It Feels Like Home

The View from Amsbury Bunkhouse on San Isabel Ranch, Westcliffe Colorado

All roads on the wedding road trip lead to Westcliffe Colorado, where the wedding would be held. I had never been to Westcliffe and from what I could tell from the Internet there wasn't a much there (hench the rehearsal dinner at the bowling ally). In looking for lodging there wasn't really any hotels, just a couple of bed and breakfast places and cabins in the foothills. I found one cabin that looked simple, nothing fancy. Imagine that! I actually choose the cabin because it was less fancy. Like a lot of things on the Internet, you couldn't tell much from the pictures except it would sleep all of us and we would get to be together. So I reserved the cabin and hoped and prayed that it was what we needed. The more people you have on a road trip, the longer it takes because... More bladders, more pee pee breaks. Monday afternoon, the owner of the cabin called to see when he could expect us to be arriving. We still hadn't made it to the volcano and I had no idea how long that would take so I really had no answer for him. Later in the evening he called me back and said he had left the door open, turned on the lights and I could call him if we needed anything. He also gave me a ominous warning that the home was built around 1900, it wasn't the Hilton, the septic system needed to be babied, but he hoped we liked it. He said it in such a way that I felt he thought there was a greater chance we wouldn't like it rather than we would. Everything about this trip was treading into the unknown (which I'm not totally comfortable with). So, I was tired, worried he was waiting on us, afraid I had made a terrible mistake in renting the cabin and well I was just ready to get there. I'm kind of like a two year old when I get really fatigued, there's this underlying hysteria that bubbles up inside, I hate it and I fight it, but when I'm tired, it seeps out as quiet tears and mild hyper-ventilation... Thank you TBI for that little trait, I wasn't like that before I knew you. Anyway, it was dark, the roads were gravel and we were going off of landmark directions, because GPS doesn't do unpaved roads as well as it does major highways. Finally we turned into where we thought the cabin was and sure enough it looked just like the picture, except for just a nano-second, maybe less quaint and I thought maybe I had made a big mistake. Then I opened the door and the little cabin wrapped it's sweet arms around me and whispered... "Welcome Home" We lumbered inside all travel weary and worn, checked out all of the rooms and totally agreed, it was perfect. It took me a while to put my finger on what I really liked about it, then it dawned on me when I looked in the front bedroom a second time... It reminded me of my Grandma and Grandpa's house. The next morning when I woke up, I grabbed a sweater and quietly stepped onto the back porch. The mountains stood in the early morning mist, the horses grazed quietly on the side of the house and the air was crisp. I wrapped my sweater around me, hugged myself to stay warm and sat on the porch swing thinking to myself.... "I could totally live here, it feels like home."