I was caught unawares, letting out a loud sigh of awe. Driving south towards home, towards the mountain. All morning we'd had wicked wind and wet, wet snow, but by now the only clouds left were snuggled against the mountain to the south, the sun was out, and it was warm enough to have my windows down. I was so struck by the sight before me, I pulled over; even told the dog to look, as there were no other humans in the car with meto share it with.

There before me was my beloved Casper Mountain, so covered with blue spruce and lodgepole pine, it always appears to be a semi-dark, deep blue-slate with slashes of white here and there of aspen groves. Huge, billowing, white clouds lifted in front of it and on top. But, what caught my eye was the ghost mountain above and behind it. Gray and massive, doubly high, it rose majestically over all of the clouds and Casper Mountain. The other clouds which crowned our mountain, nestled at its feet. It stretched the entire length of our gentle, round top mountain, no sharp or snowy peaks; these mountains are old.

As I watched, my heart full of amazement at nature, I had no trouble believing I was seeing an actual *new* mountain before me. I wanted to drive up there and travel for ever and ever round the next bend, as my mother always made my dad do when sightseeing in the Rockies of Colorado. I felt this, even knowing, in my logical mind, that the ghost mountain was really just a cloud mountain. For a short time, it had substance, it rose in majestic splendour, it offered realms beyond our world, promises or memories of or from another time and place. As I drove closer and closer, the lower clouds slowly wended their way to the next county, lifted off its feet, revealed it for the tattered wraithlike imposter it was and then, it was gone, scattered into a thousand bits and more, at the mercy of the currents of air, yet still there, within my heart, my Ghost Mountain.