Things I Learned in the Mountains

1

That the plural of moose is moose.

This is a moose.

This is another moose.

One morning two moose walked by our temporary mountain home. They were in no hurry. You could maybe even say they were sauntering. They stopped to strip pieces of bark from the trees in the front yard before moving slowly down the road. Unbeknownst to the moose, they were causing quite a commotion inside the house. Dogs were barking furiously and knocking over water bowls. Visiting sister was being roused from sleep and told to come and see the moose, and Gary was scrambling to find his phone. And in spite of the poster we had seen in a shop downtown advising us to run as fast as you can if we encountered a moose in the wild, Gary raced outside to take pictures. And stood there in the driveway watching and clicking until the moose disappeared into the woods. Two moose. Because the plural of moose is moose.

2

That this is moose poop. Not deer poop.

We saw moose poop everywhere. Gracie, the yellow lab, liked to eat it. I thought it was deer poop, until my sister from the East coast arrived for a visit. My sister lives in deer country. She knows what deer poop looks like. This is not it. If you see moose poop, chances are there is a moose nearby. And chances are that if you stumble across a real live moose, and startle it, you might be glad if you have your running shoes on. So that you can follow the advice of the professionals and run as fast as you can. Breckenridge is moose country. And this is their poop.

3

That it's Breck. Not Breckinridge.

4

That the people who live in Breck, a place ten thousand feet above sea level, have a secret. The secret is that even the locals need help breathing up here. The secret is that a lot of them use one of these.

This is an oxygen concentrating machine. It's like having an oxygen bar in your home. You plug it in, turn it on, and insert a plastic tube into your nostrils. The machine pulls oxygen from the air, concentrates it, and pumps the cool life-giving elixir into your body. Your body says thank you. Because suddenly you don't feel like puking anymore. Because suddenly all your altitude sickness symptoms have gone away. You need a doctor's prescription to get one of these machines. Which doesn't appear difficult to get. Here at ten thousand feet above sea level. Where oxygen is hard to find. Unless you know the secret.

5

That the secret of the buried eggs the dogs kept digging up on our walks is foxes. There are no mythical magical mountain birds that build nests in the dirt and bury their eggs. Foxes bury eggs. And dogs dig them up and eat them. Marijuana is legal here, but feeding eggs to the wild foxes is not. But people do it anyway. Because people. Foxes bury eggs and dogs dig them up. That is the secret of the eggs.

6

That dogs like eggs and you like dogs.  

That it's easy to fall in love with the animals you are taking care of.

And hard to say goodbye.

Gary and his pack

Grandson Brayden saying goodbye to Gracie

7 

That saying goodbye is our new normal.  

That saying goodbye is something nomads do a lot.

Here are some nomads. I think there was a convention in town.

Lisa, Nat, Jodie, Gary

This is us with Nat and Jodie. Nat and Jodie have been nomads for a long time. They have been traveling and house-sitting all over the world for more than two years. They got asked so many times how they do what they do that they decided to create a course. Their course is now part of an online school called The House Sitting Academy and all the answers are there. Nat and Jodie were house-sitting across the street from us in Breckenridge. They are nomads. We are nomads. And now we call these nomads friends.

The convention of nomads in Breck also included Travis and Heather Sherry who were house-sitting on the next street over. Travis and Heather are the founders of the website An Extra Pack of Peanuts, where you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about travel hacking. Nomad Natalie Sisson was in town as well. Natalie is an author and businesswoman, and also goes by the name The Suitcase Entrepreneur. All of the nomads shared happy hours and hot tubs (?!) and travel hacking tips. This family of nomads invited us to join their club. And we accepted.

8

That being accepted into the tribe of nomads is like finding you have a new family. That even though you are a nomad, and living on the road, your other family, the one that shares your genetic material, can still track you down, and hatch plots to hang out with you, and even find ways to aid and abet you.

Like your cousin Jim, the one you used to visit every summer when you were growing up, the one that used to shoot little plastic pellets at you from his toy Star Trek phaser on those long ago Kansas nights, that cousin Jim drove all the way from Denver to Breck with his wife and two kids, to sit by the fire one snowy night, and break bread and sip wine and share stories. And in the morning cousin Jim and his family cleaned up all the crumbs and washed out all the cups and left as a gift all the unopened bottles of wine.

Like your brother Alan, the one that once threw a giant rock at your head (he says he wasn't really aiming for your head) when you were young and somehow immortal, that brother drove four hours round trip just to pick up your sister from the Denver airport and deliver her to Breck. And a week later that same brother made the same round trip with his wife and two daughters so they could spend a few hours with you, and eat one meal with you, and bring your sister back down the mountain. Because he didn't want you to have to leave in the wee hours of the morning to get her to the airport on time.

Lesle, Alan, Lisa

Niece Kylie, daughter Jenn, grandson Brayden, niece Erin

Like your daughter and grandson, who got on a plane and flew across the ocean, and gave you the gift of watching your grandson's face in person when the candles on his tenth birthday cake were lit.

Erin's beautiful cake and Happy Birthday boy Brayden

Like your sister Lesle who traveled through two time zones to come share the Breckenridge experience with you. Your sister Lesle, the one that helps you survive impossible things. The one that you try to help survive impossible things.

9

That people can survive impossible things.

Sometimes.

My sister likes old cemeteries. When she was in Breck we went walking one afternoon in the historic Valley Brook Cemetery. We walked around in that wild and random place for hours, reading headstones, trying to imagine what people's lives were like 100 years ago in this mountain town. We found one headstone that told an impossible story. A woman was pregnant and while she was pregnant two of her young children died. Then she gave birth, and that baby died too. And we stood there in that untamed place with our eyes all misty, not knowing how this woman survived this impossible thing. This woman we didn't know, who was long ago dead. Maybe she didn't.

While I was in the mountains I did not learn how people survive impossible things. I only know that they do. Sometimes. Maybe the moose can help. Because maybe just getting up out of bed to look at something you have never seen before can make you feel like part of the world again. Maybe sometimes you will need your running shoes and a little extra oxygen to survive. Exposing secrets to the light might help. You will probably never get used to saying goodbye, but maybe becoming a nomad for a little while is not a bad idea. Not to run away from things, but to find a new perspective. And if you are lucky enough to have a family, one that shares your genetic material, or one that accepts you into their tribe, maybe you let them find you. And help you do the dishes. Even if they accidentally sometimes throw giant rocks at your head, or shoot you in the dark with little plastic pellets. The plural of moose is moose. The plural of me is family. And maybe that is how we survive.

Rufus, Lesle, Gracie