Road Trip Sunset

^ Twilught skies over our first night’s stop in Butte, Montana 

At the end of a long day on the road, maybe as I am shlepping in one last load from the car to the hotel room, or waking my stir-crazy dog around a grassy back field, or carrying bags full of take-out food up to my hungry family, I often get a chance to see the sunset.

And I think about how, for all the people who live in this place where I’m passing through, this is how a normal sunset looks.

Then I think of my sunsets at home, with towering, triangle-topped Douglas fir trees and the sunlight reflected on the waves of Puget Sound, lapping up on my rocky hometown beach, complete with a tiny lighthouse and a rumbling ferry boat.

I think how lucky I am to be me.

I wonder if the people in this place feel just as lucky to be who they are.

And I marvel at what an amazing thing it is to be alive and a part of this tilting planet.

And then, as the sun sinks low, dusk begins to gather, the bird calls quiet, and I realize it’s time to head inside, I think about how all that thinking cane from a simple road-trip sunset.

Crazy, right?