What kind of writer doesn’t take a laptop – or even paper – on vacation??

I really wish I was back in the mountains.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to be home. Home is, after all, where the heart is. And where my dogs are. And my job, my bank, my son (since he didn’t go with us) and the rest of the family.

But the mountains … oh, those beautiful mountains.

We – my daughter, boyfriend, and his daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter – went for a five-day vacation in Colorado (well, four in Colorado, one in Nebraska) and it was heavenly. Not only because it was the first real “vacation” I’ve had in many years, but because of the locale, the scenery, the company and just the time away.

But those mountains … there was just something magical there.

We spent one entire day leaving Denver proper and heading out to the mountain range – first to Red Rocks Amphitheater (a must see if you head that way) then to the summit of Mount Evans. I spent several years growing up in Alaska, so I’m no stranger to the beauty a mountain view provides – but it’s been 30+ years since we left and I’ve not been up-close and personal with the mountains since.

I had been in the mountain air for mere minutes when I first thought, “I should have brought my computer. I should be blogging this.” Then we climbed to the amphitheater seating at Red Rocks and saw people running the trail, running the seats, doing yoga, jumping from bench to bench doing squat jumps – even football players running the stairs carrying a teammate on their backs. Then came the sound checks for a concert later that evening. Again – “I should be blogging this.”

It was a common theme: The young longhorn sheep that made us stop on our ascent to the summit of Mount Evans. The dizziness I felt from being up 14,000 feet above sea level. The mountain goat that greeted us at the peak. The sometimes-scary 14-mile drive up the mountain. The zoo. The Cubs game (my first-ever time seeing the Cubs live and it was in Denver!). Even the trip to the “weed store” just to say I did.

At one point Mark even said out loud just what I’d been thinking: “What a great place for a writer – sit up in the mountains, write a chapter and then go pour a cup of coffee to get ready for the next.”

Yep.

The blog ideas were flooding my brain, just waiting to get out, and I didn’t even bring a notebook to write them down the old-fashioned way. I went to three different convenience stores to see if they had a small notebook – nope. Not a one.

Once we left Denver and stayed overnight in a hotel in Lincoln, Neb. – we were going to visit the Strategic Air Command Museum in Ashland the next day – the lady at the front desk loaned me a notebook.

About 15 minutes later, Mark found a notebook in the trunk of my car, under all of the suitcases. Figures.

Now I’m home and am thankful to that lady at the hotel in Lincoln – as much as the blog ideas were flooding my brain in the mountain air, they seem to have dissipated back in the humidity of Iowa. That notebook allowed me to write some of the highlights, so I can still get that one written. Kind of.

But I guarantee it would have been better if I’d had my laptop with me when the thoughts were fresh.