This morning, we left Denver under clear, blue skies and, out on the High Plains, the bright sunlight gave the drab, late winter landscape a clean, sharp-edged look. Across the grasslands, heifers tended to their newborn calves, pronghorn browsed the windswept hillsides and harriers cruised low above the shortgrass prairie, hunting for voles.
Then, approaching Goodland, we noticed a purple ridge that stretched across the eastern horizon; where it rose highest into the deep, blue sky, the ridge was topped with snowy domes and peaks. Had we not known better, we might have concluded that the highway had circled back to the west and that we were getting a distant glimpse of Colorado's Front Range. We finally caught up with the imposing wall near Colby, where its component cloud layers had become more obvious.
One can imagine that early explorers were often confused by such distant illusions, rechecking their compasses or, perhaps, offering a few choice words for those who published their crude maps. Today, residents of the Great Plains surely appreciate these mountains of vapor, recurring sources of natural beauty, vital water and inspiration.
