Can you imagine standing amidst the rubble and snowfall of a storm and looking at this mountain?

This photo was taken in Lassen Volcanic National Park in California. Much of what

we wanted to see was blocked off because of a horrific storm days before (which also ironically delayed our flights into San Fransisco), but without that storm there would not have been snow atop the mountain.

It was breathtaking. I imagined standing at the top and cringed when I thought of the hike.

Matthew and I drove the forty-five minutes from Redding, California the day before, hoping to drive through the park (of which he'd kept a surprise until the last minute). Sadly, the fog was so dense that the troupers were not allowing people into the park. It most likely had something else to do with the massive amount of snow on the roads.

The next morning we left early and traveled to Lassen again, with high hopes. We stopped at a small gas station to get a cup of coffee to share and I stayed in the rental car while Matthew went in. When he came back he told me about the old men who were sitting around a table together and drinking coffee. The gas station apparently worked doubly as diner, and as we drove away I imagined they were just about to get cards out and gamble away quarters like my grandfather used to do when I was very young. In fact, those men reminded me heavily of Grandpa Everett. I pretended those men were his friends at coffee and he sat amongst them in a flannel shirt with his robust stomach. Almost 2,000 miles from where he lived in Minnesota and over a decade after cancer took his life, I saw those men through a window in rural California, and Matthew said one sentence about them, and rushes of my childhood, of old nicknames, of his jokes came flooding back to me. And the car rolled over the hills and we shared the coffee and listened to either Bjork or The Beatles and we sped on toward Lassen.

And then I stood in front of that mountain and realized how small we are and how important those men are to one another.

And I asked Matthew if he'd like to be like those old men one day. And he smiled.