June 29, 2021 - While we were out West, we were driving from Laramie, Wyoming (my home town), down to Colorado Springs, where my mom and one of my brothers lives. It’s around a 3 hour drive, and we had extra time, so I texted one of my brothers who had lived in the mountains in Colorado, and asked if he had any alternative route suggestions. He was really excited to route us through Rocky Mountain National Park. I had been there as a kid, but Jane never had, and I was excited for her to see it and to revisit it again myself. The new route added 4 hours to the trip, which would get us to the Springs right when we were planning to meet our family…perfect.

We worked our way up from Fort Collins, winding through the amazing Big Thompson Canyon, and working our way into Estes Park and then to the Rocky Mountain National Park entrance. There was a big line of cars, and I remembered when I was here before that it was bumper to bumper driving, but it was really beautiful and you’ll have that in a National Park. Once we got the gate, the person said, “Do you have a reservation?” We didn’t, and hadn’t even thought that would be a thing. We told the person we didn’t, and he said we could come back later in the afternoon and try to get in then if we wanted.

We didn’t want to wait around for a chance to get in, and it would have made us late anyway, so we decided we’d figure out a different way to go to work our way through the mountains heading toward Colorado Springs. We ended up having a great time! No traffic, beautiful winding roads, and it was actually really foggy, so we wouldn’t have been about to see the mountains in the park that well anyway. It was definitely one of the memorable drives of the trip, and definitely better than what would have happened if we had got into the Park.

I was really proud of us for being instantly open to a change of plan, and going with the flow of what was happening. Sometimes, or maybe most of the time, things don’t go as planned, and you have to adjust. Something that I enjoy about yoga is every practice and every posture is another moment of being open to things being different than you expected, and embracing that and making the most of it.

In class today we embrace where we are at in our bodies, minds, hearts, and our environment. Join in if you’d like. :-)