Raymond and I habitually snatch an adventure between the blur of July and the big annual Sculpture in the Park show.

This year, we scooted to the Scapegoat Wilderness, where we slept beneath a full moon in the back of my mother-in-law’s Subaru, windows open, listening to the mountain creek so we could rise before dawn and begin our climb toward the summit of Crown Mountain. We walked toward the round lantern of the moon in that magical hour between night and morning. The first rays of sunlight set Crown aglow.

Sleep had been elusive for me since the end of June. The cool morning movement felt right in my soul, ’tho challenging in my sleep-deprived bones and psyche. The air, quietude and freedom quenched a thirst Raymond had acquired during the chunk of July he spent working in the dust and dirt of the Big Sky PBR arena. His stoke fueled mine as we moved together off-trail and across far-stretching talus slopes toward the rocky summit.

Hours later, we stood on top. Time in the mountains never feels like time taken away from everything else…it feels like time returned.