Friends from the Flatland

The last few weeks have brought flatlander friends to the mountains. Am I a mountain girl, yet? Or still a flatlander? I don't know what the waiting period is until you're declared a mountain resident. I may still be a flatlander, too, for all I know.

Anyway, we had a visit from my high school friend, Pete, and his son, Sam, who is 12. The boys were totally enthralled with Sam and peppered him with questions and various and sundry requests, to which he cheerfully acquiesed. I'm pretty sure I spelled that wrong.

I forgot to take pictures when Pete and Sam were here.

Then, over the weekend, my friend Jen and her nephew, Austin, were in nearby Breckenridge. We went over to spend the day with them and tour a gold mine, eat ice cream, hang out--all that good stuff. Jen's and my parents grew up in the same small town and we went to high school together. We have shared experiences of the West Mansfield fish frys and also of Louise McDonald's American Lit classes. Doesn't get any better than that.

I took pictures of our trip to Breck, but none of Jen! That's friendship for you.



Original mine building. Don't worry. It's not part of the tour.


I made Declan be the "ass." I live to humiliate my children.


Boys and machines.


The "wild" donkeys who live at the mine. They're so wild, they wear halters.


We capture a donkey and force it to pose for pictures and let us pet it. We're animal lovers like that.


"We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig in our mine the whole day through; To dig dig dig dig dig dig dig is what we really like to do"

Name that song and movie.



Panning for gold after the mine tour. My plan was to make them stay there until they found enough to pay for college, but eventually I got hungry and wanted to leave. The mine people said I had to take the boys with me.

And now, Wendy and her kids, Clara and David are here. Wendy is a lacrosse coach and brings a team to a big lacrosse tournament in our valley each year. I've known Wendy since kindergarten. When she went away to Greece for a year when we were in college, I wrote her letters every week to keep her updated on everything important that was going on at home--like what was happening on our soap operas.


The whole gang on Beaver Creek mountain for a hike. Which none of the kids really wanted to do, so we rode the chair lift up, walked around. . .and then rode it back down.


Me and Wendy. Check out Wendy's guns! Dang!