For some reason I got it in my head to go see my brother in Colorado, and then I actually flew out a few weeks later to see him. He owns a surveying company outside Winter Park, where we both lived for about three years. He stayed, living in Fraser and Granby, Colorado (of Killdozer fame), and I went back to college in Florida.
When working, I used to fly multiple times a week, but since I’ve retired, I’ve rarely flown at all, so I was a bit nervous about the whole process, particularly since I had trouble with the airlines’ apps, mainly because they kept trying to access my old flying record (for frequent flier points), with long forgotten passwords. Nevertheless, the initial process was flawless, the airline people at Logan were tremendous, and off I went to the appropriate gate to board my flight, with plenty of time to spare.
Unfortunately, that was the end of anything working well (or at all) for this flight, because a cyber security company, CrowdStrike, using its Falcon Sensor software, updated some Microsoft products globally, and despite the really cool names for these products, they didn’t work remotely as intended. In fact, CrowdStrike caused the worst IT outage in the history of the world on the day of my flight. Needless to say, the plane didn’t take off from Logan on time, but surprisingly, it did take off only about three or four hours later than scheduled, which was way better than most flyers experienced.
About five hours later I landed at the Denver International Airport (DIA), which is the largest (by area) and worst (in my opinion) airport in the Western Hemisphere, where my son Max was to pick me up. That took at least another hour, as finding the correct baggage claim and then the correct pickup location was a mind boggling journey by both train and foot, with many stops along the way to ask directions. Eventually we met up, and I hopped in Max’s fast sports car, but then we just sat in traffic for about five hours, as we joined the exodus from Denver and the steady stream of cars heading to the mountains.
By the time we arrived at Winter Park, it was nearly midnight, and we’d had all the fun we could take with modern life, which perhaps explains what happened next.
My brother Tim and his wife Donna live on a moderately sized ranch, up a long dirt driveway, in the foothills of a town called Granby. Their house is an exceptionally nice log cabin that was originally built by a country music star, who besides being a famous musician, was also quite short; so to avoid appearing short to guests, the ceiling beams were lower than usual–I was within a quarter inch of bumping my head on the log rafters at any given time, but never did. That extra half inch did the trick.
The next morning an exotic looking lady with long braids and a decidedly native American look about her, rode up to the house on horseback to visit briefly with Donna, Tim’s wife. When she found out I was there as a guest, she offered to take me on a horseback ride. Now the only explanation I can think of for why I said “yes I’ll do it” was that perhaps I’d had enough of modern technology, and just wanted to go on a relaxing horseback ride in the country. By nature I’m not particularly adventuresome, but more importantly I also didn’t know how to ride a horse. I’d last ridden a horse once or twice many, many years ago (like about 60 years ago in my early teens).
But nevertheless, the next morning Donna took me down to Robin’s house, where I got an extremely brief lesson on how to ride a horse. Then I hoisted myself up onto the saddle. The horse was huge. We were on a dirt road next to her horse barn, and ahead was free range, so that’s where I figured we were going…a nice slow walk up a wide, flat dirt road, with the only thing to worry about being a stray cow. I was pretty surprised when we made a sharp left and headed straight up a mountain instead, through the sage, with no path or trail in sight. It was like we were exploring unknown territory.
The foothills in Colorado are steep, large, and wild, and this really was like exploring a new land. Robin pointed out where the mountain lions lived, as we went up and down slopes at what seemed 45 degree angles. We rode through sage bush fields that would have tripped a human (sage has very woody stems), but thankfully horses are more sure footed than people. Finally, two hours later, stopping in a beautiful high mountain field, I said I’d had enough. Robin said we could continue up, where the views were great and the mountain lions lived, but that was enough for me, particularly since I still had to ride back down.
When we got to the bottom, Robin complimented me on my riding, and told me her husband had recently been bucked off a mare and punctured a lung. I was glad she didn’t tell me that first. My horse was a gelding, which apparently are more mellow than mares. That about does it for me for a while as far as horseback riding goes.