, arriving as they begin to leaf out and leaving when their leaves have turned to gold and tangerine, and have faded and are falling, fluttering to the ground.

But for now, we have weeks to come here this year, the good company of our many mountain friends, the much-anticipated visits from family, and many exciting phases of the cabin build to experience.  A summer to remember and the beginning of the rest of our lives.