All the way to Dillon for the produce and the view...

I love my little town of Frisco.  However, I don't love my grocery store selection, which is 3, if you choose to include the 7-11 or the Loaf 'N Jug, which would be quite a stretch.  The biggest, and I suppose best option is Safeway,  a close drive, but not very walkable, especially this time of year when the sidewalks are buried by the huge snow piles.  It's a decent place to buy the basics, if you don't consider produce to be a basic.  It's your place for canned goods, almond milk and homemade soup, well, homemade by Mr. Safeway, but very tasty.  The produce is a continual disappointment, bananas and dried fruit probably being the safest bets.  Bins of expired lettuces, dismal looking apples and berries that are just plain sad have me bypassing that part of the store all together.

My second choice would be the Alpine Market at the other end of Main Street, an easy walk from my house.  I went Sunday looking for an avocado and found the tiny produce section (literally I could have displayed all items on my dining room table) to be lacking an avocado section, or even a lone avocado.  The store is small and has great potential as they do seem to focus on organics and locally made and or grown items, but I've never found anything I've needed there, short of face wash or ginger chews, which I can no long buy as I have no self control and a box translates into a single serving for me.  And then there's the problem with the anxious cashier, who is so happy to see a customer that regardless of what I need and what they don't have, I always buy SOMETHING, simply because I feel too guilty if I don't.  Besides, it does give her something to do. So, my visit recently for the avocado that they didn't have,  had me buying a bottle of apple cider vinegar instead.  It was the only thing I could find that I thought I might need, simply because everything I've read lately is touting it as the next new/old miracle product that does everything and then some.  It was a much better option then trying to sneak out empty handed, with hopes that the cashier wouldn't notice.  Thankfully, she didn't ask me if I found everything I was looking for, which seems to be the standards these days in grocery stores.  I suppose she's learned that it's probably better to not ask.  She knows the answer.

While paying, I noticed a tip jar next to the register, with  a sign on it that said "Feeling Tipsy??" Seriously?  Tipping the cashier at the grocery store?  Well, that just irritated me.  Again, a store filled with potential, a mini Whole Foods if you will, but they're missing the point and I've all but crossed them off my list.

The last choice of course would be gas station food and well, short of late night junk and a tank full of gas, I can hardly count it, but can't say there haven't been times I've been grateful to shop under the neon lights for what felt like packaged love at the time.  Whole Foods is coming to town in June...whoopee!!!, but, in the meantime, if I want good produce, Killer Dave's bread and fancy cheese that costs too much, I have to drive to the City Market in Dillon.  I make it sound like it's a hike away, and it does kind of seem like that because I have to get on I-70 to get there, but it's 10 minutes at best.  But here's the real reason why I love to go to City Market in Dillon... it's my drive home.  I always take the scenic loop exit rather than the  main Frisco exit and will park and enjoy the amazing view just on the other side of the highway.  It's usually just me or me and a few semi-trucks that have come to grab some rest.  I don't usually stay longer than a song or two on the radio then am on my way.  There's something very satisfying about taking that few minutes simply for my soul.

My time in CO has taught me, or more accurately, is teaching me, the importance of living in the moment.  There are so many opportunities here to simply stop and look and no one thinks any less of you or even questions you while they make their way around you on the sidewalk because you've stopped to look up at the mountains in the background.  It's simply what people do here and I love that.

These beautiful mountains still bring tears to my eyes every time I see them for the first time on my drives out from KS, and on occasion on my way home from the City Market in Dillon.  The other day I realized that maybe I should share that with Mom and Dad because of the many times I more than likely cried during my early years living in Evergreen.   Maybe it wasn't because I was cranky or Robin didn't want to play with me, or simply because I was 1 or  2,  but maybe, just maybe,  it was  me being overwhelmed by the beauty and the strength of the mountains around me.  OK, probably not, but what a nice thought.  That little mountain girl's spirit, after all, is what I truly believe brought me back out here; a return to where I began.

And with bags of groceries in the back seat and rock and roll on the radio, here I sit and look and that's enough.