I hike on Sunday mornings with my girlfriends. One Sunday in May we decided to hike Rattlesnake Trail, named such because the trail winds back and forth like a rattlesnake. I've never seen a rattlesnake on that trail, but I know hikers who have. Anyway, at one turn in the trail since I was first in line (getting hit by all the cobwebs) I looked to the left and there was the most surprising array of color up the mountainside, reaching to the blue sky. The trees at the top of the trail were burnt from the fires we had eighteen months ago. I knew I had to paint that beauty.