Have you crawled out of your bedroll in the chill of a spring
morning with the crisp air fresh in your lungs and the sound of
running water in your ears? Have started a fire and made coffee, and
broiled your venison over an open fire? Have you smelled ironwood
burning, or cedar?”
–Louis L’Amour (To Tame a Land)
Ahh, Pard, listen to that sound. No, it’s not a babblin’ brook, yuh
ninny. That’s the sound of pure delight–the sound of coffee perkin’.
But since yuh mentioned it, the sound water cascadin’ over rocks in a
stream does have a nice sound. I remember, it was early in the 1970s,
Annie and I hiked back into the Indian Peaks Wilderness and camped
along a stream flowing from a snowbank. The water actually came from
Blue Lake, but it appeared to be right from the snow. The elevation
dropped quickly so the water rushed down. Our camp was right at
timberline, plenty of wood there, and we stayed for a few days.
It was a fun trip, but I was always accused of puttin’ the
fryin’ pan in Annie’s pack. However, those days are gone. To camp
fifty yards off the trail is unheard of today, and to make a fire, oh
my, for goodness sakes, NO! Use a back-packin’ stove. Now, Pard,
I’ll admit that there are good reasons for the restrictions; it’s
because of the stupidity of people who camp. People who have no clue
how to treat nature properly.
Those nights, around the campfire at timberline we could hear
the water rushing by a few yards away. In the silence of the night,
with only the fire for light, we could hear the marmots cry as the
wood crackled and popped in the fire. Pard, we had plenty of good,
strong coffee made right from that rushin’ stream. I’d get up in the
mornin’, get the fire goin’, then go to the stream for water to fill
the pot. Before long the coffee was boilin’ then Annie would start
breakfast. Days, long ago, but still held in the memory.
Good days, Pard, good memories, but yuh know, those things
won’t matter much when we get on over that Glory Trail. There is
little description of what heaven will be like, but if it’s anything
like that garden God placed in Eden it’ll be somethin’. It’ll have to
be grand to match up with some of the majestic places here on earth.
But we know it will be so, for the Bible says that, “the eye have not
seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the
things which God hath prepared from them that love Him.”
Think of that Pard! No matter how good the bacon and biscuits
smell, no matter the sound of coffee perkin’, we can’t even imagine
what the Lord has prepared for us. It must be somethin’ special;
well, of course it is. Think ’bout it Pard, yuh won’t have to worry
’bout checkin’ yur cinch up yonder.
Vaya con Dios.