MICHELE'S MUSINGS

June 26th
hello everybody!!! Drew has already put his vows on the web. i 've somehow lost mine...so they may or may not appear. The ranch we stayed at was located just over kebler pass (on the other side from crested butte...towards paonia. I think I found the most beautiful part of colorado. The ranch is adjacent to the Gunnison national forest which made for awesome hiking and horseback riding. The cabins were really cute, and we would pack the whole gang of 18 in the evenings into our cabin for dinner...sort of pot luck style. The last evening we were down to about 7...Drew's brother David treated us to a "concert" singing and playing the guitar to the delight of the audience who joined in by shaking pill bottles, blowing into bottles, slapping legs, and shaking baby eli's rattle. the hit song was definitely the lyle lovett tune "she's no lady she's my wife". We had perfect weather the whole time...about 80 degrees or so, with cool nights. we held the actual ceremony tues the 23 at a place called horse ranch park. we found a beautiful hilly knoll covered with wild lupine and a plethora of multicolored wild flowers including, indian paint brush, sweet yellow clover, columbine. We forded one small stream to get to just the right spot, which definitely added to the festivities. We went out to dinner at the Madd dog ranch cafe, which was OK as far as food went..its owned by Joe cocker and his wife..They sort of cater to bikers,so my aunt and uncle Tom and Chris who came out on their Harley to join us thought it was pretty cool. Back to the mountains... the hills are covered with the largest living organism (so i'm told) aspen groves; supposedly there are some of the last stands of bleeding heart aspen (bleeding red out of sorrow for unrequited love of an indian brave and maiden). We plan to come back in the fall...We may look into renting a 14 bed lodge either next year or the year after. The ranch is made up of 3 homesteads, and the lodge is on one of them...we would have to commit to it for 10 days for it to be worth their while opening it up. Think about it...maybe we could get a bunch of folks to do a week here and there to keep the place filled for 10 days. Oh yeah, one of the coolest things for me was getting to round up the cattle on horseback. Next time I'm going to help with the horse round up...I'm told it is totally wild!! On thursday we got legally married...in colorado that means that we showed our drivers licenses, and gave them 20 bucks at the Gunnison county court house. In turn we got a certificate and a special wedding gift (a bag with laundry soap, a paper towel sample, deodorant...and other equally exiting items). We are now spending a few days at my aunt and uncles in sedalia (not too far from Denver) where my parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandma etc...are hanging out, eating a lot, bouncing on the trampoline, eating more, hit a few golf balls on a local driving range (we all took tips from dad)...it's pretty hot so we'll wait till it cools off to go on a hike. Sunday we'll start back on the road...

love to you all!!! michele

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