After working the breakfast shift at the lodge’s restaurant (from 4:30 a.m. to late morning-ish, depending on business), followed by a short but hard nap, the rest of the day stretched out before you like a fresh canvas waiting for the touch of brush, or a blank page awaiting the first stroke of a pen. With no TV and no internet, the opportunity for working with your hands, reading and contemplation seemed endless and uninterrupted.

One of our favorite things to do was drive across the bridge from which I took this photo and take the road that wound back to the Colorado River, which carved these majestic red cliffs. Our favorite spot consisted of several boulders that you had to hop a couple of smaller ones to get to.

These two particular boulders formed an almost perfect “sofa shape,” providing an ideal place to sit while the river flower around you on all sides. Talk about an idyllic place to read a book, chat, or just sit quietly, watching for a glimpse of a lizard moving from stone to stone on the riverbank.

It was like another world.

I’m with CheckMate657879 who comments that “Saxo solo – off the Richter!” and “Man! Everyone on the date is groovin’.” That’s exactly why it’s in my favorites both at home and at work.

Nataly has a terrific voice and I love the playful nature of this duo’s videos, but I have to say that her singing style is one that, while contemporarily popular, leaves me cold. My common description of this style is affected and self-aware, which sounds pretty harsh!

What I will say, though, is that I liked more of their videos than I ever imagined I would, given this vocal style, because I found them to be talented, fresh, and engaging. This song, in particular, charmed me, and I found Nataly’s bell-clear voice to be a perfect match for it.

Rock on, guys!

The art is mine as well — a photo taken soon after I did, indeed, move back to Chicago, with a chalk & charcoal effect added.

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Embrace Me, Chicago
by Michelle Jacobsen

Icy blasts of winter’s wrath
whip through your marble canyons
and gritty streets of grime ground in
by the heavy feet of weary workers.
Then you invite summer, short but vicious,
with its hot, damp demon breath that
rushes through the city with a relentless desire
to chase and find and choke and kill.
Your downtown crown sparkles for those
who swarm to your magnificent mile,
rapturously oblivious to those less fortunate
with lives in miles less magnificent.
Life in your arms is never easy, Chicago,
but then I never asked for easy.
You challenge me fiercely with great bravado,
and I joyfully accept your ultimatum.
For at the end of each day I’m stronger
and tougher than I was the day before,
and I can settle peacefully into the comfort
of your grudgingly approving embrace.