(sunset at devil’s thumb)

lucy and i recently had a special mama/daughter weekend at devil’s thumb ranch. theo was meant to come, but i got mixed up (corona brain!) and thought he didn’t have school on friday (it was the monday that was off and theo would have missed three tests) so lu and i played hooky instead. 

as a little girl, i read and reread the little house books again and again. i was fascinated by the ingalls family and how pa built their houses and ma made crackling and cornbread over the fire. so i was beside myself when i saw our cabin at devil’s thumb. it looked like it was made of giant lincoln logs. it had a big stone fireplace (which i was too nervous to light so we did not have any crackling) and an upstairs loft where the bed was. (it also had heated floors and cozy spa robes and a huge TV which i am pretty sure laura ingalls did NOT have.) even as a child i thought it was curious that many of their homes only had dirt floors. laura described how she would help ma sweep them each day, but i imagine that exercise just swirled the dust around. i always thought pa should spring for wood floors (even if they didn’t have radiant heat) just for hygiene’s sake. of course there was no electricity so they couldn’t have a vacuum, which is just tragic…. i did find a vacuum in my little cabin at DT - i almost took it back to boulder with me but it was an upright and i am all about the canister model.) 

(laura’s log cabin… it DOES have wood floors - i think it was the house built under the hill that had a dirt floor)

(this is the house with dirt floors … see how the front door is coming out of the hill - the wagon is parked on top of the house)

(here is our log cabin)

(and here is laura’s… giving you a little teaser from “little house in the big woods”)

(pa putting the roof on their new house)

(the big fireplace where ma cooked)

(our big fireplace that i did not use to cook)

(detail of our lincoln logs)

(we didn’t ride this at DT but it made me so happy because it looked so much like laura’s wagon)

(mary and laura peeking out the back window of their wagon - this is my childhood copy of the book - you can see how well worn it is!)

we had a surprise blizzard on the way up there (well - i am sure some people knew it was coming but i was caught off guard… luckily i threw some boots and hats into the car as we were leaving, otherwise we would have been limited to our vans that don’t fare too well in six inches of snow.) because of the blizzard, we had to push our horse back riding appointment back a day. we spent our snow day brunching and snuggling up in our cabin (and watching “velvet” of course)… we could have gone on a walk but it was so cold it didn’t seem safe. as a californian, i grew up learning (in great detail) about the donner party schlepping through tahoe and resorting to cannibalism when they got stuck in the pass and i didn’t want to get lost in the snow and be forced to eat lucy so we didn’t do that.

(snuggling in our loft bed)

(the gorgeous cast of “velvet” - netflix)

(the donner party trudging through the mountains - there are a lot of them so i think this is before they got so hungry)

i was pretty nervous about the horse ride. my experience with horses is really limited. we DID have one family reunion (on my mom’s side where they were all farmers) at a dude ranch in loveland, colorado when i was about ten. i don’t think i was dressed appropriately then and i certainly wasn’t the next time i went riding in estes park when lucy was a baby. i was wearing open toed sandals and a loose top that kept catching on the reins. we had been on a drive and impulsively decided to take a trail ride. i still get shivers when i think about how dangerous it was… lucy sat in front of me (NO seatbelt or any kind of safety strap) and i had to hold onto her with one arm and hold the reins in the other. since i was directing the horse with only one hand we kept going sideways and crashing into the bushes lining the trail, which were pokey pine type things. i was sure i was going to drop lu and she would get trampled by our horse or the one behind us and our horrible story would be on the evening news: tragedy in estes park - foolish mother takes baby on horse ride resulting in her death. i could imagine all the sane people seeing that segment and thinking “WHAT THE FUCK was she thinking??” and i would spend the rest of my life running a horse safety foundation in lucy’s honor. so it was a big step for me to even consider this horse ride at DT ten years later. 

(me and my horse at the dude ranch… i think i am wearing nikes!)

(at the beginning of our horse ride in estes - i am a bit disheveled but happyish)

(later in the ride… i am clearly not happy now and lucy has fallen asleep. LOOK at those ridiculous sandals i’m wearing!)

(i think theo had a MUCH better time in estes)

this time we each had our own horse (and TWO hands for the reins) but there still weren’t any seatbelts (even on the merry-go-round you strap in - i know this because we have logged A LOT of time on carousels, which i LOVE, especially my home town one in tilden park and the one that was all hand carved by a gentleman up in nederland.) we DID get helmets (i thought the possibility of our brains spilling out if we fell off our horses outweighed the risk of lice, which we DID have several rounds of pre-pandemic and always sent me into a cleaning frenzy that extended far beyond the sheets and stuffies. that was one of the silver linings of corona - social distancing eliminated the spread of lice) but i thought it was strange that lu and i were the only ones in our group to wear them. 

(lu and her horse, shadow)

(lu and me at the carousel of happiness in nederland… this experience wasn’t even that relevant because lu is riding a dog)

(lucy on the dog in tilden - she had a real “dog phase” heaven help us if some other kid got it first!)

(lu on nederland’s mermaid)

(theo and lucy on a kangaroo and a panda)

(a few weeks ago)

because of the snow and the muddy conditions of the trail, our ride was shortened to forty-five minutes, rather than an hour and half. PRAISE JESUS for that because my bum was so SORE even from the truncated ride and we were only walking. the scenery was stunning and our guide was adorable - she wore a big, tall cowboy hat and had these chic, leather chaps (?) with fringe all down the legs. we made it back safely to the barn without ending up on the news this time as well… just smelling a bit horsey. x0x

(the kids DO have a little more horse experience than me… theo on a pony ride when he was four. he is concentrating so hard even though the horse is parked)

(lucy on the pony that came to her birthday party)