Eyes of a City Girl

By

Bonnie Glee

Ruffus, our 4 wheeler stands idle as I climb onto a sitting rock that faces Little Lyman Lake, high in Utah’s Uintah Mountains. Here I get a glimpse of another world being unwrapped that is so foreign to city life. A gift of bumpy dirt roads lined with real boulders; nothing like the kind hauled in by landscape artists for domestic rock gardens. In the far distance (seen closer through my camouflage-colored binoculars) is King’s Peak, the highest in Utah, some 1300 feet, and in contrast to it, Flat Mountain; both still covered by winter snow on this late day in June.

Mountain wind sweeps ripples over the lake as weekend campers abandon their ATVs to fish from favorite outlined spots along the banks. I catch sight of campsites secluded in splendid shades of wild-grass-green, sage-green, and pine-green; all sprinkled beneath with blue, purple and white flowering ground cover. A mama duck guards her young from a pontoon fly-fisherman, gently guiding it toward the marshy shore.

ATV trails escape from the main road to bluff campgrounds where circles of rocks await fires for hot dogs. Wood lays about to be gathered and splintered over a stout stump to fit within the ash filled pits. Real squirrels dart from sagebrush, to tree, to cover of logs, (not like placid plastic decoys placed in manicured front yards), then scamper into cover of nearest spruce tree as branches dance in the lazy afternoon breeze.

Behind me, smooth and still, is Big Lyman Lake surrounded by a walking path just inside its shoreline. I imagine how foreign these hiking boots and blister proof socks would feel on my pedicured feet if I tried to jump steams along that path, or how thankful they would be if I paused beside the gurgling spring over in the far south-west corner to splash the coolness between my toes.; like the deer and elk did as they left their prints all around it Live ones, not those with holiday lights on them that are found in the city.

As twilight ascends my space, thunder claps its applause to this mountain-art-festival. A yearling strolls past over clumps of dandelions; but dandelions in the mountains are beautiful; and in the city, a nuisance.