I first came to the mountains in my twenty-second year...John Denver had five years on me...coming home to a place I'd never been before.  My former pastor had driven me from the prairies of Louisiana, through Oklahoma, across Kansas.  My first sight of the Rockies was east of Pueblo, a blue mass looming on the distant horizon...sure sign of an approaching storm where I come from. By the time we reached Pueblo, my eyes had focused, and my brain made a perceptual shift, and I experienced mountains for the first time. After we made a sharp right turn and headed north, my chin was fastened to my left shoulder, fascinated with the size, the shape, the beauty of the foothills...and the peaks...which seemed closer, and higher, and more overwhelming as we traveled toward Colorado Springs. I've never gotten over it.