Up at the Ranch

Today I thought Josie and I might go for a little walk together. You know, girl time. So I drove her to my favorite jogging spot, just about 2 miles from our house. Even though our house is in a sea of a million other houses, MacArthur Ranch--just a couple of minutes from our door--is full of 5+ acre lots and barns and horses and old country mailboxes. You know the kind? Big Black boxes sized to hold a 20 lb turkey, plus a smaller box underneath without a lid for the newspaper. I parked along the dirt road (dirt road!) at the bottom of my favorite hill and we started up. I was holding her hand, both for general chumminess and also to keep her facing up the hill--I didn't want her to ruin her own surprise. About a half mile straight up and we are there. We turn around to go back down the road and I present to her....the glorious snow-topped Rocky Mountains. Plus everything else that exists between the mountains and our hill. Downtown, various lakes, the new high school that looks like an old English university, our new chapel to be finished by June. I absolutely love it up here, and so does she. Josie is fairly brimming with excitement brought on by the view. She can hardly contain herself as we head down the hill and to the left, branching out onto another dirt road where we had seen two riders on horses when we first arrived. The sun is shining and the sky is so blue and the clouds are being pulled along by the breeze. (I love Denver in January and February! Don't ask about March and April, though--I haven't such nice things to say about them.) As we are walking along on our way back to our car, Josie proclaims "I just feel so young!" and we both laugh about that. She's 7 1/2. But I know what she means.