Wednesday morning I woke up to Mike hollerin, “Drop your cocks and grab your socks! Time to round up!” Where does he come up with his material? We rounded up the ponies, pulled the six we were taking into the high country, saddled, loaded the trailer, and were on the road by 10am. The party headed to the high country consisted of Mike and I plus Karri and Ladonna the half owner of Poag’s. We stopped at the bar to get food and booze since we were effectively trading horses and time for tasty stuff. Up to the trail head, packed Taco and Spike, had lunch, and then Karri asked, “Where’s the hackamores?”

Damnit. Back at the ranch. Hop in the truck, go get hacks, and an hour later we’re ready to finally leave the Gibson trailhead. We head North on the Rainbow Trail for a bit and then turn left destined for the Lakes of the Clouds. After a good, uneventful ride up we made camp between the middle and upper lakes. I pitched my tent on the hill overlooking the upper lake, and then I went fishing.

I don’t know what happened between now and then but I sucked. Only caught one. Beginners luck ran out perhaps? Came back up to the fire to continue drinking wholesale liquor and help cook dinner, steak and corn over an open fire as the sun set behind the mountains.

The rest of the night was excellent. Laughter was everywhere and serious topics were covered. We all learned a lot about each other and just enjoyed sitting in the stillness of the wild ignorant of the distractions of society. Karri and I talked about my Dad a bit and I had a good cry like I haven’t in a while. It was a good night.

The following morning came early as it’s supposed to in the woods. It was gorgeous outside and we brewed up some cowboy coffee, cooked bacon, eggs, taters and toast, had a nap, and then started packing to head back down the hill.

We broke camp, rode back to the trailhead, had lunch, loaded the trailer, and headed back to the ranch. Karri had to get to Aspen that evening, the original purpose of her trip, and I had to drive her. It’s about three hours from the ranch. The twilight drive along the Arkansas river was beautiful, dinner at The Boathouse in Salida was excellent once again, and the nighttime drive along the Collegiates and over Independence Pass was pleasant. As we pulled into Aspen she got a hold of her girlfriends who had started the girls weekend already and they insisted that we join them.

I felt like I walked into a Las Vegas ultra lounge. Everybody was geared up swanky and I roll in wearing Carhartts, a button snap plaid shirt, and a white cowboy hat. She’s wearing a t-shirt with a down vest and sweats. I’m surprised the music didn’t stop when we opened the door. We got plenty of who the hell are they looks, including some from one of her friends that I met while she was away. People get so hung up on appearances seriously. Back to their house, they insisted on more cocktails but I was exhausted at midnight, fine I’ll have one. Sleep, wake up, cook breakfast, and hit the road.

It was a nice drive back, another beautiful day, there wasn’t anything going on at the ranch so I headed to Poag’s to do some work before karaoke night. I walked next door to the wood grill Uruguayan place, wrote most of this, knocked my salad on the floor from the bar by trying to eat a bite from the side hanging over the edge, and then repeated my blunder cutting my ribeye. Fortunately I blocked that one to avoid further embarrassment. Waiting on some apple crisp for dessert and then go back to making an ass of myself at the bar.

I think I’m done here. I’m fixin to head back home tomorrow, not sure if I actually will, but I’m ready to. Maybe I’ll wait out the weekend.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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Business around the ranch has slowed down a bunch in the last few weeks. We had two afternoon rides on Saturday afternoon but I wasn’t on either and didn’t exactly feel like saddling up either. The Colorado State Fair started a day or two earlier and Blake Shelton was playing that night, so that’s where I was going to go. A bunch of people claimed that they would be going at some point or another, I was going by myself until Sarah (April’s daughter, the two of them work sometimes on the ranch when they’re needed) pulled up as I was replacing a headlight on my truck and I asked if she wanted to go see Blake Shelton that night. She accepted, said she intended on already going to the fair with her friend Lindsey. Sweet. From solo to two chicks in thirty seconds.

