Tradition

We were camping at Turquoise Lake, near Leadville, CO over the weekend, as we normally do. My husband's parents and two other families have been going to the same spot for over 30 years now. I started going on this annual trip just after we started dating, 14 years ago. It was already a long standing thing for them, and I felt it upon arrival. The original campers, Grandparents at this point, all pull into their spots with incredible ease and familiarity. As the kids grew up and had their own families, the number of sites has grown and now there are bunches of us, gathered around the same campfires every year. It takes a few years for something to feel like a tradition. Sometimes it happens accidentally and sometimes it takes a lot of work to keep it up. But at some point, it just becomes part of our fabric. Turquoise Lake is like that for me. As we pull off of I-70 and head up high into the Rockies, something else seems to take over. The scenery up there is dramatic, both beautiful and horrific at the same time. The mining from the past century has definitely left scars on the mountains and we will never see its original beauty. But, strangely, the waste ponds are brushed with so many different colors and the bald mountain sides cut so deeply, it is unlike anywhere I have been. The air is thin and I feel small, a tiny drop upon this harsh landscape. Nature at it's finest and man at his worst, all wrapped up into a 10 mile stretch of highway. We skirt the edge of town, stop at Safeway for some ice for our cooler and head out to the campground. The same trucks and trailers, same faces waiting for our arrival. As the girls jump out of the car and run to say hello to everyone, we see how much other kids have grown and changed and what new additions there may be. This year there was an additional kiddo and a newly married couple. There were 10 kids, from 15 months to 13 years and a smattering of parents and all six of the original campers. We all share conversation, play games, gather around the campfire and huddle under cover to get out of the rain. We can almost hear the clouds sail by above us and watch the squirrels grab anything they can and dash up the towering trees. Camp robbing jays come closer and closer to scraps thrown from the 15 month old's grubby hands and we are together. Some people fly fish down the road, some fish at the lake. The kids play in the dirt, climb on rocks and build sand castles on the beach. We have been in shorts and bundled up as the year's first snow flakes fall around us. We watch out for turning leaves and note the water level of the lake. We take the same walks along the same trails that we have done now for years. This tradition is worn and comfortable and easy. It is also new and different each year as no one of us is the same as we were at our last visit. It is a tradition I am so very thankful to be a part of.