It Really IS Blue and Orange

Monday morning, I still hadn’t decided whether or not I was going to drive home. After the accident just the night before, I was still a little shaky. Honestly, I think I was even a little “shocky.” I wound up going to bed much earlier than usual, and was absolutely freezing the whole time. It wasn’t that cold. Not really. But I couldn’t get warm for anything. Kinda like a fever without the achiness. I did, though, manage to get to sleep and get over the feverish conditions. Woke up some time before dawn burning up. Not like a fever burning up, but like being covered by too many blankets burning up. Felt better about that, then. I heard my aunt getting herself ready for work at that ungodly hour and tried to decide whether or not I would get up or try to get back to sleep. One tragic thing about me, once I’m up, I’m up. Doesn’t matter if it’s 9:30 or 3:30 in the morning, if I’ve gotten 9 hours or only 2 and a half hours of sleep, I’m up. Once she was out the door, I decided to quit fighting it and get up. The previous evening, my aunt was making sure I had everything ready to go and saying goodbye, in case I decided to leave. Now whether or not she was giving me a hint, I don’t know. Some people would do that, others would just try to be prepared. I really wanted to get home, I had to get my mail and try and figure out what I’d do for a living, and staying down there, in Denialville, wasn’t helping any more.

Just to see how I’d feel about driving a car without a side-view mirror on the driver’s side, I decided to go out for breakfast. Nothing special, just something fast food. I had to go into the restaurant, because I did not want to roll down my window only to find I couldn’t roll it back up. It was raining and cold, after all, and I had 700 miles or so to go. Not fun if I couldn’t roll up my window. Driving around a bit, I also filled my car tank. Maybe all told about 5 miles driving around on city streets, with other cars. Okay. Not optimal, but I could do it. So, back I went to my aunt’s house, finished packing, and hit the road.

I lost about half an hour trying to get out of Tulsa. I wasn’t able to reverse my directions for some reason. Lucky for me, my aunt had gotten me a few maps of a few states and cities, so I was able to look it up, after realizing that I was getting farther away from Colorado instead of closer. Wish I’d looked it up sooner, I could have been on my way all the sooner, and used less gas. At last, though, I was on the way.

At the outset, the drive didn’t seem all that bad. There were some confusing moments, times when the routes shown didn’t quite make sense, but I got over it. To keep myself from getting bored, I set little goals, something I also did on the way down. My first goal was the Oklahoma-Kansas border, then Wichita, and so forth. Drives that were within the realm of realistic for the mileage my car gets. As the drive wore on, the game became more and more important. Going east through western Kansas, still interesting. Going west through western Kansas, still incredibly boring. And since I hadn’t slept well, I was also tired. Arrgh! I lost a bit of time having to take frequent breaks just to keep from driving off the road. The brown fields on either side of me didn’t look particularly inviting.

The last goal I made was to reach Kanorado (Kanarado?) by sunset. I’d actually hoped to be in Limon, Colorado by sunset, but after my extensive tour of Tulsa and then the frequent rest breaks on the way, that just wasn’t going to happen. I did, however, get to laugh at a few people who were speeding (speed limit through Kansas is 70, through Colorado 75), who blew by me like I was standing still, later passing them because they were standing still, waiting for their speeding ticket. Didn’t save them any time at all. Hah ha!

Right, so anyway, I wanted to make the Kansas-Colorado border by sunset. Fortunately for me, I managed to reach that goal. Y’know what? I saw the sunset.

Now, I’ve seen many sunsets in many cities and states, and at many elevations, from below sea level in New Orleans to over 10,000 feet in western Colorado, and many times of the year. And they’re almost always spectacular - rather than merely “pretty.” This one, well, this one surprised me. There’s a bumper sticker I’ve seen around here, a Broncos sticker that says “If God isn’t a Broncos fan, why are sunsets Blue and Orange?” I’d never seen this mythical sunset, not anywhere in Colorado. Not in the cities, not in the areas around the cities, not in the areas nowhere near cities. Based on the sunsets I’d seen, if anything, God was a Steelers fan, with the black sky and yellow just above the horizon. Just hadn’t seen it. Until now.

Finally reaching my goal of the Kansas-Colorado border, I relaxed. I was in the home stretch. Then I looked. Really looked. The straight ribbon of highway disappeared into the eastern plains of Colorado. Off to the right, I was greeted by a weather-beaten sign, welcoming me to Colorful Colorado, a claim I sincerely doubted when I first moved here, and now heartily support. To the left, small hills, with bits of raw granite showing through the tiny cliffs, covered by the sere grasses of the winter. And right in front of me, the sunset. The sky directly above was a deep indigo, gradually becoming a pale blue, and suddenly, orange. Broncos orange. There was no intervening band of a blue-orange, it just went from pale blue to orange. What an incredible sight.

Perhaps I was a bit more enchanted because I was so happy to finally be close to Colorado Springs, relatively speaking. Perhaps I was tired enough that anything would have been incredible to my eyes. What I know, though, is that it was a beautiful sight, one I hope I won’t forget for some time to come.