Sarah lives at the Abbey in Canon City where I went wine tasting last month. She works with the horses there, but since the owners haven’t put any money into the place nobody’s boarding their horses there, so she lives for free and boards her horses for free and don’t have to do much work. We waited around a bit for Lindsey who never showed up and said she’d meet us there, so we headed to the fair.

Very good times. I’d never been to any state fair and thoroughly enjoyed this one. I felt like a genius tweeting that I was checking out award winning cocks (roosters, obv) in the small animals building, and then we got kicked out for having beer because apparently people have given beer to the rabbits which kills them. I didn’t know that you could buy animals at the fair. I really wanted to come home with a prize winning duck, or rabbit, or some silly critter, but I think fortunately that plan never reached fruition.

We headed into the arena to see Blake Shelton after the rodeo which we didn’t make it into because it was sold out. We got close, watched an amazing show, and then were thrilled to see Miranda Lambert show up for the second verse of “Home”. She left the stage at the end of the song and came back at the encore. It was an awesome show. Nobody ever showed up to join us, I drove Sarah back to Canon, and then headed to the dirt road back to the ranch.

It’s a bit difficult to find Oak Creek Grade out of Canon City, you basically gotta catch the bridge between third and fourth street across the river which doesn’t have a light, so naturally I missed it. I flipped a youey at 3rd street and turned South headed out of town. Just before hitting the dirt road I was reaching behind my seat for a beer, looked in the rear view and saw a cop, and decided that I probably shouldn’t crack the beer yet. He immediately turned on his lights, I pulled over, and he asked me why I missed the turn. I’m not from here and Oak Creek Grade is hard to find? He left with my license and registration, came back and told me that he couldn’t find my stuff in the system, said I should call somebody about that, and then he let me go. He also, like Court, thought that my registration expired in 2006, since the sticker says “6″. It’s for June, and says 2011 on the side. I drove away, hit the dirt road, cracked that beer, and drove the twenty miles of dirt road back to the ranch.

Sunday we had an erection party. One of the tall posts between the main corral and holding pen that the gate was attached to broke off at the ground. We had to pull the post and replace it with an old telephone pole we had sitting around. That took most of the morning, and then I worked online that afternoon and evening. I made a deep run in the UBOC Main Event, ended up finishing 72nd after I bluffed off some chips and then lost with AQ to J4 and K9. Sigh is how I felt.

Monday there also wasn’t anything going on, and it felt like winter showed up that day. I left the ranch around noon thirty in warm clothes and a beanie heading to Colorado Springs to pick up Karri. Since I didn’t go to Malibu with a pretty girl I talked her into coming out here before her trip to Aspen this weekend.

She’s still more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

We had a good evening, watching the sun set over the ranch and drinking Jack and Coke, dinner in town, and we ended up having beers with an old timer here in town known as Mountain Bob. There’s a signed poster of him in the office at the ranch.

Today was a slow day, slept in, and then went to ridin some fence. I took Karri for a ride about the ranch, showed her some of the old mines and homesteads, and did some running of the horses. Such a nice day on the ranch. Came back, and now we’re sittin in front of the Penthouse (my cabin) sippin cocktails out of tin mugs watchin the wind blow by. Life is good today.

Tomorrow we’re heading up to the high country for an overnight pack trip. I’m pretty excited.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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I feel really good right now. Like the past five days were some sort of merging of skills I’ve acquired in the last ten years that are relevant above eight thousand feet and I just passed the final exam. Dan, Mike and I lead a group of five up North Brush Creek, camped the first night, went up and over to the Valley View Hot Springs on the Western slope of the Sangres on Tuesday, and chilled out there until Thursday morning. We camped at treeline on the other side that night, and then went up and over to the trailhead on Friday.

Words feel inadequate to describe the state of satisfaction that I have sitting here at Poag’s after this week. We took a German couple, a local couple, and a woman from Dallas on a five day adventure. They all made it back with smiles on their faces. I had a hell of a great trip. We were tipped well. I just had an awesome meal at Cel Dor Asado, including the apple crisp dessert that is my new favorite, and now am sucking down a Smithwick’s at Poag’s.

