Methow

I don't believe this- I have not written of Methow yet. A little place, across the cascades, near Wenatchee. Even the names are interesting, na?
I stayed in a little cabin, in a valley that seemed to have walked out of an Andrew Wyeth painting. a valley of sagebrush and snow surrounded by gentle hills, with pines and boulders. I reached there on a moonless night, and it was dark ,and the snow was so white. I have no idea what light it found to reflect, but it did. white and crunchy, and the only thing one could hear was the steady crunch of our footsteps, and, i am afraid, the occasional 'oops' or worse from yours truly.
In the morning, it was an O'Keefe painting before me. I always thought she painted those purple shadows for art's sake, but no! shadows in the snow are really, truly purple-blue. And the sun was so, so bright! The air smelt of sagebrush. and it was warm, and quiet, and the colours! a limited palette, but all possible hues of purple and yellow with the green of the pines.
And at night, the stars came out. like I have seen them only a handful of times. Once each at sawantwadi, hari-hareshwar, and Dive-a-ghar, and twice at sulibhanjan. it was cold, and we were standing on the deck wrapped in blankets and looking up,up, up.
I was reading Isabella Bird, and at one point she mentions of a peaceful night ," I was woken up only once by gunshots, but after that the night was quiet and I went back to sleep." That sentence was always to me the epitome of travel. Well, here I was woken up only once by coyotes, and after that the night was quiet, but I did not go back to sleep. Instead, I went out to the porch again and stood looking at the stars.
There were deer tracks, and coyote scat, and we saw a chipmunk, and a hawk.
Everything was perfect. We walked, and read, and cooked, and played scrabble, and I was happy.