Leaving Saturday for Montana.
Actually, I won't take a straight shot up the interstate, because I've traveled that a few times in my life and it's not an interesting thought. Instead, I'll head up northwest Colorado to the west side of Wyoming. Probably spend the night in Jackson Hole, then go further west to Idaho, and spend a day enjoying the scenery. Will likely spend the night in Salmon. Then, on Monday, head east into Montana and will likely reach Great Falls in late afternoon. Connie's ranch is about an hour away. Likely, I'll leave for home first thing Friday morning.
Connie is my oldest friend. We met via a small international horse racing memorabilia club in 1981. Turned out, she lived just an hour away from me in Colorado Springs. We took a trip to Lexington, Kentucky together in 1982 and the peak of many wonderful experiences was meeting Secretariat. Connie eventually married a rancher in Montana that she met via an ad in a Christian newspaper. (Her wedding was on horseback and I was her maid of honor.) It was quite an adjustment for her, going from just an everyday suburban gal to being the matron of a cattle ranch (it's many thousand of acres, but she insists that it's "puny" by Montana standards). She and her husband raised a wonderful son who is now in his mid 20s and engaged to be married.
She lost interest in racing a long time ago. Her equine passion is the Spanish breeds of horses and she has sometimes felt that she was born in the wrong century. She's often owned a horse or two and has had many bad, sometimes tragic experiences, prompting her husband to insist that they're "done" with horses. But in the past half dozen years or so, she seems to be much more at peace, and now she has three wonderful horses and is very active in her region's trail riding group.
I visited her ranch a couple of times in the late 90s. I rode her Spanish Barb Cisco, and he's still around. Though I haven't ridden in probably a half dozen years, I'm looking forward to being on him again, and likely also riding one or two of the others. The weather is supposed to be low seventies and no rain... perfect.
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