Monday morning we left the ranch, two trucks with trailers laden by horse and a fifteen passenger van comfortably loaded with our five custies. We drove to the trailhead, unloaded horses from trailers, filled panniers with gear, and hung them from the sawbucks of our four pack horses. After a riding lesson we hit the trail sometime before noon and one of the Germans said, “Pretty good weather this trip.”

As soon as we laid picnic blankets for lunch it started raining. It didn’t stop until just before we hit camp, several miles up at the top of the basin.

Fortunately the rain broke long enough for us to pitch tents, set up the kitchen and cook dinner, and be about ready to go to bed. Then it returned, came off and on throughout the night, and by the next morning we understood why: We were in a cloud.

We took our time getting out of camp that morning, primarily because the trip leader, when presented with the problem of Yarrow’s picket line being too short and thus he had eaten all the grass in range, decided that the best solution was to untie the horse and set it free. That’s the short story. We spent the early afternoon, since we didn’t break camp until after noon, walking up the Eastern slope in a cloud. It was pretty magical when we broke the backbone of the Sangres though, complete cloud on the Eastern side and Summer day on the West.

We arrived at Valley View Hot Springs Tuesday evening and the relaxing began. Set up camp, dinner, campfire and music, and then go soak.

The hot springs are basically a nudist colony. Sorry, Mom. I didn’t take many pictures. Wednesday was perhaps the most relaxing day of my life, and this place is somewhere that I’m going to return.

Thursday morning we packed up and left, heading up the Major Creek trail until treeline. We made camp, picketed the horses, cooked dinner, hung by the fire, and went to sleep. I finished The Fountainhead after several months of being in the novel (as is necessary with most Ayn Rand books).

We broke camp early the following morning as we had to go up and over, have lunch, and then make it to the trailhead in a reasonable amount of time. We did so well.

The trip was fantastic personally. It felt really good to be in the woods for the longest time straight since sometime in 2005. After we unloaded everything at the ranch, we cracked some beers and hung out in front of my cabin, watching the sunset over the ranch and valley, basking in the glory of the satisfaction of a job well done.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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I coulda been at a beach house in Malibu with a pretty girl this weekend, but I declined because I said that I would be back on the ranch to help lead a day ride in the Sangres on Saturday. I told this to Mike. He looked at me funny and replied, “Dumb ass.”

I agreed when Saturday morning, after being waken up by the horse shit barrage, we booked an 8 person 2 hour ride on the ranch and Dave pulled me from the Sangres ride to help with that one. It was much of the families of a couple getting married that afternoon. We accommodated them well and then gave them a good ride, and they thanked us by piling into their Suburban and driving away. We wished them thundershowers, a runaway bride, and anything else that could ruin a wedding on a Saturday afternoon.

After we unsaddled ten horses I drove into town to get some lunch and go to the Wet Mountain Western Jubilee, a traditional Western music festival. It was the first music festival that I’ve ever been to with chairs and only six outhouses. I don’t see the point in sitting down at concerts, especially ones outside in the summer time, but since the median age was likely over sixty I understood. It still didn’t mean I was sitting down. The first band I heads was called The Haunted Windchimes and they were really sweet. I posted up about six rows back, standing next to the center tent support pole in the center aisle to do my best to not stand in front of anybody. It took about three songs for a Custer County sheriff to tell me that I couldn’t stand there and I should find a seat. I don’t want to sit and I don’t want to stand in front of a chair, certainly blocking somebody’s view there. Stand in the back then. As much as I really wanted to go to war I knew that I would lose, and moved next to the sound booth where I stood unmolested for the rest of the show.

My favorite act was Waddie Mitchell, a cowboy poet and wordsmith like I have never heard live. His poems were stories that painted a picture in my mind so vibrant that I sat screwed to my chair, transfixed by the words falling over me like magic water. He introduced Don Edwards, an apparently legendary country singer and songwriter. He received quite a reception and I was impressed with his music. I don’t know much about classic country but shows like this one make me want to know more.

I wasn’t feeling the dance afterward and just headed to Poag’s for dinner, beer, and internet. I worked online for a couple of hours, trying to get everything taken care of before this 5 day pack trip leaving on Monday. Think I lost a couple hundred bucks.

