Oh my goodness how marvelous it feels to have energy again, and to be steady on my feet again. I got the last half of my iron dose today. The difference between my sluggish fog during Wednesday's trip in and today is nothing short of miraculous for me. I feel human again. I am so very grateful for the boost and the break. These next few days promise to be the best I've felt in over a month, at least. Aaaaahhhh, yesss.

Incidentally, I forgot to mention what I have lately noticed, even Wednesday. While I still can't call the views here 'beautiful', by my lush green standards from back home, I have to admit I am frequently awestruck by the sights here. The background scenery of mountains, everywhere, is so very surreal. Only on travelogues and in geologic studies have I seen such magnificent features, in size and structure. It is Mother Nature in her most solid and basic essence, jutting up from what is usually her covered depths and reaching into the skies.

The changes as one drives along, and as the light shifts throughout the days or atmospheric conditions, I mean, these are vistas almost too grand in scale to take in and the metamorphoses are just too varied to ever repeat, one moment to the next, much more day to day. Good thing the roads are now familiar, because my attention is frequently diverted to the sometimes jaw-dropping backdrops. Every mile is a new postcard, live and huge and majestic and geologically phenomenal. Some of them could easily transport one back to the formation of the planet and the perpetual living, changing, crust upon which we exist.