Beauty Is Where You Find It

There is a thing that happens as you make your way from the plains of Alberta into the mountains of BC. It colours. The brown grass and grey dust from the windswept open prairie turn, as if by magic, to the verdant greens and towering timbers that line the narrow, curving highway taking you ever westward. It's Dorothy, leaving behind the dull screen of Kansas and waking up in the rich polychromasia that is this rugged landscape.

Here, in Kamloops, the flowers are in bloom, the grass is green, the streets are free of dust and gravel. The hillsides are still dry, yet their colours range from browns and gold to near pink in the shades of the sunlight. Spring is well underway, with lawns rich in grass and gardens rich in shades and colours beyond counting.

Of course all this beauty is not without its price. Coming through Kicking Horse pass from Alberta to BC is like switching another toggle, the one that starts the rain. While the skies were clear and blue as we left Calgary, no further than Lake Louise the clouds covered in and the slow drizzle for which BC is famous started. There is a reason for the green; it is the rain.

Alberta has its own beauty this way, with wide open skies and nary a cloud for so many days in the year. That brown grass will turn to green soon enough, and those gardens of Alberta will bloom with roses wild and domesticated. There will be a few days of rain, enough that it will seem strange to us. Then, spring will be in full bloom, just like it is here. It all happens, just a bit later in the year, and a bit shorter in the span.

Beauty is where you find it. It's everywhere if you want to see it. All you have to do is look for it. That's the wonderful thing about being on the road. It opens your eyes and reminds you that the world has so much variety, so much of wonder. It's here, and there too.