Well, as quiet as the jungle ever gets, with the sounds of beautiful music drifting through the humid air.
The clouds are building and parting, teasing us with the possibility of rain. Whether it will actually arrive tonight is anyone’s guess.
This morning, we heard the sheet of rain coming off the playa. It’s an unusual sound for the morning hours, and one that caught our attention. Chris and I were sitting with our coffee, talking about plans for the day, when suddenly there it was—a low roar growing louder as the heavy drops swept through the trees and hammered against the broad jungle leaves. For a few moments, the conversation gave way to the rain. Sometimes nature has something to say, and you just listen.
I’m getting pretty good at recognizing the bird calls. A year of using Merlin has helped me tuck those sounds away, one by one, until they’ve become familiar friends. Now I find myself drifting off, listening to each individual voice in the canopy. I can pick them out, recognize their songs, and follow the conversations unfolding all around me. There’s something deeply satisfying about realizing that a place you once heard as a wall of sound has slowly become a world of individual voices.
The end of October is here, and we’re nearing the beginning of the dry season, which usually means tourists begin arriving in numbers. And yet, our house has surprisingly few bookings.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about that. This little home of ours is part of the life we’ve built here, and naturally, we want to share it. But for now, the calendar has more empty spaces than we’d hoped.
Meanwhile, the jungle carries on, completely indifferent to booking calendars and the ebb and flow of tourism.
And I’ll tell you what: it would be nice if it rained this afternoon.
The air is so heavy you can almost feel it resting on your skin. There’s none of the usual stirring that hints at an afternoon storm. No breeze whispering through the palms, no sudden rustling in the canopy, no distant rumble promising relief. Just stillness. Thick, motionless, jungle heat.
Even a walk around the house is enough to send huge droplets of sweat running down my neck and into my eyes. The kind of heat that makes you move a little slower, breathe a little deeper, and question why you thought walking outside was such a good idea in the first place.
And yet, there’s something about days like these.
When the air is still, the floral notes seem to rise from the gardens and the jungle around us. Fragrances that might otherwise go unnoticed drift past, delicate and almost intoxicating. You catch one, then another, and without even realizing it, you begin to breathe more deeply. More slowly.
You stop thinking about what needs to be done. You stop watching the clock. You simply exist in the moment.
The jungle has a way of doing that to you. Of asking you to slow down without ever saying a word. Of reminding you that life doesn’t always have to be measured in accomplishments, plans, or the things we’re waiting to happen.
Sometimes, it’s enough to sit with a cup of coffee, listen to the birds, feel the weight of the humid air, and let the afternoon unfold exactly as it will.
A peace settles over you, and time slows.
And somewhere in that stillness, between the scent of the flowers and the distant calls of the birds, you realize that this life has found its way into you.
Not just the place, but the rhythm of it.
The quiet. The heat. The waiting for rain.
And the beautiful, untamed world that carries on all around us.
I know I’ve said it before, but something has changed. Something deep inside me has shifted, taken root, and begun to grow in ways I’m only now beginning to understand.
Living in Costa Rica, surrounded by the endless, chaotic, magnificent spectacle of nature, has seeped into my very core.
The birds that announce the morning before the sun has even cleared the trees. The iguanas sprawled across warm branches, lizards darting through the undergrowth, insects conducting their nightly symphony, frogs calling out in the darkness, and, of course, the snakes that remind us we are sharing this land with creatures that have been here far longer than we have. And let’s not forget our favorite tree, NatGeo, standing watch over our little piece of paradise.
This isn’t nature viewed through a screen or admired from a comfortable distance. This is nature all around us, all the time. It creeps beneath our doors, climbs our trees, flies through our gardens, and occasionally reminds us that we are not nearly as much in charge as we might like to think.
Here, nature doesn’t ask permission to enter our lives. It simply does.
And somewhere along the way, I began to understand that this was exactly what I needed.
Walking barefoot in the sand, feeling the Pacific wash over my feet, or sinking my toes into the grass in our own backyard has grounded me in ways I am still uncovering. There is something ancient and instinctive about feeling the earth beneath your feet, about being present in a moment that requires nothing of you except that you experience it.
No agenda. No hurry. No need to be anywhere else.
Just me, the earth, and the extraordinary privilege of being alive.
There is something to be said for reconnecting with the natural world. Something that reaches beyond the mind and settles into the soul.
When we bought this house in our little village, close to the sea and sand, we both felt it. That inexplicable pull. That quiet knowing that this place was different.
