What it is all About.

A person can ramble on about the great aspects of life. Oh, some might name the seven wonders and go to tears over the accomplishments, the scale of it all, but as near as I can tell for the average yahoo it comes down to some things more simple, things that are frequently at hand.

I know I can be impressed by a pristine Tiger Swallowtail butterfly, or maybe a deeply colored trout caught at the bottom of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, or climbing a fourteen in Colorado. There are lots of them. I've seen them and they are things of wonder for sure.

Yesterday, the Badgers took Nebraska to a clinic and today the Packers bitch slapped the Broncos. The Brewers are in the playoffs and I have a selection of cold beers, and that does not include the locally made honey liqueur we scored in Madison. It is good out there---excluding the fact that we are going through the Great Adjustment, The Long Emergency, the Sustainable Revolution or what is becoming to be know as The Crash.

But this picture represents something that quite possibly is better. It is the gathering of friends in the company of good food and each other. It seems that no matter how far we may travel, no matter what we see of the physical world, the places, the events, being among friends is priceless.

After just travelling some 3500 miles or more, the time spent laughing and blathering of great deeds, of relating distant experiences among other friends is the most exciting. It is the exchanging of the day, sharing music with grinning musicians, flopping through some marsh with fellow hunters the entire time hassling each other, that really makes the day. I suspect it is why I have always liked the saying from St. Catherine, "All the way to heaven, is heaven."