Sunday morning I slept in til 8:30am (that’s so weird to say still) since there wasn’t anything going on at the ranch. I joined Mike and his family for breakfast, they reminded me more about how I was a dumb ass for not being at a beach house in Malibu, but I didn’t mind too much today because I was going to be traveling all day if I had gone out there. A lazy and productive day in Colorado is much better than traveling anywhere. After breakfast I drove to the Alvarado trail head to finish up my work for the month before spending the afternoon playing tournaments online. I don’t understand how Verizon doesn’t work on the ranch or in town, but does in the middle of hay fields and at trail heads. Prettier offices anyways. After arriving I realized I left my laptop in my cabin. Back to the ranch.

Tournaments started at 2pm, it was shortly after 11am. Bored, I came up with an adventure. I forgot to tell y’all about Rudy being struck by lightning last week while I was in LA. Tuesday morning when Dave and Mike did round-up they found a dead horse, unfortunately one of our best. Poor Rudy. Two weeks ago potatoes were falling out of the sky around him as we fell to the deck in laughter, and last week he gets blasted by lightning. 1200 pounds of horse chop will bring in all sorts of wildlife, so I decided on going for a hike, partially to check out what a horse hit by lightning looked like and also hoping to see some critters.

I strapped my six shooter to my side and walked out into West, headed up horse highway into the woods. It’s a neat feeling being out in the woods by yourself, and walking through the thick North woods I pondered on the last person to be where I was. When all you can hear is wind blowing through Aspens life is at peace. I walked past an old fire ring not used in years, and looked down from the ridge into Lee’s meadow and the original homestead, settled a hundred and fifty years ago by German potato farmers. It’s still in use today, the ranch owner’s private residence. The Ute’s were here long before the Germans were, and with so many years of people walking these woods before me I was grateful that it laid mostly as untouched as it was a thousand years ago.

I could hear the call of a Golden Eagle, screeches of Red Tailed Hawks, and saw several Ravens circling. The last thing I wanted to do was find a need for my sidearm by spooking some bear off his buffet, so I scouted from high on the ridge to make sure things were clear before approaching Rudy. Disappointed I didn’t see anything, I approached the corpse, from downwind, and smelt the decay of life before I could see anything close.

He lay on the ground like a plastic horse figurine knocked on its side. Two legs on the ground and two above sticking straight out parallel, the rigormortis in full effect. He was way less chewed up than I expected; Dave predicted that he’d be a skeleton within a week or two. My adventurous spirit turned grave quickly, and I was reminded once again how fragile life really is. Hell I might not make it back to the ranch, it’s not like it’s impossible to be struck by lightning out here. It’s nice and good to plan, but we’re only really guaranteed this present moment. I feel like people cheat today worrying too much about tomorrow.

I didn’t spend more than a couple of minutes there. Just wasn’t a pleasant place to hang out, next to a horse that I’d spent hours on the back of in the past month. I walked back a different route, down across South pasture and through the gate into West. I could see the ranch in front of me, but I could also see the junkyard off to my right. I knew that for years the ranch had used this place as their dump, initially filling up a couple of mine shafts but eventually creating their own collection of a hundred and fifty years of ranch junk. I figured there had to be something cool over there.

I didn’t find anything too exciting unfortunately. It was neat to poke around a bit, but you didn’t miss out on anything Fuller. I crawled through the barbed wire fence and walked back on County Road 271, waving at the one truck and two motorcycles that passed by, and changed out of my boots and into sandals back in my cabin.

I headed to Dave and Michelle’s, played the Ultimate Bet $200k and UBOC event 8 $1k, two other tournaments, and one cash game for several hours. I started out well everywhere and then lost flips and ran bad to bust them all somewhat early in the evening. No problem, gave me time to write, and now I’m headed to the ranch to pack for the 5 day I’m going on tomorrow.

