If there is one thing I truly miss about the Mountain West, it's the Mountains (and in my mind a capital "M" is appropriate as these are the definitive Mountains in my book.)   Yes,we in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest we have our mountains -- especially the giant Mt. Rainier that dominates the skyline -- 14,410 feet high rising straight up from sea level.  But what we don't have up there are rows and rows of towering Mountains that almost look stereotypical cartoonish in a way -- like they were drawn from a textbook or something.  In Salt Lake the Mountains ring the valley floor which sits at 4,000 feet, they rise up to nearly 12,000 feet -- jagged and sharp, covered with pines and snow, which from the desert of the valley make a stark contrast. 

THESE are Mountains.  I miss them.   I try to tell folks who haven't been here what they look like and I can't. Even pictures can't capture what they truly look like -- how they dominate the sky and tower over everything, reaching to the heavens.   Driving around today, on a blisteringly clear and cold afternoon, with nary a cloud to be found in the bright sunlit sky, the Mountains were all I could look at.   I tried, Lord I tried, to take some pictures that would show their majesty, but I couldn't.  But THIS is what brings me back home.  My Mountains.