For almost six years, we had roamed. We had lived a life without anchors, without a permanent address that meant home in the traditional sense. We collected experiences instead of possessions, memories instead of roots, and learned to be comfortable with the uncertainty of never quite knowing where we would be next.
And then we found this place.
A little home tucked into the lushness of the jungle, where the air hangs heavy with moisture, the afternoon skies gather into great dark clouds, and the rain comes down with a ferocity that makes you stop whatever you’re doing and simply listen.
Here, we could settle. Nest for a while. Nurture our souls in a place that felt less like a destination and more like a homecoming.
We didn’t know then just how deeply this place would change us.
Since 2019, so much of my journey has been inward. Years spent trying to understand the voices that haunted me, the fractured pieces of a life shaped by things a child should never have had to navigate. Learning to recognize the parts of myself that once kept me safe but eventually became part of a recurring cycle of destruction. Learning that survival mechanisms can outlive the dangers that created them.
It has been hard, painstaking work. Not the sort of transformation that happens in a weekend retreat or arrives wrapped in a tidy little package of enlightenment.
It has been messy. Uncomfortable. Sometimes heartbreaking.
But slowly, I began to find a way to live alongside those parts of myself rather than be ruled by them. To listen without surrendering. To understand without being pulled backward. To integrate what once felt impossible to reconcile.
Today, for the most part, those voices are quiet. They remain somewhere in the background, observers rather than directors, as I learn to experience life as it unfolds instead of reliving the past.
And here, in this wild, untamed corner of the world, something inside me has finally begun to settle.
Perhaps it is the rhythm of the tides, the moon pulling at the ocean, the daily arrival of rain clouds over the mountains. Perhaps it is the way the jungle refuses to be hurried, how everything grows, decays, transforms, and begins again without asking whether the timing is convenient.
Or perhaps it is simply the gift of being fully present in a place that demands your attention.
Because make no mistake. For all its beauty, life in the jungle is anything but tranquil.
From the outside, our life might look like paradise. A little house near the ocean. Tropical breezes, lush green mountains, colorful birds, and the soothing sound of waves rolling onto the shore.
But step into the middle of it, and you’ll discover that paradise is working its ass off just to stay alive.
The heat is relentless. The humidity wraps around you like a warm, wet blanket. Everything grows, crawls, bites, rots, or sprouts again before you’ve had time to catch your breath. The rain can turn a peaceful afternoon into a thundering spectacle of water, wind, and lightning that illuminates the entire sky.
And everywhere, life is fighting for its place.
Butterflies flutter through the garden, delicate wings catching the sunlight, while tiny hummingbirds dart past with astonishing speed, competing for nectar in a world where even the smallest creature must defend its share.
Iguanas bask in the trees, alert to the movements of snakes that are themselves hunting to survive.
Tiny sea turtles emerge from the sand and make their desperate dash toward the ocean, navigating a gauntlet of predators and obstacles before they ever reach the water. Those that make it face a whole new world of dangers, with no guarantees that they will ever return to the beach where their lives began.
Everywhere you look, something is growing, hunting, hiding, reproducing, adapting, or trying desperately not to become someone else’s dinner.
Every living thing is negotiating its existence.
Sunlight. Water. Food. Shelter. A patch of fertile ground. A safe place to ride out another torrential downpour.
There is no guarantee of tomorrow. No promise that being beautiful or small or strong will be enough.
And yet, life persists.
The jungle doesn’t stop to mourn what has been lost. It doesn’t apologize for the storm or question the arrival of another season. It absorbs, adapts, and carries on. Fallen leaves become nourishment. Dead branches make room for new growth. What ends becomes part of what begins.
There is a brutal honesty in that. A kind of beauty that has nothing to do with perfection and everything to do with persistence.
Here, living is dynamic. Challenging. Unpredictable. And profoundly fulfilling.
It reminds me that life was never meant to be static. That peace doesn’t necessarily mean the absence of struggle. Sometimes peace is learning to exist within the struggle without losing yourself to it.
I watch the jungle, and I see the same complicated dance that has played out inside me for years. Different parts competing for space. Old defenses responding to perceived danger. The constant work of adapting, finding balance, and learning when to fight and when to simply let things unfold.
And I realize that perhaps healing isn’t about making every part of life quiet.
Perhaps it’s about learning to live with the noise.
To recognize the storms for what they are. To understand that not every uncomfortable moment signals disaster. To trust that we can bend without breaking, change without losing ourselves, and find our footing even when the ground beneath us feels uncertain.
