Springtime in the Shining Mountains

   The Shining Mountains is the Ute name for the Rockies.  All month I've been working on my picture book about Chipeta, a Ute woman I admire and almost feel I've come to know.
   I love to soak in the hot springs here just as she did, and I drive every weekend to Montrose, where she lived for years and where she's buried.  We both love babies and we both adopted sons, although I was also able to have children and she was not.
    Chipeta did gorgeous beadwork, and gave much of her work away to friends.  This is a detail of a piece that is displayed in the Historical Museum here in Glenwood Springs:

 

I hope to get a better photo when we can get the big heavy cabinet away from the wall so I won't be photographing it through the glass!

     Chipeta lived during a time of incredible change in the West, and she adapted with a cheerful heart and a generous spirit.  I'm taking my manuscript to an SCBWI non-fiction workshop in Boulder next weekend, an my roomie will be Nancy Bo Flood!