Go West Young Woman

I grew up watching Westerns with my dad. The Virginian. Big Valley. Bonanza. Alias Smith and Jones.

Just to name a few. When I got horses, my friends and I would ride them around our Pennsylvania farm and pretend it was the Wild West. When I was in high school, I started writing “novels,” longhand in lined notebooks and several of them were based on those television shows. I competed in Western Pleasure and Equitation classes. 

And after I graduated high school, I worked for a number of years at Lowry’s Western Shop where I wore cowboy boots and hats along with fancy belt buckles, jeans, and western shirts.

So it’s little wonder that one of my lifelong dreams was to see the real West. But I always put it off. Someday.

I’m getting to the age where that whole “bucket list” thing begins to raise its ugly head. I’ve made several good friends in Colorado and New Mexico who had offered me their guest rooms. Hubby, after losing his job of 32 years, dealing with unemployment and underemployment with no such thing as vacation pay, finally got a job he likes that DOES offer paid time off. The gas wells they’re drilling behind my house finally started kicking out royalty money. I decided I was going to make this happen. One way or another. Come hell or high water.

After a year of planning and booking flights and studying maps, last week, Hubby and I went West.  Over the next week or so, I’ll be posting my journal of our travel adventures and the photos I took along the way. Yes, we’re back home again, and this gives me an opportunity to relive the best vacation I’ve ever had.