Starting home

Day 21

We left the next morning after breakfast. We won't soon forget the meals at Eileen's house. Sean and Jonathan exchanged email addresses and then we headed off to Denver.

The day was largely uneventful. We drove by the Appel ranch as we headed south from Gillette. We played state trivia in the new game Sean had received and MarKay read from the Lewis and Clark book. We marvelled out the huge coal cars heading out of town on multiple tracks. Ironically, some of them appear to head toward a town called Newcastle.

Eastern Wyoming is very green this year. Usually the semi-arid rolling prairie is a brown color. There's enough moisture here for scrub grass to grow and feed cattle. You couldn't grow a crop successfully without lots of irrigation. Unless rhubarb becomes the latest health fad.

We got caught in road construction in Cheyenne while trying to grab dinner. It took forever to reach the local Perkins. We had a relaxing dinner, surrounded by James Bama and Bev Doolittle prints on the walls. We saw the capitol building. On the road again...

Or path through Colorado doesn't take us through the mountains, so we have to content ourselves with a distant view this trip. Boulder has been highly praised by Brett and Kristine. Maybe next time.

For time and weariness sake, we are just grabbing hotels on Priceline on the way back. Each city we'll stop in has an airport, so you can negotiate a good deal in that part of town. We're heading through town to the Hyatt (and a pretty town it is.)

I wish the Pig 'N' Whistle was still here to show Sean. Eddie Bohn, my dad's maternal first cousin, was a local prize fighter back in the Jack Dempsey era. He retired and opened a restaraunt, bar and motor lodge called the Pig 'N' Whistle on Colfax which was a stopping point for celebs and boxing fans until the highway passed by the old main drag downtown. Both Edie and the motel are gone now, but I remember visiting as a kid and seeing all the boxing photos on the wall. Cousin Eddie gave me a piggy bank I kept for quite some time, but it's gone now, too.

The Hyatt is fantastic. We got in early enough to swim. The room is really nice, with a big screen TV and a pull out bed for Sean.

We'll rest well tonight.

Cousins

Days 19 and 20

The weekend is a feast of food and family. Sean is about the same age as his cousins one generation junior to him. Their were nine altogether, all boys. Saturday was too Windy for boating, so they had to content themselves with sports, electric ATVs and Nintendo.


My generation was represented by Audrey, Eileen and Bill. The next generation down is closer to my age. Bill and Eileen Suchor's son Brett and wife Christine (or is that with a K?) were also staying at the house, as I mentioned. His sister Jennifer is just married and honeymooning in Fiji. Bill Appel's girls, Angie, Melanie and Tiffany are all married with boys. Audrey and Charlie Reeds boys couldn't make it.


Food and Wine came in waves throughout the day. Angie's husband John filled us in on the problems with wind power in Gillette. Brett and I discussed the business of electronic entertainment. Family stories were told by all.

We went to bed knowing we didn't have to go anywhere the next day, which may have been the best part.

The wind was a little better the next day. Bill Suchor, Brett and his family and all us Appel's went fishing. The fish weren't biting in the Key Hole Reservoir, but a good time was had trawling for walleye. By the time we returned, lunch was ready and a full compliment of cousins had arrived.

The nine boys went out on the lake for tubing behind the boat. MarKay and I stayed behind, which allowed Sean to be adventurous and join in with his peers. We talked about this over bear and wine and that for hours. In the late afternoon my cousin Mary arrived. She is one of my uncle Leonard's girls, a branch of the family that we don't see often at get togethers. I hadn't seen her in forever, so the tow of us ended up talking until late in the evening.

Mary and Bill Appel both think that the coal companies are moving more quickly than expected, so we might see an offer on the ranch land before we're all in nursing homes. That would be nice.

Audrey and Charlie bid us farewell. They presented us with a Lewis and Clark cookbook and some local jams and treats that we look forward to sampling. Sean got a history game for the road. Bill and his family had to leave a little later.

As the evening wound down I got caught up in a CNN report on Iran. I was amazed to see all that had been happening since we had left Georgia. We've been living in a vacation bubble that the outside world doesn't penetrate. It was surreal to see how much we had missed.

Tomorrow we start back towards reality.