Well, it’s Saturday night and we just realized we have wireless internet in our cabin named Rainbow, (after the Rainbow Trout) when we got back to the cabin after another great dinner.
We arrived around 3pm yesterday and after a welcome fit for celebrities, we quickly unpacked in our cabin. We stayed in this particular log home last year and just love it. You can actually hear Brush Creek rushing by day or night. We are far enough up on a hill so even if it flooded, we’re safe. The boys headed straight for the activity barn to plan out today. We then headed to the saloon for a glass of wine and to meet the other guests before a dinner of sea bass and grilled fillet mignon which was out of this world. When we returned to our cabin, the sheets had been turned down with Belgian chocolates neatly laid out on each pillow. Uncle T texted today reminding us to check out who makes the mattresses as they’re so comfortable.
Morning came early and the boys were off, before we were showered, to the activity barn. They had a 9am paint ball game scheduled and a 1pm zip line and high wire rope course appointment. I went shooting at 9 Â with Ron Brown who’s a great guy we’ve known for 3 years. Lucky for me, none of the other 17 guests signed up for shooting so it was just us two. I shot a couple of hundred shells and then we went to check out the gun room. They need to get rid of 10 brand new Beretta semi auto shotguns and want over and unders so I’m going to see if I can help them out through some of my connections. Meanwhile the boys are in the middle of a paint ball war having had the benefit of playing on the terrain before and knowing the good hiding places. I got dropped off to watch the end of the game with the misses. Both boys were the stars of their team in every game.
Lunch was a spectacular as all meals are. I can’t remember it all but there were numerous pizzas, pasta, a great salad bar, and more. I almost forgot breakfast which was a buffet that equaled the Ritz. Marie, the pastry chef, has been here for two years now and we all exchanged hugs when we saw each other. She came from Austin (the same property we stayed in when we did the Bocelli event in February) and is now engaged to a forest ranger and buying a house in Saratoga. Anyhow, you’ve never seen a pastry chef like Marie, it’s unexplainable so I won’t even try. The chef is fantastic and we brought him a case of olive oil which he thanked us for over an over. In fact, he’s used it in every meal so far.
As of last night there were 17 guests including us. Every one that works at the ranch introduces themselves to you and all of the guests do the same to each other. There’s Worthy (that’s his name) and Marie, from Jackson Wy, via Connecticut, some people from Denver, others (Russ and Beth) that drove non stop for 21 hours from Michigan, a father and son from Portland and a few more. Today a bunch more guests arrived but more on them tomorrow. I’m also going to save the rope course and zip line story for tomorrow as well as it’s time to hit the hay.
Hope everyone is well, take care, be safe, and from the old west, God Bless
OK, it’s Sunday but I’m just adding on to this post so everyone reads it all. The ropes course yesterday is on another part of the ranch a few miles away. They have a low course (about 3 feet off the ground) and a high course which is 20 feet above the ground. You have to wear rock climbing harnesses and hook into various cables all the time in case you fall. After we breezed through the low course which consists of walking on 1 inch cables suspended above the ground and climbing a 10 foot vertical wooden wall with a rope and hoisting yourself over like on some military training course, we headed for the high course. First up is a 20 foot free hanging wall on wire cables made up of logs, and old tires which gets you up to a platform 20 feet above the ground in the trees. Next you walk over a suspension bridge made up of planks of wood and wire. Think of a movie with a old crickty bridge only the wood was solid. Then was a 50 yard high wire act. All you had was one wire or cable about 1/2 inch thick to walk on while you were hooked into a wire above your head that you could hold onto for balance. One of the guys suggested you walk toe in front of toe but after about 5 yards, I lost my balance and fell. Luckily the ropes held and I pulled myself up and then decided having my feet sideways to the rope which was better and I breezed across. All of us made it through the entire course with the boys going first. They each had an instructor to hook them into various safety points above the ground. You had two ropes hanging off your harness and the golden rule is one of  them must be hooked in at all times. Now it’s hard to describe being 20 feet up in the air but believe me, you don’t want to look down a bunch. We finally made it to the zip lines which everyone was waiting for. Here you hooked up and jumped (or stepped) off a platform and whoosh, your off, sliding or zipping through the trees hanging from your harness eventually landing on the ground. We then walked over to another set of trees where we had to climb up a bridge to get to the big zip lines. Here we zipped from one platform 20 feet up to another platform still 20 feet up in the trees before finally taking the final zip line to the ground. These were super long and after the boys each did it alone they hooked up together and went zipping through the trees again. The instructors said what an athletic family we were, whoo hoo! After a bit more playing by the boys on the low course, we headed home to get all the sap off of us from the trees. On the way we ran into Jake, one of the wranglers we’ve know for three years, who was driving a team of horses pulling a big white carriage with red velvet seats. It looked like it was out of a movie in New York’s Central Park where someone just got married. The boys jumped in with Jake while the misses and I headed for the showers. Soon the carriage pulled up to our cabin and the oldest was sneezing up a storm from allergies from sitting behind the two giant horses. We quickly found the Benedryl and soon he was better. Next up came the Benedryl meltdown, all parents know what I’m talking about as it makes kids, well, meltdown. We cleaned them up and went off to the saloon for some refreshments like root beer floats and appetizers before dinner. All the guests were there and we all shared stories of what we had done during the day. There were also some new people like the two brothers, Ed and Ned. They’re big kids with their wives and about 8 kids between them, all dressed in regular clothes which were all cowboy. The wives were dressed more like women from Dallas and guess what, they were. It seems Ed and Ned have a road construction company and were doing a job up here somewhere. I was talking to Ron the ranch manager and he said that they normally don’t take “walk ins” but they had the space and these guys all showed up and laid down a quick $5000 for 2 nights stay. They were loads of fun and nice guys, must have been in their mid 30’s.
We all headed over to the main lodge for dinner which was a buffet of poblano corn, salad, arctic char, beer can chicken, prime rib, tuscan white bean soup (vegan and out of this world) and more I don’t remember. The dessert was home made spicy cupcakes with some unbelievable frosting made of course by Marie. Ed said these were the best cupcakes he’d ever had in his life and I have to agree. We also sat and talked with Darin and Joaquim, a gay couple from New York. They were quite a kick in their own rite and the oldest asked if they were gay as even he could tell. Soon it was time to go as Ed and Ned headed back to the saloon while we headed home. After 3 hours of paint ball and 3 hours of the rope course, we were all beat.
Today the boys are going back to the rope course and have more paint ball in the afternoon. I’m going to shoot a bit more in the morning and then going on a cattle drive (a real one, not staged) this afternoon. We’re hoping the weather holds. So far it’s been beautiful with temps around the mid 70’s and some good wind. Today they say mid 50’s but right now the sun is shinning but it is cool. Hope it doesn’t rain on us today.
Thanks Aunt B for checking on the dogs, wish you all were here. This would be a fantastic place for a family reunion. If I had $30,000 or so, I’d take you all. They have several ranch buyouts this summer where people pay over $100,000 a day for the whole ranch. Everything here is included, all food, activities, any drinks, anything and everyone is here to serve you, it’s really magical and frankly, worth every penny. The youngest just came in and told me he’d rather go fishing this morning so I think we’ll grab a guide and head for the trout pond or maybe the creek and he’ll get his first taste of fishing with a fly rod!
Take care, hope everyone’s having a great weekend, remember we’re going to post everyone’s activities next week so make it special!