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It was one of those moments in life that you just want to grab and hang on to until it evaporates.
I was coming to the end of a two-month stay in the mountains of southern Colorado and would be heading home to Florida the next day.
A bright orange sun was sinking below the San Juan mountains with enough of its rays streaming across the San Luis valley to paint the Sangre de Cristo mountains the deep purple color that inspired Spanish explorers to name them for the blood of Christ.
Folk icon Peter Rowan was on stage at the outdoor Crestone Music Festival doing about his third encore and closing out with Bob Marley's No Woman, No Cry when I noticed a Veterans For Kerry button, which I immediately coveted. (Yeah yeah, I've heard all the attack ads . . . he was still a heck of a lot closer to Cambodia and enemy fire than his opponent was).
I inquired about it, and he told me he had gotten it at the Democratic convention (which I, living in a tent, had completely missed coverage of) and that I could get one by going to one of a couple of Web sites.
I thanked him and continued to bask in the music, scenery and congenial harmony that characterizes both Crestone and the festival when the man, about my age, turned around and handed me the button. "I can get another one," he said, "and this seems to be the place to pass it on."
I promised it would get major exposure in Florida, a swing state, and it has and will.
It was a fitting incident to characterize the end of a trip during which I met fascinating people and drank in enough awe-inspiring scenery to hold me until next year's trip.
A couple of moments stand out.
In a tiny restaurant in the middle of the town full of highly spiritual types, I met Mary Lowers, who works in anywhere from three to four restaurants at any given time, and also writes for the Crestone Eagle, a small town monthly newspaper that serves its readers better than any small paper and a few large dailies I could name.
At a sort of communal restaurant where different groups of people serve different fare (Cambodian one day, raw food another, organic pizza another and vegetarian to round out the list) she had just served me a piece of home baked bread made from locally ground flour when I asked her about the T-shirts.
The walls of the communal restaurant were decked with a series of batik and other shirts expressing liberal anti-SUV, anti-big oil, anti-war sentiments which I wouldn't have minded displaying on the ample canvas I can present for such things, but, alas, the largest shirt on display was a large, leaving us 2X and 3X guys out of the picture. (Okay, a guy in a 3X shirt bearing a legend expressing disdain for "fat cats" might have some explaining to do, but I reminded her that some liberals come in larger sizes.)
"You're right," she said, "I'll mention it to Slim the next time I see him."
He really is named Slim, and is also the town's best hammer dulcimer player.
I had another fascinating conversation with Lowers about the unfortunate demise of a hog being fattened by local food servers for a July 4 celebration (it involved club sandwiches and toothpicks, you don't want to know,) but it was time to go see the town's mayor compete in the annual women's wood chopping championship.
Kizzen Laki, who also publishes and owns the Eagle, had to settle for the silver but was a good sport about it.
I congratulated her on having been elected mayor since I had last seen her and asked how the vote went.
"Twenty-four to 12 with one other write-in," she said, "we had a good turnout."
That's my kind of politics.