Izzy Bird, but not lovable
September 30, 2020
Isabella is in Bergens Park for this night. A horseshoe nail was never found in Manitou, so she made slow progress because of the loose shoe.
She had plenty of time to absorb the scenery.
“The mineral fountains were sparkling in their basins and sending up their full perennial jets but the snow-clad, pine-skirted mountains frowned and darkened over the Ute Pass… A narrow pass it is, with barely room for the torrent and the wagon road which has been blasted out of its steep sides.”
There are pine trees pretty much as far as the eye can see but, for a mile or two, in a microclimate,* “the everlasting northern pine” gave way to “dwarf oaks, willows, hazel, and spruce; the white cedar and the trailing juniper jostled each other for a precarious foothold; the majestic redwood tree of the Pacific met the exquisite balsam pine of the Atlantic slopes, and among them all the pale gold foliage of the large aspen trembled (as the legend goes) in endless remorse.”
This part of the country, she says, is “grand! Glorious! Sublime! But not lovable.”
* my word, not hers. I have no idea if the label of “microclimate” existed in 1873.