Do you take a regular day off each week? One out of seven? Two out of seven? What do you do with that day off, totally off?

I grew up in a home that went beyond luxuriating in Sunday as a day of relaxation. My family of origin enforced Sunday as a day of rest. No sports. No games. No reading of secular material. Just attendance at Sunday School and Church, preparation and cleanup of a large family meal. Yes, Sunday was an enforced day of rest and as such, a day marked by ennui, often headachy, making me squirm with a longing to get something done.

These days I am still prone to that extreme of getting something done. There are always things that somebody has got to do. If I don’t do them, who will? I am guilty of checking things off the list at the expense of not taking a day – not even one of seven – for rest. My soul shrivels. My vision is constricted.

My spirits were on the brink of shriveling when I woke in a motel room, 200 miles from home, having successfully completed a vendor fair the evening before. Nothing to do? No excuse for not taking a day of rest.

Posey Lake is 18 miles up the Hell’s Backbone Road from Escalante. It was mid-September and the colors, oh the colors, were glorious!

Once I got to the lake, I sat on the boat dock for some minutes, just wasting time. Then, I did the logical thing and took a hike all the way around the lake, startling myself and cattle along the way. Once on the other side, I noticed a trail leading to a lookout. However steep, who can resist a trail? A trail leading to a CCC built fire lookout in Dixie National Forest? Even more delectable.

At first, I took only pictures. The aspens and the conifers were ravishingly colorful.

Then, a few more paces along the trail and I began to shed the layers of photographer, writer, or analytical business woman. With wild abandon, I went on a tree-hugging spree. I sniffed out a Ponderosa (searching for that faint vanilla). I hugged the ponderosa. Then I hugged an aspen. Then a very young blue spruce. And finally I ended up in the arms of an Englemann.

And, at the top, at the lookout, I found an entire colorful panorama stretching for hundreds of miles.

It was Sunday. I had a day off. A day to relax. A day for spiritual renewal. I went further up the mountain.

And my soul, o my soul, was refreshed