The jungle doesn’t promise an easy life.
Neither does healing.
But both offer something far more meaningful than ease.
They offer the opportunity to be fully alive.
This connection to nature has been with me since I was little. Somewhere along the way, through the years of growing up, surviving, traveling, and trying to make sense of the world, I lost pieces of that connection.
Or perhaps I simply forgot how deeply I needed it.
Now, surrounded by the living, breathing, untamed world of Costa Rica, I feel it again.
In the first birdcall of the morning.
In the earthy smell of wet soil after an afternoon storm.
In the thunder that rolls across the mountains and rattles the windows.
In the frogs that sing through the darkness, the insects that fill the night with their electric chorus, and the impossibly green world that seems to grow before my eyes.
In the feel of warm sand between my toes and the ocean washing away whatever I thought I needed to carry.
I find peace here. Not because life is simple, but because it is real. Because nothing in this jungle pretends to be anything other than what it is.
There is struggle, but there is also beauty.
There is uncertainty, but there is also wonder.
There is loss, but there is always the possibility of new growth.
And there is a profound comfort in knowing that I am not separate from any of it.
I am part of this great, messy, extraordinary web of life. Another living creature finding her place beneath the sun, learning to adapt, learning to grow, learning to simply be.
Maybe that’s what this natural progression has been all along.
Not becoming someone new, but returning to something I always knew.
That peace can be found in the simplest things.
That healing can happen in ways we don’t always recognize.
That we don’t have to control every moment to feel safe within it.
And that sometimes, the greatest gift we can give ourselves is the freedom to put our feet on the earth, open our senses to the world around us, and remember that we belong here, too.
Not as observers.
Not as visitors passing through.
But as living, breathing participants in this magnificent, relentless, ever-changing world.
The jungle doesn’t just surround me anymore. It lives in me.
And somewhere between the tides, the storms, the creatures, the chaos, and the quiet moments in our little backyard, I think I’ve finally found a little more of myself.
Grounded.
Calm.
Comforted.
And more ALIVE than I have felt in a very long time.
It’s been a little over a year since we made Costa Rica our full-time home, since we traded snow and seasons for the lushness of the Osa Peninsula and settled into our little piece of paradise in Uvita.
And living here—really living here, not just visiting—has brought a lot into focus about what it means to make a life in a foreign country.
Today, my heart is heavy.
There are days when paradise feels exactly like paradise. And then there are days when the cracks become impossible to ignore.
This morning, I opened my email to find an announcement from OsaInformacion about the opening of the new C-COT-type detention center being built here.
It literally made me sick.
It’s no secret how I feel about the regime that has taken control of so many aspects of life in the United States. And now, watching even the ideas and policies of that regime begin to reach into the political landscape here in Costa Rica is frightening.
I can’t help but wonder:
Who will they round up?What will be next?When does it become about us?Will there be quotas?Will fear become a tool here, too?Will the lawlessness and division we’ve watched consume so much of the United States find its way here?
I know Costa Rica is its own country. I know its politics, its problems, and its history are uniquely Costa Rican.
But I also know how quickly things can change.
And then there are the things happening right in our own sleepy little canton.
Four random drive-by shootings in less than two weeks.
Bandits in the National Marine Park beating and robbing tourists.
And turtle eggs being poached right under our noses, even as the dedicated people from the turtle rescue walk the beaches twice a day trying desperately to protect them.
They save two or three nests, and someone comes along and steals another.
It is infuriating.
Because all around us is the Costa Rica we fell in love with.
Bright-colored birds flashing through the trees. Huge iguanas sunning themselves. Monkeys swinging through the canopy. The ocean. The mountains. The rain. The thunder and lightning rolling across the jungle.
Our little paradise still exists.
But then there is the human factor.
And sometimes, that’s the hardest part.
And honestly?
Today, even the humidity has gotten to me.
We really believed we would adapt to it. We thought our bodies would eventually acclimate, that eventually we would stop noticing the relentless dampness hanging in the air.
But after more than a year, we still find ourselves thinking twice about going outside. Thinking about whether an event is worth getting drenched in sweat for. Looking for shade. Looking for air conditioning. Looking for somewhere—anywhere—where your skin doesn’t feel perpetually wet.
There is no escaping it.
Of course, there are the mountains.
But the mountains come with their own shortcomings.
So today I’m just beside myself.
Not because I suddenly hate Costa Rica.
I don’t.
Not because the year here has been a failure.
It hasn’t.
