Colorado Springs, Colorado — October 27, 2024

We pulled into Colorado Springs late in the morning, and by the time we found the overlook the light was already that high, flat October light that flattens the reds into something close to rust. I stood at the wooden deck first. The railing was warm under my hands, and the coin-operated viewfinder had that chipped paint look every canyon viewfinder seems to have, like it had been turned a thousand times by people who didn't really need it. The canyon opened below in slabs of reddish rock, evergreens scattered along the ledges, the opposite ridge catching sun in long sunlit planes. We walked on and came to the second overlook, the stone-walled one. She leaned on the metal railing in her blue tank top and watched the waterfall step down the gray cliff in tiers. I remember thinking the water made almost no sound from where we stood, or maybe it did and the wind took it. A glimpse of wooden walkway showed at the lower edge of our view, going somewhere we did not go. We stayed a while. Then we drove on.