On the road to the Nationals

The road to the finals started a little over two years ago when Glen Christianson bred his female Em.  Pictured below.

Em is a hard pushing cow dog and Glen has done well with her in trials as shown below.  Glen is the handsome guy in the Middle.

     In sheep they say the ram is half the crop and the ewe is half the lamb.  Glenn's Em is half our Belle.  He deserves some recognititon.  He talked Hines into taking the pup Belle.

But Sunday Morning came so we loaded up.  Me and Belle and Teresa taking the picture below. 

No more training.  No more books.  No more teachers ugly looks.   Got to go get'r'done.

Sunday night we stay in Trinidad Colorado.  It's an old mining town.  Most of the old towns in Colorado were settled long before the Oklahoma Runs were made so you get a sense of history from the buildings.  Below is a view from the Motel we stayed it.  Not bad.  There are 54 fourteeners(mtns over 14K feet) in Colorado and this isn't one of them.  But still, it has some presence.

     And Sunday night our first meal wasn't bad.  Friends of ours named Mike and Martha like to eat at places with local flavor.  So even though it's Sunday evening we start driving around Trinidad looking for something that wasn't a chain.  We eliminated the usual Chinese restaurants and finally came upon Bob and Earl's Good Food as Always cafe.  Some cars were there and we were full of hope and hunger so we took a chance.

      Over Teresa's shoulder featured below you see the sign of a good eatery.  The evenings special is printed on the white board wall.  But I positioned myself so I could see into the kitchen and the cook and his helper looked pretty serious.

      It turned out fine.  They say food is appreciated by three classes.  The poor who say after a meal, "Did you get enough?"  The middle classers who say, "Was it good?"  And the upper class who say,  "That is a lovely presentation."   Teresa is the middle and she says,  "It was mighty tasty."  She looks pretty after 44 years of being married to me. 

     Monday morning we leave Trinidad and after an hour we start up the mountains instead of driving along in the valleys.  Below is our start up the Rockies, and it's not a bad view.

   
     Below we reach the Continental divide.  All it really means is water runs one way on one side and the other way on the other side.  Frankly, the climb up on the no guard rail goat lanes were too much for me.  I'm not a sissy but I am a scaredicat.  Plus after about 7k feet I dont breath so good so I stopped at 12k feet only long enough to take the picture then accelerated over the edge to the western side of the Rockies.  I don't know how they breath that high.

    

       It's not long and we come upon this gorgeous Aspen grove pictured below.  It was breath taking.  Felt like you were in some Eden forest.  Worth the whole trip.  The picture below does not convey the scope of it.

      Then it's on down further to Aspen and Carbondale where we are now.  I'll tell more about that tomorrow.  But I will say I was expecting the wild west.  It's more like Gucci West.  Fine houses everywhere.  Jet planes at the airports.  Horse ranches deluxe.  This is a far cry from the country boy's raising.

     The last picture is at the trial location.  We're up the field looking back down across the open field and it's not a great picture but all the white spots are some of the 90 RV's they expect here.  It's like a little city. 

I'll get some pictures of the nursery field tomorrow.  It rises towards the West.  I may be looking into the sun the entire run.   It's big.  I may have said 350 but now I'm thinking it might be 400.  I was nervous when I first viewed it but, "what the heck...  I paid my money I'll take my chances.