Quite the opposite.
This year has taught us more than we could have learned from a dozen vacations. It has shown us what we truly need, what we can live without, what we value, and what we are unwilling to compromise.
And maybe that’s the lesson.
Life deals us a hand of cards.
Sometimes we look at that hand and decide we simply don’t want to play it.
And that is one of the beautiful freedoms of retirement.
We don’t have to stay somewhere because we have to.
We don’t have to convince ourselves that something is working when it isn’t.
We don’t have to spend the rest of our lives defending a decision simply because we once made it.
We can change our minds.
We can pack our bags.
We can go.
The wanderlust that has driven us for so many years is still alive and kicking. Maybe even more so now.
And somewhere along this journey, we’ve learned something else:
Stuff is exactly that. Stuff.
Our house is our home because we made it our home.
Just like our two vans were homes.
Just like our “home in the hill” in Bountiful was a home.
The walls don’t make the home.
The address doesn’t make the home.
We do.
Our love, our memories, our laughter, our photographs, our ridiculous collections of things we’ve picked up along the way. The meals we cook. The music we play. The dogs underfoot. The stories we’ve accumulated.
That can be created anywhere.
So today, with a very heavy heart, I am beginning to pack up our little life.
Not because we failed.
Not because Costa Rica failed us.
But because sometimes you have to be honest enough to recognize when the life you’re living isn’t quite the life you want anymore.
And maybe that’s okay.
Maybe paradise isn’t a place.
Maybe it’s simply the place where the next chapter begins.
So here we go again.
Another chapter.Another road.Another adventure.
And somewhere out there, waiting for us, is the next place we’ll turn a building into a home.
A year of living in Costa Rica has a way of changing even the hardest of souls.
We arrived after spending a year traveling the world. From the emerald cliffs of Ireland to the ancient streets of Cyprus, and four unforgettable months wandering Southeast Asia, the world opened itself to us. New cultures. New foods. New languages. More importantly, we witnessed countless ways people live in harmony with their surroundings. It changed us long before we ever set foot in Costa Rica.
Now we find ourselves nestled in a country that is both ferociously wild and profoundly calming.
Living here has slowly melted away layers of stress. I might even say it has rewired our brains—teaching us to slow down, practice patience, and become comfortable doing…nothing at all. Somewhere along the way, the clutter in my mind began to disappear. The anger, the endless noise, the toxic thoughts I carried for far too long have quietly loosened their grip.
In their place are moments of remarkable clarity. Moments of overwhelming gratitude. Moments where the beauty around me brings tears to my eyes and softens my heart. There are times when my thoughts simply disappear, and I’m completely immersed in the present—the calls of the toucans, the chorus of frogs after the rain, the scent of the jungle, the rhythm of the ocean. No distractions. No urgency. Just pure, uncomplicated peace.
Of course, not everything is idyllic. “Things” can be difficult to find. Convenience isn’t always convenient. Comfort, as we once defined it, isn’t guaranteed. The humidity can be relentless, and life rarely moves according to your schedule.
If your happiness depends on possessions, predictability, and recreating the life you left behind—this may not be the place for you. But if you’re searching for peace, solitude, vibrant wildlife, lush forests, and a slower, more grounded way of living, Costa Rica just might be the perfect place to begin again.
Leave your worries at the airport.
Leave your stress at the airplane door.
Then take a deep breath…and jump in.
Moving abroad is always a gamble.
Then again, so is staying exactly where you are.
Life offers no guarantees. Death is the only certainty. Between those two truths lies a choice—to remain comfortable or to risk everything for a life that feels more fully lived.
For us, despite the obstacles we never saw coming, it has been the best gamble we’ve ever taken.
Today I find myself sitting outside with a heavy heart and a tightness in my chest. I can’t quite put my finger on where it came from. Maybe the moon and Venus have aligned. Maybe it’s some special full moon stirring things beneath the surface. Or maybe it’s none of those things at all. Whatever the reason, the feeling is real. It sits with weight.
I find myself staring up into my favorite tree in the backyard, hoping a pair of macaws or a couple of toucans might drop in and distract me for a while. My eyes wander through the thick branches searching for an iguana stretched across a limb or a black squirrel darting through the leaves. Instead, there is only the steady buzz of cicadas and the gentle sound of water spilling into the pool.
I know this feeling. I’ve met it before.
