Life must be easy for Colorado residents. Whenever you need money, just walk outside, take a photo, turn it into postcards, sit back and wait for tourists either onsite or faraway by internet to make your payday. I don’t see how they can get used to walking out the front door without saying “WOW” every ten minutes and getting on each other’s nerves. Then again, I live in a state where mountains are more or less against the law. To me, mountains are a such staggering part of Creation, and yet in other states live people who think of mountains the same way I think of maple trees. Your everyday context determines what’s mundane and what’s extraordinary, I guess.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we took our first plane ride and lived to tell the tale. While my wife is holding up the “business” end of her “business trip” travel deal, I’m spending the week running around Colorado Springs and the surrounding areas to see what we missed on our 2012 road trip. Hence a series of short entries this week, probably.

The above photo inadequately contains a small portion of the view from the Cave of the Winds gift shop in Manitou Springs (not to be confused with the Cave of the Winds at Niagara Falls, which we saw on our 2004 road trip), west of Colorado Springs and at least 7000 feet above sea level. The gift shop has a lovely deck where I could sit, wait for the next cave tour, and enjoy a scenic view of the Rocky Mountains from a much closer perspective than our hotel room down in civilization’s unremarkable plateau.

Most of the photos I took today were of mountains and other large rock formations, so be prepared for more of those in future entries once time allows. If mountains are your neighbor and you roll your eyes every time someone gets really excitable about them, I’ll eventually sound like a bumpkin to you if I don’t already, and for that I’m slightly sorry in advance.