Eagle

As we near the end of our first visit to Eagle county, our time here has started to boom at least as much as this eponymous town. All the little fits and starts have started to teach me a thing or two about gumption.

Alluring as some abandoned things are (like the old mining town we stumbled across last night), abandoned stories leave a much hollower echo. It’s hard to chase a hope even in it’s infancy. I think storytellers like us are stubborn that way. Sometime, it’s just hard to just let things go.

And yet here’s another day, touching my shoulder like the afternoon breeze to say keep trying. Here I am, wishing we didn’t have to leave. As I sit beneath the day’s late haze shrouding Mt. Sopris, a baseball hat clad man strums chords behind me. His fingers are languidly patient, never rushing into melody or silence. The turbid mountain weather dips into an evening for walking, dining, and laughing our way into the fading warmth.

As I sit and mull over the healthy array of story ideas we’ve pursued here in Eagle, I can’t help but think maybe it’s just luck. And then I ask myself, do I believe in luck?

Maybe. But then again, maybe luck only follows well-laid trails. Gumption is the groundwork, and we’ll return with plenty of mud on our boots.