Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Room With A View....Of Sorts














When Doug and I lived in Yellowstone, we occasionally awoke to an elk or bison peeping-tom outside our bedroom window. It was rather amusing except during the autumn rut, when the novelty wore off the incessant bull elk bugling during pre-dawn hours after a few vocalizations. A bison using the side of the employee housing complex as a scratching post could make someone in a sleepy stupor imagine that finally the "really big" volcanic eruption was about to happen.
The dormer windows from our bedroom window at our cabin up in the Bangtails in Montana offered us a sweeping view of the Absaroka mountains and the Yellowstone River valley to the south. It was a view we will never forget. We hope that Linda and Tom, the cabin's new owners, share our sentiment. During a snowstorm, the mountains were enveloped in clouds and everything was blanketed in white. On those days, I would like to just lie in bed and wait for the rush of snow to swoop down the steep metal roof ending in a "thud" on the ground.

The view from our bedroom window at 14 Rue du Four is, I have to admit, unique, maybe best described as "very French". Across the petit cour is a currently unoccupied village house, owner unknown. To the left of the empty house is Neil and Celia's, an unusual feature in itself (not Neil and Celia, but their house). It is what "plugs" up the alley and creates our courtyard. To the right of the empty village house is where Marc (French) lives. Immediately to our right is an unoccupied barn. But my view is only the empty village house, windows broken out, rendering chipping off, columbage exposed, sorely in need of TLC.

I don't see bison or elk, or even a glimpse of the Pyrenees from my bedroom window now. But sometimes I look out this window early in the morning and I chuckle. I couldn't reproduce this view if I tried---it is one of a kind. And that, like the commercial says, is priceless.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi guys-
I just caught up on most of the August posts. Great reading! Better than most books. Even though I haven't had time this summer to respond much I wanted to make sure you knew I am still reading the blog, just in large chunks. I love your view out the window, and I love the contrast of this view to the one you descibe from the cabin. How lucky you are to have had both views and many others. You are leading a good life and thankfully we blog readers get to hear about it. It would be sad if instead we had to hear about the weeds in your yard...
xoxo,
Amy

Anonymous said...

It's really different looking out your window and seeing a building that has obviously had many owners over a long period of time and been adapted and re-adapted so many times. Here in America there aren't that many places that are as old or that have served as many "masters".

As always, you take the simplest things and make Luke think about history, different cultures and life in general. Your bedroom view is most interesting...on many levels.