When Charlie, MacDuff, and I decided to head west a few weeks ago, we always like to get an early start. Once a particular time is set, it seems like time slows exponentially as the day of departure approaches only to speed up when it actually arrives and finds us unprepared.
This is much like a roll of toilet paper seems like it will be the same size forever until poof!, so to speak, it’s suddenly gone and the job is unfinished. And only then do I find that Mom has raided my stash…
Was that too much information?
Anyway; we were loading up the SUV that morning when a client called needing a last minute home inspection. My brain had already switched over into Traveling Mode, and I did NOT want to have to tell the dogs that flight had been delayed. But duty called and I needed to answer, as much as would have rather been sticking to the plan.
So we ended up leaving in the afternoon instead of the crack of dawn. The only solace I had was that maybe the twelve or so hour delay in our departure was to allow us to meet someone or experience some thing that we wouldn’t have otherwise encountered on the journey.
And that’s exactly what happened; if it hadn’t been for that delay, we would have never happened upon the Dutch hiker that needed the ride to Salida. The trio from Texas who were spreading their mom’s cremains in the backcountry above Telluride. The cyclist whose bike we had to dismantle to fit in the back of the SUV for the ride to Chama. The momma eagle feeding her two eaglets on Owl Creek Pass. The massive porcupine rattling in his quills down the middle of a dirt road high in the Rockies. And on and on…
What I had been viewing as a setback was actually a set up for greater things to come. Whether it’s twelve hours or twelve years, everything happens in it’s proper season whether we appreciate the timing or not.
At least this is what I keep telling myself…
We be of one blood, ye and I.
