Oh, for a cup of cocoa

Conversations in the forest

SIDNEY -- A few weeks ago, a day and a lifetime ago, I was offered, or was it sent, on an adventure.

It was an unexpected adventure in the hobbit sense of the word. Nothing led me to think such an adventure would happen until my normal daily routine was interrupted with a "Hey Forrest! What do you think of..."

I gladly took the assignment, knowing I had only a general idea of what I was getting into. The reaction was deliberate. Sometimes the best thing a person can do in life is embrace an unexpected journey. With the expected adventure or journey comes education; thing you know need learning, things maybe you never considered up to that moment and things you know include a bit of a learning curve.

This is now storm No. 3 in my new adventure. A "road trip" this time is a well-before-dawn trip to the interstate and truck stops. Trucks were lined up in nearly every conceivable portion of real estate, horizontally displayed in an industrial sense of order. Most of them carried them own warm sleeping quarters although I'm sure many of the drivers sought remaining rooms for the extra square footage and amenities.

Meanwhile, my day started with the surreal oddity of an early morning snow. At a few hours before I usually consider my day, I look outside to enough light it could have been mid-morning. The fallen and increasingly falling snow made it brighter for that time. It was the kind of scene that inspires artists and poets, and those without a time clock or agenda. For the rest of us, the vision had one more layer: that of a warm, enclosed patio and a fresh cup of cocoa or coffee; no radio or television, just a time to communicate with nature at its finest.

Those moments don't happen often. When they do, we need to be ready to accept them, hide them in our memories. The quietly falling snow can be as calming as the noisy rhythm of rain on a Central American tin roof.