Dan, Mike and I are leading a five day pack trip with the destination being some hippie hot springs on the other side. Michelle told me that I wasn’t allowed to be naked in front of custies. I have no idea why she would find it important to inform me of this rule. I’ll shoot a bunch of pictures and solve the problems of the world soaking in natural hot tubs. Bye bye society see ya on Friday.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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I had a most excellent few days in Southern California, not something I get to say very often. The congestion of the place just depresses me.

I made it down Tuesday evening and promptly took my Mother and Brother out to my favorite restaurant, North Woods Inn. It was good dinner and a good time, it was nice to catch up with them a bit. That evening I visited my old friend from Forest Home Serenity and her two kids. It was good to reconnect with an old good friend that I hadn’t seen in years.

Wednesday was work and prep day. I hosted the Ultimate Bet Online Championship 5 event #2, a $250+17 PLO/PLH tournament. I intended on recording live for Poker VT but left my microphone in Las Vegas. I picked up a headset that will work with Skype also, and then went to get my hair cut at the local barber to match my newly shaven face. I really wanted to leave the beard, but my actress friend Karri advised that I fill the box of what they’re looking for at the audition. Good bye scruff.

The tournaments went okay, I profited $4 between the one I hosted and the $320 sniper that Sebok hosted. I recorded them both, shooting a little over three hours of video that I think came out really good.

The following day was the reason that I left the ranch for this week. I was auditioning for the new WPT segment “The Raw Deal.” I sported a slick suit and showed up at the bike right when I said I would. There were like 20-30 people milling about who all looked like they had zero chance. I walked in, was moved straight to the front of the line, personally greeted by Mike Sexton, and I gave it my best shot. They asked my opinion on a hand, then asked if I had any problem calling out people, I said no, but then when they asked me to talk about who’s bad I had nothin’. I can’t help it, I’m too much of a sweetheart. It’s totally a different case though when you’re commentating on hands in progress versus just talking about people who suck at poker. Besides that (and even accounting for that) I feel like I hit a home run and have a good feeling about my chances. I assume that it’s a good sign that they published one photo from the audition and it was of me in the act.

Afterwards I headed into the heart of LA to have some happy hour with Karri. One beer led to more beer and ended with me leaving early in the morning, unable to drive the night before, but not wanting to leave anyways as I had one of the best times I’ve ever had hanging out with a woman. She’s great people with a heart of gold and I’m proud to be her friend. I made it across the Mojave just fine, found Jared in my apartment and was like sweet, ride to the airport, and have eaten dinner and written this blog in Colorado within 10 hours of waking up this morning. Not bad. I’m headed back to the ranch.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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It doesn’t feel good here in Vegas. Not just the gross feeling of stepping into a pressure cooker when I got off the airplane at 6pm Left Coast time yesterday. I haven’t put my finger on it yet, but I just don’t feel right here. I went to sleep with this feeling (before midnight) and woke up (around 8am) still holding on to it thirty minutes later as I sip coffee and try to pen out these thoughts.

I realized a few years ago that my happiest years came before all this poker stuff, in the days when I was always almost broke. It certainly sucked being broke broke; I can remember as recently as 2003 digging through the seats in my 1988 Jeep Cherokee to find change so I could afford a meal. I don’t want to be back in that spot anytime, like, ever in my future, but I was happier that year than I was in 2007. That also doesn’t mean that I was unhappy then, or am unhappy now, I was just more happy in the days before the grind.

It’s odd too looking back on those 2003-2005 years. I’ve regretted often about not having a better work ethic and drive to succeed back then, knowing now the marshmallow meadow that I found myself smack dab in the middle of. 100-200 limit hold’em games were playing then like the 5-10 games do now. I could have been rich with a little bit of drive, but instead I was content to four table 2-4 LHE, make an easy $100 a day in a couple of hours, and then go do something outside for the rest of the day.

But then again if I was rich, I also probably wouldn’t have much of the life experience that I am rich in. I have seen many kids come and go in the past five years in the poker world. Most of them haven’t made it. Many of the ones that have wish that they hadn’t. Poker inevitably becomes a grind, for just about everybody I can think of besides Basebaldy who has like nine losing sessions lifetime. When things become that grind, when no matter what you do you can’t win, work sucks. It’s not fun. And eventually we play worse, making the run bad worse, and making us unhappier. There has to be something to balance out work, no matter if you’re a professional poker player or a poop smith. Many a porta-potty managers have played poker for pleasure. And I tell you what I sure don’t mind shoveling shit at the ranch.

