Colorado Dude Ranch Vacation

We've just returned from our family reunion trip to a Colorado dude ranch. What a fantastic family holiday! You'll see from clicking on the album of photos that we had a great time riding our horses, rafting on the Colorado River, hiking in the mountains, and enjoying one another's company. Some highlights included seeing a brown bear up close (too close as far as I was concerned!) while on a hike, watching our nephews catch fish, and seeing the kids completely enjoying themselves and one another.

Colorado Dude Ranch

The kids weren't the only ones having fun -- the adults did too. Each of us was assigned a horse for the week -- and we were surprised at the progress we made in our riding as the week progressed. We also made new friends. There were 53 guests at the ranch (including the 13 of us). Believe it or not, D and I met two wonderful families from England at the ranch. It's funny that we travelled 7 time zones only to meet two families that live within an hour's drive of us in the London area!

You'll see in the photos that there are many dead lodge pole pine trees in Colorado. There has been a massive infestation of beetles that bore into the pine bark and kill the older trees. It's cyclic -- nature's way of thinning out the trees, I suppose. But it increases the fire hazard. Speaking of fires, you'll also notice that the skies were often more hazy than expected for Colorado. That haze was the result of smoke from the wildfires burning in Utah.

On the way to Colorado, we stopped in Baltimore for one night and visited with my parents. They took us out for a delicious steak dinner. Afterwards, I was assigned IT support "jobs of work" by my Dad, of course. I think I successfully taught him how to download photos from his camera to his computer -- I left behind written step-by-step instructions. The proof will be in the pudding -- I'll wait until he e-mails a photo to me before declaring my efforts a complete success.

On the way home from Colorado, we stopped in Baltimore again, just for a few hours. This time, we visited with Peder and Michelle and their boys. We had fun conversations over homemade pizza with the boys about English Premiership football -- they follow it more closely than we do! (Unfortunately, they support D's favorite team (Manchester United) and not mine (Chelsea).) It was great to see them all.

When we got back to England, we learned of the outbreak of foot & mouth disease. The farm where it was discovered is only about 15-20 miles away from our home here. The last outbreak in England, in 2001, led to the slaughter of thousands of animals at a cost of 8.5B pounds ($17B). Everyone hopes that this outbreak is contained to just the 120 cows on two farms where it has been discovered so far. (I'm glad that we had plenty of steak and hamburger while we were in the US... )