Painting the Prairie

 The first lesson of agency life is that the world actually stops turning between December 24th and New Year’s Day. After decades in broadcasting, where "dead air" is the only mortal sin and the signal never sleeps, the discovery of a paid company closure was a shock to the system. With the calendar wiped clean and the office lights officially dimmed, Tim and I decided to take advantage of the rare winter lull. We pointed the car south, leaving the familiar sprawl of Lakewood behind for the high plains of El Paso County to explore the Paint Mines Interpretive Park.

Vivid bands of oxidized iron and selenite clay create a natural rainbow across the soft Paleocene-era formations.