As you can tell from the picture, morning rush hour here is a bitch. This being the last full day here, I get my cup and go for the complete walk, hitting every street, before sunrise, which actually doesn't hit the valley until almost 8:30. This time of day, when the street lights are still on, is something else. I've given up trying to explain it years ago.
Jake was driving his water truck again, washing down the streets after yesterday's heavy rain. It was enough rain to break the back of any fire danger here in the valley and surrounding areas. Jake's partner was driving the street sweeper. That little piece of machinery could be heard up on 6th Street and 3rd Avenue. The deer on the toboggan hill didn't seem to mind the noise, they just kept grazing. As you walk down Main, when you walk passed stuff in the gutter the sweeper missed, you find yourself picking it up and throwing it away. The second crew comes in behind the street crew and waters the hanging flower baskets and empties the trash cans found on each corner, getting the old girl ready and presentable for her fans.
The morning walk this early in the morning was well before the Artisan, Back Street, and Silver Nugget restaurants were open, requiring me to come back to the apartment and refill my coffee before hitting the lower half of the town, down by the livery where the mule teams were just waking up. Crows/ravens/black birds, whatever they are, start the sounds of the day with their cawing. Someone told me once what the difference was between a raven and a crow, not that I am losing any sleep over it. They are big enough to carry away your toy poodle if you had one up here, which some visitors bring, causing the wolf hybrids some residents own to salivate just a little.
The trip this year was pretty simple. The town continues to change, one shop closes or sells and another opens. Someone sells their house, the next owner paints it. It can't grow, there is no place to grow too, unless you attach yourself to the side of a cliff and that's just fine with me and probably most folks here. They work to live here, not live to work.
Not a bad philosophy.
No comments:
Post a Comment