Rocky Mountain adventure revisited

We’re back on the farm now happily dodging the trees as they come at us in the forms of breedings, new births, sick animals, and the ever present soccer or lacrosse practices/games. Safe to say that though we missed our kids terribly while we were away, the adults in this household won’t really be mourning the end of the spring sports season in a few weeks time.

Our final two and a half days in Colorado over the weekend were magnificent. While mostly spent away from the national show itself, they were nonetheless full of some interesting adventures.

Saturday morning dawned with us in Durango having spent the previous afternoon in the company of my old childhood friend, Ben Naylor. A lot has gone down in our lives since Benji and I first met each other as teammates on a pewee hockey team in Woodstock, VT circa 1983. After having a wild ride through his 20s that came perilously close to being the end of him, Ben today lives a life one could aspire to, working as an ICU nurse in the local hospital and is his old ebullient self yet again. Though we only got to hang out for a few hours — he works the night shift — it was really great to able to see him. Ben has been (and will remain) one of the people in my life that I will always connect with easily whether it’s been a month or several years since we’ve spoken with each other. It goes without saying that those are the friendships one treasures.

Our return journey back to Denver on Saturday took us through several mountain passes (Coal Bank, Molas, and Red Mountain) taking a northern route through Silverton and Ouray, then on to Grand Junction before banging a right onto I-70 east. On that day we saw posted speed limits of anywhere from 10 to 75 MPH and went through what seemed like every climate imaginable with the possible exception of a tropical rainforest. My rental of an AWD SUV had been sort of an afterthought because you know, we might see snow in the rockies. Boy was I relieved to have the vehicle we did while coming down those mountainsides with snow on the narrow two lane road (to say nothing of the 4’+ on the mountainsides), no guard rails, no shoulder, and drop offs of hundreds of feet below. It was absolutely stunning to see (the mountains, not my death grip on the steering wheel), though I dare not imagine what my blood pressure might have read at a few particular spots! All in all just a wonderful, and highly recommended, way to spend a day. I hope that those of you lucky enough to live in that part of the country don’t take your scenery for granted!

Though we had planned originally on attending the AOBA banquet Saturday night, some 10 days before leaving for Colorado we had learned that a certain Irish foursome was also playing in Denver that evening. Show banquet vs. one of the greatest bands alive still making new music: guess who won out? Fifteen years ago we snuck out of our first ever AOBA National Conference to go and watch the Colorado Avalanche’s Stanley Cup parade in downtown Denver. Playing hooky at that event in that town is tradition it seems. Though it definitely felt a little bit like a cattle roundup as we and 70,000 of our new friends made our out of Invesco Field at the end of the night, U2 really doesn’t know how to put on a bad show!

Sunday we both woke up a bit bleary eyed and after searching out a local office supply store for some shipping tape, we made our way back to the show venue to see how our fleeces had done and to catch up with a few old friends. While we were tickled with our results (more details later but suffice it to say that 76% of the 27 fleeces finished in the top three of their respective classes), I think that maybe the best part was going back to that same office supply store and shipping all of the fleeces out that very day. If only every show we go to could be that easy to pack up from we might go on the road even more. All in all it was a very satisfactory end to the spring show season! Now back to this breeding and birthing business…