Ty England, Zane Grey and Georgia O’Keefe

I hope you will ride along as I head out to New Mexico for a spring trip…

                   Down The Road with the Original Buffalo Dale

Welcome back.   The plans are already in the works for next year’s The Good, The Bad and The Barbeque and judging from this year’s event, with close to 1,000 people in attendance, the folks at Elder Care may need an even bigger tent in 2013. The mix of people gathered to support this fine organization has a lot to do with the success of the evening. Everyone from your regular Joe (that would be me) to corporate moguls were visiting together and enjoying the evening. As always Katsy and Jim Whittenburg and Kathleen and Mark Bukowski were gracious and generous hosts, greeting everyone and thanking the crowd for their support of Elder Care. If you didn’t catch my column last week, Kathleen and Mark were married the weekend before the Barbeque and they were kind enough to stay at the ranch after the wedding to help Katsy and Jim host the event.

Another highlight of the evening was the appearance of musician Ty England. For those of you who haven’t heard of Ty, he and Garth Brooks started out playing music together in Stillwater and became close friends. Ty became a part of Garth’s band, together they toured the world and the rest is history. Ty is a successful performer in his own right and he mentioned that a return trip to the Barbeque is already on his calendar. You might want to mark your own calendar for Saturday May 11, 2013, the date of an event that just seems to get better every year.

Up next on my calendar is a trip west to the Land of Enchantment as I jump on board with photographer Jerry Poppenhouse and 40 other photography enthusiasts and head out to the UU Bar Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico. The lodge at the ranch is situated at 6,000 ft. above sea level but the property quickly climbs to 11,000 ft.. Former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating visits regularly and he recently said that the UU Bar is “more like a state than a ranch. You have those alpine meadows, the beautiful forests, and the abundant wildlife. It’s absolutely a colorful affirmation of the beauty of America, a spectacular picture postcard ranch.” If you are interested in coming along I am sorry to say that the lodge is completely sold out but there are still a few rooms available at the nearby historic St. James Hotel. In the past I’ve written about this stopping place of Buffalo Bill Cody, Jesse James, Zane Grey and many others and I guarantee you an experience that you will not soon forget. The hotel is just 10 miles from the lodge at the ranch so you won’t be far from the action.

After four days at the UU Bar I will be going on to artist Georgia O’Keefe’s favorite place, Ghost Ranch in Abiqui, New Mexico. The history of this area is written in the dinosaur bones that you often find while hiking and the views of the pastel colored mountains at sunrise or sunset alone make this a must see if you are anywhere nearby. Just one day and you will understand why O’Keefe spent so much of her life interpreting this landscape. This part of the world is also the home of the world’s deepest hot springs and the Indian tribe who discovered them.

The mineral waters at Pagosa Springs, Colorado have long been believed to have healing powers and now there have been several important archaeological discoveries in the area revealing that people have been coming to the springs for hundreds of years. I’ll be reporting back soon on what has been found there.

I’ll also be traveling across the continental divide in search of more interesting material and if all goes well my last stop will probably be Santa Fe which has attracted artists of every kind for years.

Till then I’ll see ya down the road…………..

 

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