The point is, if all you do is work, what’s the point? I haven’t found a job in the world that isn’t work at one time or another. Whitewater rafting guides still have to throw boats, be at the boathouse early in the morning, and cook lots. Youth ministers don’t spend much time working with kids, but do spend a lot of time dealing with bullshit in the church office. Poker players (especially tournament pros) don’t spend much time in the spotlight, but do spend a lot of time working on their game to stay on top, and sometimes being on top of your game yields zero time actually on top. There are few jobs in the world that people actually love, and even in those that people love there are still bad days. If there isn’t something else going on in life that makes us happy, then we’re eventually going to end up unhappy.

For the past month I’ve saturated myself in the goodness of being somewhere I love doing something I enjoy, the two fundamental keys to happiness. If I’m not somewhere I love, why? Only I control the two legs I’m standing on. If I’m not doing something I love, why? Does it enable me to get out and do what I love? Am I actually getting out and doing what I love?

There’s no way our lives are all about working our asses off until we have enough money to quit and do nothing. We’re mammals, and the only ones on the planet that have complicated life beyond eating, sleeping, and mating. The reason I work is to help me do those three things with ease and have the freedom to enjoy life as it was intended, without schedules other than sleeping and seasons.

I find that when I’m enjoying my life I run better. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all, because fluctuation is random, but I’ve almost always run poorly in the winters and awesome in the spring and fall. When in a new and exciting relationship, winner. On the opposite end, loser. My PTR graph is an excellent example of that one in the past year. Things good in the fall, fall apart in January, finish end of April, knee goes pop, a month is taken off, and suddenly it’s raining dollars.

Last year, coming back from the motorcycle trip, I was excited to be home. I was looking forward to moving in with Shelley. I had confirmed that I love living in Las Vegas and couldn’t see myself anywhere else except Colorado, as much as Court would like to get me out to North Carolina. I knew that Colorado would have to remain a vacation destination for the foreseeable future and that I belonged in Vegas. Now, showing up in Vegas for less than 24 hours, I do not feel right here.

I’d much rather be back in Colorado doing what I was doing Sunday. Hunting rattlesnakes, shooting beer cans, and exploring old mines, wondering if that dynamite box inside that barrel had dynamite in it. I would rather be spending my day like Saturday, riding in the morning, hanging at the jump rocks on the river that afternoon, watching live music in Salida as the sun set, and being in bed before midnight at the ranch.

I definitely see myself being back here and stoked in a month from now, but not yet. Not when it’s 95 degrees at 9:37am. Not when I have a return flight to Colorado in three days. Know why I’m most excited to be back in Vegas? To work. To write this. To host a UBOC event tomorrow, make a video on it, and to audition in LA on Thursday.

The greatest journeys answer questions at the end that you didn’t know you had in the beginning. I’m still figuring out the questions and I’m okay with that.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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Wednesday the only ride we had going out was a 4 person day ride in the Sangres. Barb and I led a family of 3 and the daughter’s college roomie up to Venable Lakes. They were good riders and good people, and we all had an excellent afternoon. Shortly after arriving at the lake we spread lunch, I tie on a fly, and promptly snapped it off in the shrubbery. Ate my bagel, mayonnaise, mustard, lettuce and turkey sandwich, and tied on another fly. Barb and the three girls went on a hike up the hill, Dennis watched me fish. He fly fishes, was sad that he didn’t bring his rod, and I kept offering him mine. I caught 7 fish, he went off for a business call, I gave the rod to his daughter, she caught a fish, and then I finally talked him into fishing. He caught a couple, I caught one more making the total eleven, and we headed back down the hill.

