Colorado

With our friends from Denver, we drove about two and a quarter hours to a cabin near Buena Vista we had rented for the weekend. The weather was gorgeous, the scenery was too. From our deck we had wonderful views:

The cabin is on the banks of the Arkansas River, and we had our coffee around the campfire each morning:

We had daily visitors, as many as three doe at a time:

And this big fellow:

We hated to leave, but I managed to cajole everyone into returning via Leadville, my favorite town. It's the highest city in the United States, sitting at over 10,000 ft. on a "Fourteener" (a mountain with elevation of at least 14,000 feet). The history of Leadville is like something made up for a novel -- gold mines, silver mines, lead mines and all the stories of mining rushes. It was a very rich place (all that gold and silver sloshing around), and also pretty rough and tumble. It had grand hotels, an opera house (an opera has been written about the doings there, The Ballad of Baby Doe, by Douglas Moore), and everyone who was anyone came to Leadville: President Grant, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and many more. Remember the "unsinkable Molly Brown"? She came to Leadville from Missouri as a young woman to take care of her bachelor miner brothers, met Johnny Brown and married him. They lived in Leadville, where he made lots of money. One day Johnny came home from the mine with $100,000.00 in cash and told Molly to put it in a safe place. She put it in the firebox of the cold cook stove. Next morning, she absentmindedly lit the fire and burned it up. Johnny kissed her goodbye and went off to make another bundle.

You couldn't make up the stories of things that really happened in Leadville. It's on the cusp of being taken over by the zillionaires who want second homes (or third ones) in beautiful locations, which is a shame. I'm glad I've had a number of chances to visit it before its history gets buried by a Starbucks on every corner. Speaking of which, we had lunch at a little cafe, and when I went to the ladies' room, I saw a photo which captured my heart -- a beautiful wolf. I dragged my friend in, then both our husbands; they all were as captivated by the photo as I was. I was able to get the website address for the wolf sanctuary (http://www.krdotv.com/Global/story.asp?s=6701725) which sells the photos and have one sent to me. It's being framed now, and will hang over my desk. These are God's creatures just as we are, and they are being hunted down by people in airplanes, chased until they are exhausted, then shot. It's heartbreaking, and it has to be breaking God's heart too. Surely there is room for all God's creatures in this world. We are the ones who have invaded their habitat, and then we decide they have no right to exist there.

Gratitudes:

all God's creatures

the beauty of Creation

good times with good friends