Dream: Tasting Snow in the Canyon

Dream 20030326, 3:00 AM:

I am walking with Dad, and he is explaining that he wants to cover the whole place, from southwest to northeast. At first, I think he’s talking about the US, but then I’m wondering if he’s talking about traveling the world. We walk down a path and see an overlook that shows a huge vista of a canyon, much like the Grand Canyon, but it’s rimmed with big green evergreen trees and it has snow in parts of the walls.

Uncle Walt is here, too. I ask Dad and him how far I’d have to go to get to where the snow is – it looks like it’s miles away. They say that it’s a long way. I run down the trail, and find a patch that has a little snow – not as dramatic as the deeper drifts that I can see in the distance, but there’s enough here to pick some up. I pick up a little bit, but it’s just a thin layer and some dirt comes up with it. Then, I find some thicker parts, and finally one where I can pick up the snow without getting any dirt. I eat some of the snow, which seems to have been something I was looking for – and then I go back to where Dad is. He gets some soap on my hands, and I tell him “Don’t do that!” but it just encourages him and he wipes more on me. I have to go wash it off, and I run down to the bank of a little pond or stream. I start to wash my hands off, but realize that there are people fishing here, and I move around trying to find a spot where I won’t interfere with their fishing. Finally, I manage to get my hands rinsed off.

Then, I’m going back home. The way home goes through a building kind of like a mall, with water running through it; I think that it represents a stream that I crossed at an earlier part of the dream on my way to the canyon. I have to take a convoluted path through the building, but I don’t remember details of it.