We made it back to the ranch around 6:30pm, I talked Barb into heading to dinner at the Feed Barn, and we drove straight there smelling like horse and fish. Shortly after we arrived, Ladonna and Greg, the owners of Poag’s, plus another friend walked in. I invited them to join us, and within twenty minutes were were a group of twelve, loosely related eating and drinking on the back deck watching the sun set behind the Sangres. From there we walked to Poag’s, had a couple more beers, and then headed back to the ranch.

We found more people and beer at the ranch than there was at the bar. I’m still not sure exactly how or why those 5 recent college grad kids from the Springs belonged there, apparently one of their dads is part owner in the ranch or something. Mike and I had one of their Pabst and we laughed our asses off at this one kid trying and failing at the ball and string into the can game. Finally, sleep.

Thursday was a reasonably late morning, only a 2 hour trail ride going out at 10am. I folded on that ride because I forgot to buy milk the night before and didn’t have anything to eat for breakfast, and hungry Bryan is a grumpy one. No worries I love breakfasts. Things have started slowing down at the ranch lately. Part of me enjoys the break to get out and do other stuff, but I’d really rather have things to do at the ranch. Thus I had to suffer through an hour of sitting in a lawn chair reading Ayn Rand with my shirt off waiting for Dave and his Dad to come pick me up to go fishing after a delicious omelet with a biscuit and gravy.

We headed to San Isabel reservoir, fished the tailwaters first, and the closest thing I came to catching was a snake. No joke. Up to the lake, same spot as last week, and we did a little more relaxin than fishin, and I only (lol) caught 6. Dinner, drive home, early night to bed, read for an hour, wake up the following morning feeling great.

Only a ranch ride for the day going out Friday. Only a two person. Looks like I have another day off. I embarked on an adventure, not really sure where I was going to end up or for how long I was going to be gone for, so I brought a lot of my stuff, which isn’t very much here. Backpack with laptop, chair, cooler with the beer that we didn’t drink yesterday fishing, wallet with $500, water, and fishing gear. I headed into the hills intending on crossing Music Pass up and over to the other side, getting at least to the Great Sand Dunes. Turns out that Music Pass hasn’t gone up and over for 20 years. It’s Medano Pass that I wanted, several miles to the South. At that point there was only one way out, an hour down the dirt road that I just came up, so I found my spot to hang out at.

I worked for 2.5 hours playing online on Ultimate Bet until my battery ran out, and won over a dime. I posted some sweet pics of my office today on Twitter (devopoker). Read for a while, and then a lil after 4pm I headed downhill.

Not too far into the drive I came head to head with a Toyota Tacoma towing a horse trailer. What the hell are they thinking bringing a horse trailer up here? Since they’re headed uphill they have the right of way, there is no room on the entire road to pass side by side. I back uphill to a turnout (bulldozed car sized strip of forest so y’all can get past each other), park, and wait. … … Aw shit. They’re stuck. Out of the truck, walk downhill, and sure ’nuff, they’re stuck.

“What in the hell were y’all thinking bringing a horse trailer up here?”

We’ve made it before.

…

Their truck was in the trail and their trailer was cockeyed and twisted on the driver’s side berm behind them. There was no way to get around them.

Can you help us get the trailer back into the road?

… FML.

I walk back to my truck, put on my Chacos, turn around (which requires a 7 point turn, bulldozer aided), and back down the hill. He throws the cable attached to the front of his truck to my hitch, and here we go, starting from a very steep, rocky, incline.

My Ford kicked ass. I drag his truck and trailer to the top of the hill, through the gnarly stuff, and he tipped me $10. Thanks. I would have refused $ from the lady whose flat tire I fixed, but from somebody who deliberately took their trailer up a rocky dirt road that was impossible for them to turn around on, get stuck, and then get bailed out easily, he should have given me $100. But I couldn’t get going until he got out of the way so I got him out of the way.

Then I headed to town and rented my first shower. I’ve never done that before, but I paid $5 to the Westcliffe Inn to take a shower. It was fantastic. Way better than the solar shower obviously, and I didn’t have to drive back to the ranch. Then to dinner, I had me some Cel Dor Asado again, place is amazing. Mike came in at dessert, and here we are at the Feed Barn having a Bud Light.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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