Mill Hill National Park

I think of Cove as paradise. Some people think of it as beyond the boonies in the sticks, far from civilization. The nearest Starbucks and McDonalds is 16 miles away. The first real mall is several hours away, over a mountain range that in winter can be a snow hell. Still, this area, the Grande Ronde Valley of Northeast Oregon, is heaven to me.

As my year of self-imposed exile ended, the year after first wife Tina had died at age 48 of complications of diabetes, I knew I wanted to date again and share my good fortune with a special someone. I would probably live too many years and had no desire to go it alone. Life is meant to be shared.

I wanted to share my good fortune, modest to be sure, with someone who cherished the elbow room of wide open spaces and the inspiration of million-dollar views. Someone who enjoyed sunrises and sunsets, birds plying thermal updrafts, deer taking naps. Mill Hill, at the base of which the mountain cabin sits, offers million-dollar views. In some states, it might be a national park. In Oregon, it is just one more cleverly hidden spot of grandeur.

After meeting Teri, and learning that she too loved the outdoors, I knew Mill Hill would prove enticing. I didn’t drive a BMW. I didn’t live in a mega-mansion. I didn’t vacation in the south of France.

Still, the double-wide mobile home I call the mountain cabin perched on a cliff at 3,000 feet above sea level and offered a view of the front range of the Wallowa Mountains that changed every day and never grew old. The valley gave way to startling thousands of feet of golden hills that gave away to pine forest. Cloud shadows ran up the hillsides. The 7,200-foot snow-capped peak of Mount Fanny was only three miles away from my home. Peregrine falcons nested on cliffs below Mount Fanny, and bald eagles nested in the hanging meadows of High Valley.

After we had begun emailing and got to know each other, I took a walk up Mill Hill with the dogs and took panoramic pictures of the view to the north. Even at its widest angle, my camera could not capture the panorama in one frame, so I sent a series of pictures.

Teri, being adept on the computer and with photoshop, surprised me by splicing together the photos. That gave a true view of the grandeur of Mill Hill and let her know why I call it my own personal national park.

I may not be rich in bank accounts. But I am rich in the things that truly matter.