But I refuse to give it ground. I refuse to feed it. Let it pass like the clouds drifting overhead. Still, days like this are part of being human. They arrive uninvited and bring questions with them. Questions about decisions made and roads not taken. Glimpses into an uncertain future. Thoughts of a world increasingly shaped by greed, power, and men willing to gamble with lives they will never know.
The idea that nuclear weapons still exist—that civilization hangs, in some small way, on the judgment of a handful of leaders—feels absurd when you stop long enough to think about it. Yet here we are. An entire planet carrying a quiet undercurrent of fear, whether we admit it or not.
Costa Rica does a remarkable job of buffering me from all of that. Nature has a way of softening the sharp edges of the world. The jungle, the rain, the endless shades of green—they remind me that life continues despite our chaos.
But some days the world still finds a way in.
It seeps through the cracks and settles in my mind, bringing with it a deep ache and a fear not for myself, but for all living things trying to make their way through this brief existence.
So I sit here beneath my tree, my eyes tracing its sprawling branches and endless palette of greens. Once again, I wait for a visitor—a macaw, a toucan, an iguana, anything at all. Some small reminder that the world is still beautiful.
And as I sit and wait, even the cicadas have fallen silent.
I always thought that each New Year’s Resolution I set would bring a new me. What exactly that looked like, I really never knew because I only ever did part of the footwork needed to become that “new me”.
We left on the road now almost exactly 5.5 years ago. The New Year 2026 will be that milestone. In that time, I really feel like a lot of healing has occurred. I loved the traveling, it was dynamic and filled with so many experiences that kindled growth. Mostly, I believe that the oxidation of all parts of the body, caused by stress, was the hardest to undo and repair. It rears its ugly head in so many ways, both mentally and physically.
So much has happened over this time of travel that would probably never have happened if we had stayed put in our comfort level. Not to say we are not spontaneous, and – in the minds of family and friends – probably a bit too reckless at times but we are growing a bit more reserved. I’ve said it before that travel allows the mind to become pliable again. Allows the body to be pushed to its limits and a bit beyond. It teaches you to get out of your self-centeredness and become more selfless.
We’ve now been living in Costa Rica for 9 months and in our own place for 4 months. That’s the longest we’ve stayed put in one place since we left in 2020. I guess we set our first intention in life together back when we said someday we would live here. That intention set in motion all the preparations since have led up to the moment we bought our home here. In 1993, we first came to Costa Rica and fell in love with this tiny but vast country.
With a place to become grounded once again, but with the gift of leisure now ours, this year we can not just make a New Year’s resolution, but set our intentions for the new year. More than I’m going to quit this or that, lose weight or eat better. More than empty words and promises that soon die away as the stress of life settles back in after giving it our best efforts. Ah – therein lies the difference.
Setting intentions can now include seeing how we can achieve these in our new life. It can be not a self-defeating promise but an action-packed movement towards an outcome. We can work on our bodies and our minds by utilizing this leisure time gift as if it were the gift of life itself. We can set ourselves up to succeed and achieve with few hindrances. We have the tools and guidance available all around us here, and have tapped into the knowledge that exists here. In the humans, the nature, and the natural forces of the coming time of change in our universe. If there was ever a year to do it – this is the year.
This Thanksgiving, we embrace gratitude for the calm we’ve built and compassion for those missing loved ones. Together, we honor the enduring bonds that transcend distance.
This year, Thanksgiving feels different.
It feels heavier… and somehow, more sacred.
Because while Chris and I wake up each morning surrounded by peace — free from the grinding stress that once sat on our shoulders — we know that so many others are carrying a very different weight right now.
A weight made of fear, of sudden goodbyes, of families torn apart by harsh policies and heartless raids. There are empty chairs at tables today not because of distance or choice, but because loved ones were taken, uprooted, scattered. Entire families are living with a quiet ache that never seems to lift.
Yet in the middle of all that heartbreak… there is still gratitude.
Chris and I are deeply, humbly thankful for the life we’ve been able to build here in Costa Rica — for the calm, the safety, the space to breathe again. And we’re just as grateful for the people who keep our hearts stitched together across countries: the friends who have become family here, and the loved ones in the States whose connection remains a steady, grounding presence.
We’re thankful for every message, every visit, every shared laugh across borders — reminders that love doesn’t weaken with distance; it grows stronger, more intentional, more cherished.
So today we’re holding two truths side by side: Gratitude for the peace we have… and compassion for those spending this holiday with pieces missing.
To everyone feeling that empty space at the table, that tug of worry, that longing for someone who should be here — you are not invisible. You are carried in the hearts of many.
