That First Sighting of the Divide

When traveling by car from Texas to Colorado, one route is to follow US 87 to meet I-25 in Raton, New Mexico.  After about 800 miles of rolling hills with pines, farmlands, dry plains, tumbleweeds, ranches, and buttes, one tops a hill and there they are--the Rocky Mountains.  It finally feels like one is actually making progress toward the goal of Colorado, although it is still another 6 hours or so to Estes Park.

Of course, on the return trip something of the reverse is true.  My mother told my husband, "every time we would leave Colorado when Lindy was a kid, she would watch the mountains out the back window for as long as she could see them and cry when she couldn't see them anymore."   My husband's response was, "nothing's changed."