Dream: Driving Up the Mountain

Dream 20020805, 11 AM:

Driving Up the Mountain

I’m with Chris, in a little car that I don’t think is either of the ones we have now. We are driving along in a very hilly area, lots of tall pine trees, and there is a little bit of snow on the ground. I tell him that it almost reminds me of Colorado, with the scattering of snow. We leave the main road, and travel along a smaller one that becomes almost like a track going up the mountain side, and after driving along for a while beside a stream, Chris stops the car and we get out. It’s beautiful up here, and I love looking at the scenery, but I’m concerned that someone is going to come along up the trail and we will be in the way. It is very steep, and there’s no way around our car. We see an SUV come up through the stream bed, splashing its way along, and I wonder if most cars just do that – it seems like the rocks would provide more traction than the trail, which is grassy. We walk along up a side trail, much smaller than the one we were driving on, and it’s very beautiful scenery up here, lots of wild flowers, although it seems like the snow is gone now.

Chris is leading the way, like he’s taking me to some place. We climb up and up, and finally get to a ridge, and over the ridge is a beautiful little lake. I say that I didn’t know there was a volcanic lake up here. He just smiles. I start to stick my toe in it to see if it is cold, but then remember that I’m wearing my boots and I don’t want to stick my foot in that far; I reach down and feel it with my fingertips. It is cool, but not overly cold. There is a mother with a young girl here, and she says something about how the water is cold, and Daddy would probably like it because he has a high body temperature. I think that it doesn’t feel cold enough to be a problem, but it might be colder once the water is deeper. It has little pebbles lining the floor, like pea gravel. We wander around the edge of the lake a little bit, and then walk onward on the trail.

We get to a place where there is what looks like the ruins of an old temple built into a hillside; there is a huge tiger, black and white, on some of the rocks, and there is someone above who is talking about it. He says something about how it’s not every day that you get to visit an old Roman ruin and watch the tiger take her bath. There is a little rivulet of water cascading down some of the stones, forming a little waterfall. The man is on a higher level of the ruined stones, and it looks like the tiger could just jump up to where he is by way of some of the other stones, but apparently he’s in a safe space, and he also knows the tiger. He has set out tennis balls on the stones that are the boundary of where he can go. He says something about how they will need that extra space, because the tiger is supposed to start breathing up all the air. He makes a face when he says this, like he’s taking a deep breath. It also looks like he’s being sarcastic; like somebody has been making rules about giving the animals air, but it’s really making things a mess. There are four other cars parked behind ours, waiting for us to be out of the way. I tell Chris I ought to meet him up the trail; I’m embarrassed to get into the car in front of these people he has kept waiting. But we get in the car, and drive on up. The hill is so steep that I’m concerned about us slipping backward. As we get into the car, I pick a little pinch of bright green moss from the trail side; it looks like spaghnum. We seem to have picked up a young woman somehow as we went back to the car and started driving; she has reddish curly hair, and apparently lives on the mountain. She is talking about how some of the folks who are OP (and I ask, and she tells me it’s Old People, who have lived on the mountain a long time) aren’t going down any more; it seems like there has been a problem or situation.

We drive on upward, and we get to an area with a stairway that leads upward; it looks like it leads up to a resort area. Chris says something about how he always made this area his home when he was here. He drives up the path beside the stairway, which is quite obviously not meant for cars. I am a little annoyed with him, because it seems like there was a car path that we passed on the way that goes to the same place. We get up to the end of the stairway, which is like a big landing in front of a resort building. Everything is a sort of rose-brown stone. We have to actually drive through an open glass doorway that is really meant for people, because we have gotten up on the pedestrian side of the place. We go through, and look around for a place to park; there is a valet stand, but Chris seems to see a place that we can park ourselves. There is a menu posted on one of the walls, and Chris starts reading out the things we could get to eat. We are both hungry.