I wasn't quite sure I was breathing. I was too captivated by my surroundings to check.

As we veered left at a fork in the road, the mountains jumped out in front of us, singing Praise to our Father in brilliant hues of blue. The sky, somewhere in transition from too-warm-and-sunny-for-December to cold-and-stormy, used its pale pink and dark grey shades to enhance the beauty of the mountains. Indeed, the most hidden and far-off mountains shone clearly, starkly even, against the morning sky.

The "natural blue haze for which the Blue Ridge Mountains get their name" was very, very blue and not at all hazy this morning. Each little line of each mountain was sharp and clear, as if someone had taken an X-acto Knife (t) and cut them out from a sheet of rice paper.(And one must cut carefully with an X-acto Knife to cut rice paper without jagged edges and tears, mind you.)

I'm not sure how nice a hike would have been on a day like this, but the view from down here is more amazing than I've seen in a long time.