Travels

Cool things can happen when you vacation on your own schedule with good friends. Here are a few of my favorites from my WY trip.

* My family loves to eat at Costco. Most of my friends look at me strangely when I suggest that as an option for eating out. On this vacation, I traveled with various members of a family of friends. There is a reason we are friends. It was THEIR idea to eat pizza and ice cream at Costco on the way to WY and pizza and ice cream at Sam’s Club on the way home.

It's nice to be friends with the famous.

* Jessica and I have been friends since we were 3, with only a few scattered incidences of enmity in the years that have passed. Jess is going to have a baby, increasing enjoyment of our favorite shared hobby: eating. But...she’s probably the only person I know who will straight out tell me, “You put way too much butter on your food.” (Butter is a food, so I don’t know what she’s talking about!)

* Jess is a public relations volunteer for Cheyenne Frontier Days. One day, we got to hear her on the radio; another day we saw her dress up to do a tour (hence the pictures). 

Uno

* My dog lives at her house. Really. His name is Uno. He is a giant lab who doesn’t look like a lab and is perfectly content to stand beside you with his head in your lap while you pet and he drools. When he was a puppy, Jess tried to send him home with me, but knowing how lonely he’d be, I’ve left him with her for 5 years :-).

Dianne working the water drill (to pump water up)

* I’ve yet to experience Cheyenne Frontier Days, being somewhat scared of the crowd, but Frontier Park is worth a visit at any point in the year. The gardens are beautiful, the historical markers interesting, but the free kids’ area competes with the Santa Fe Children’s Museum! There’s an aquifer system, a self propelled bridge, a water drill, a puppet area and a half dozen other fascinating activities.

Round 3

* I also went to Rock Springs for a day of the National High School Rodeo Finals. Rock Springs was hot, and there were a lot of people there (1300 contestants from the U.S., Canada, and Australia, and all the folks that accompanied them). Camping amidst the crowd, I heard a Mississippi accent trying to imitate a Canadian accent - priceless! I learned a little geography, a little history.... and a lot about the rodeo. The events are held in two arenas, with two events going on simultaneously - great boredom prevention! And I watched my friend trap shoot. It’s not nearly as easy as it looks, just for your reference, but all of the NM team were in the top half of contestants.

Road building?

* Coming home, we stopped at my friends’ family cabin in the mountains of Colorado. That is the stuff paintings are made of, I must say. After one of the best nights of sleep I’d ever had, we went on a mini “jeeping” adventure, courtesy of Caleb, who decided that dragging a tree from the area he was clearing constituted the beginning of a tour. We stacked tin in the barn and visited the rhubarb patch. No one knew there was a road to the rhubarb patch. There is now.

* And... rhubarb. Everyone pitched in to pick, but we could only bring so much because... 3 people, 2 guns, 3 sleeping bags, etc., etc., etc. kind of filled up my car. We didn’t pick a lot, and as I decided to snap a shot of the momentous occasion, I unwittingly stepped into an ant den. And stood there a minute. As I stepped backward again, I wondered why I was suddenly being bit. Everywhere. Joel spotted them and Dianne slapped me down. I stomped and pinched and fluffed - and narrowly avoided a strip down, escaping with only a dozen or so bites.

* We made our way back up to the cabin to begin our descent to NM. From Winter Park to Pueblo, a drive of about 3 1/2 hours, I used 4 gallons of gas. Thank God for gravity! I am also, truly, thankful for cruise control. It is the only thing that prevented me having a speeding ticket on that drive home and what would I have told the cop, “I’m sorry, Officer. It’s just that we’re all homesick and if we don’t get to Santa Rosa soon, bad things might happen!”?

One view from the cabin

Home to find green grass, I can say I am thankful to the God of creation who blesses in every way, shape, and form all the way from WY to NM. And I can say I am blessed far beyond what I deserve - now I better go out ready to serve!