Do people still use the expression “salt mines” to describe tedious work? I’m always on the hunt for interesting idioms, and spending time with The General (age 90+) has enabled me to discover some choice archaic phrases, like “brown study,” a melancholy reverie.

But we’re not talking about brown today; we’re talking about pink. My Canadian brother recently sent me some Prairie Rose Salt from the potash mines near Saskatoon. It’s delicious, it’s salty, and it’s definitely pink, like these rock formations at the Paint Mines Interpretive Park in Colorado.

Tucked away in a mini-canyon somewhere in El Paso County, the Paint Mines are hidden from view, and you could walk right past them and never know they were there. We took a bumpy drive over gravel to find this place, where the red clay was once collected by Native Americans for pottery.

One more photo, for scale, and then it’s back to the salt mines.