{"id":17808,"date":"2016-11-05T02:13:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-05T02:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=17808"},"modified":"2016-11-05T02:13:00","modified_gmt":"2016-11-05T02:13:00","slug":"no-mr-mayor-mountains-are-no-obstacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=17808","title":{"rendered":"No, Mr. Mayor &#8230; mountains are no obstacle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/royal-gorge-bridge.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-17810\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/royal-gorge-bridge-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"royal-gorge-bridge\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/royal-gorge-bridge-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/royal-gorge-bridge.jpg 625w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>ROYAL GORGE, Colo.<\/strong> &#8212; A fellow I once knew, Malcolm Clark &#8212; who at the time I knew him was mayor of Port Arthur, Texas &#8212; once took a vacation to Wyoming and Montana.<\/p>\n<p>When he returned, we visited briefly and I asked him: &#8220;How did you like all that splendor?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was OK,&#8221; he said, &#8220;but all those damn mountains kept getting in the way of the sunrises and sunsets.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve been to the Texas Gulf Coast, then you know how flat it is. Thus, Mayor Clark was used to seeing the sun settle all way to the horizon.<\/p>\n<p>I thought of Hizzoner when my wife and I arrived at Royal Gorge, about 45 miles southwest of Colorado Springs. The mountains in the distance loom large and majestic. They make a spectacular sight.<\/p>\n<p>Did I think of them as an annoyance? Not for a second.<\/p>\n<p>Our travels have taken us to some amazing places already as we&#8217;ve loaded up our fifth wheel, fueled up our pickup we&#8217;ve named Big Jake and headed out to explore this wonderful continent of ours.<\/p>\n<p>Royal Gorge is just one more stop on our retirement journey.<\/p>\n<p>The place truly is breathtaking: a bridge spans the chasm more than 1,000 feet above the Arkansas\u00a0River.<\/p>\n<p>I could get mighty used to looking at those peaks.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, the sunrises and sunsets on the Texas High Plains are equally breathtaking. I&#8217;ve noted before that whoever called Montana the Big Sky Country never laid eyes on the Texas Panhandle.<\/p>\n<p>But &#8230; more travels await us. More mountain peaks will entice us.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;ll never annoy\u00a0either of us\u00a0the way they\u00a0 seemed to annoy Malcolm Clark.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on upcoming retirement. ROYAL GORGE, Colo. &#8212; A fellow I once knew, Malcolm Clark &#8212; who at the time I knew him was mayor of Port Arthur, Texas &#8212; once took a vacation to Wyoming and Montana. When he returned, we visited briefly &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=17808\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">No, Mr. Mayor &#8230; mountains are no obstacle<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3920,6659,4632,4668],"class_list":["post-17808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-retirement","tag-royal-gorge","tag-texas-gulf-coast","tag-texas-panhandle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17808"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17811,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17808\/revisions\/17811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}