Pallette of Place – Stovepipe Camp

The narrow dusty road rising to the mountainside kicked up plumes of dryness coating my skin, making my eyes water. Turning off into the campground, we left the eye squinting sunshine into an amphi-theater of shaded mystery created by glorious pine trees. A canopy of darkness made by the tops of these embarkened soldiers standing sentry to the vastness of the above. Only slashes of daylight cut through here and there on the ground of a multicolor canvas. Squishy copper lengths of pine needles carpeted the floor of the grounds. Center-stage was a large ashened black stovepipe regally seated admidst its circle of minion stones serving as campfire, gaping hole where healthy chunks of wood disappeared keeping many a hunter warm by evening starlight. Gathered behind the pines, as though little children hiding behind skirts of mamas were thick luscious mini jungles of the most lavish of mountain ferns. A crayon box was named for all the shades of greens, browns, grays and blacks evident in this cornicopia of color.