May the days ahead bring comfort where there has been fear, hope where there has been loss, and reunions where there have been far too many separations.
My love and heartfelt wishes for a reflective holiday season.
I’m sitting here on my patio watching the rain come down—again. We’ve had a ton of rain since Hurricane Melissa first appeared as a blip in the Caribbean. It must be true that October is the rainiest month in Costa Rica. We’ve had over twenty inches of rain this week, and more is falling.
And let me tell you—it knows how to rain here. It’s never just a “passing shower.” Back in Utah, we’d call these “gully washers.” For example, our pool’s water level usually sits about six inches below the lip, but last night, after just two hours of rain, it reached the overflow drain. For the next four hours, the drain couldn’t keep up, so I had to pull the cover off to let the water escape before it spilled over. Our pool is about eighteen feet long and twelve feet wide. I’m no mathematician, but that’s a lot of water.
Why did I mention Melissa?
Part of learning to live in a new country is learning its weather. We don’t have regular TV here, so most of our information and alerts come through WhatsApp. I saw a question recently posed to a local meteorologist: “If the hurricane is in the Caribbean, why is the Pacific coast getting high tide surges and flooding—while it’s sunny on the Caribbean side?”
Here’s where it gets a little nerdy. A hurricane is a living, breathing, seething wonder of nature. It pulls energy from all around it—even thousands of miles away. Just off the Pacific coast of Central America sits the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), which holds an immense amount of humidity—a marine layer of warm, moist air. The hurricane literally pulls that ITCZ over the nearby countries, where it becomes supercharged by local weather patterns. The result? Torrential rain that can last all day.
During a “normal” rain, you can feel the humidity rising. The air gets heavy and oppressive. It’s no wonder everything here grows so fast, so big, and so green.
This week, we’ve also begun a new path toward better health—a change in diet, shifting old habits, and replacing them with more holistic practices. We’ve started giving back to our small community by volunteering and joining in the local energy and vibe. We’ve taken up Tai Chi, sound healing, and slow forms of yoga and breathing.
Today, I attended a “Morning Melt: Cacao and Devotional Singing Ceremony” at a local shop here in Uvita. There’s always some class or workshop on wellness, spirituality, or healing happening here. It’s about getting well—not just treating symptoms.
We eat fresh produce from the farmers market, grass-fed meats, and organic everything. We know where our food comes from—nothing is trucked in from far away. If it’s in season, we get it fresh. It all adds up to our main reason for moving here.
Here, in Costa Rica, we just might become young and spry again.
We woke up early, excited about the day. Being in Costa Rica opens up so many options for the days activities…or lack thereof. Today however, the exercising and yoga we’ve been doing, will come in handy.
We’ve been talking about going to one of the numerous waterfalls in the area, some easier to get to than others. Today we are going to support a local Tico, a soon to be neighbor. Her property hosts the Ojochal Waterfall, a 40’ cascade of water in 3 drops, surrounded by incredible green flora and huge rocks, heavy clad in thick moss, bromeliads, and orchids. It’s a narrow gorge cut deep in the volcanic rock surrounded by jungle. Prime to flash flooding and debris flow, Rio Tortuga, on a calm day can make you forget the outside world exists.
We were met by a sleek all black cat upon exiting the car. I greeted the woman that owned the property, in my best Spanish and paid the $6/pp to enter. She was a kind woman with a lovely home, tidy and clean. She was friendly and as always, shown a smile as big and bright as her heart.
It was a well maintained cinder block trail cut into the hillside, zig and zagging around huge ancient trees. A path that has probably been used for a few generations. The path was the beginning of the adventure, thick with moss and being absorbed back into the hillside jungle. Following close behind and playfully slinking along with us was the black cat. We arrived at the river level quickly and could soon here the crashing of the waterfalls.
The contrasts of incredible greens, heavy shadows, opposing fern covered cliffs, huge old growth trees and a torrent of white water snaking its way between boulders and rocky steps, accented by the filtered sunlight. The water is as pure as the landscape and refreshingly cool but not cold as a river in Utahs Uinta mountains would be. Best part… we had the whole place to ourselves, except for our new cat friend. He bounded around chasing butterflies and geckos. He danced over the rocks, floating from top to top and leaping into the air. He posted himself on the highest rock like a black panther protecting its young.
Being in this space was truly magical. The oneness with nature is felt deeply. The serenity and peace…just really can’t be put into words. It penetrates deeply into your being as you enter the water. A deep breath in a chaotic mind…release…
