Saturday, December 29, 2012

Cold Winds and Sunny Slopes

Dang... I rode through a lot of Colorado winters. From before sun up to past sundown... Feeding six or eight hours a day. Feeding my own stock then on down to the ranch I was day workin'. Comin' back in the early evening and feeding my own again. Chopping ice, Plowing drifts, Cutting and Splitting wood... Lot's of days when the high never broke through 13 below.

Then another seven or eight years after we left the ranch... riding winters out on a motorcycle. Splittin' the wind goin' 70 mph at ten degrees... and still grinnin'.

Things have changed...

The past ten days or so on this Denver circle it's been cold... but... nowhere near the lows I used to work in without much of a thought. The temps we've got now I saw as dang near balmy twenty years back. Even the years I rode my bikes to the Hardware store in January snow... If I got up and saw thirty plus on the thermometer there wasn't the sliver of a thought of not riding.

Now... with highs way up into the 30's I'm stove up and hidin' out. ;) Yes sir... my get up and go done got up and went... leastways when it comes to fightin' through the cold I guess. :)

I am itchin' to roll on back to the winter desert for sure! Just a few more days to lock down the few "business" chores we've left and then it's highball back to the Sonoran  desert for the balance of the winter.

It's likely I am an irreversible Snow Bird for sure!

Let all the tough nuts who claim they prefer to "rough it" have that nonsense. I'm for soft beds, clean shirts and sunny slopes! Make no mistake, any Cowboy that tells you he likes to "rough it" is one of two things; You're talkin' either to a wannabe playin' tough... or cowboy spinnin' yarns! Either way, they ain't bein' honest.

Truth be known, the only thing that kept a Cowboy from comfort was the inability of a Mule, Wagon or truck to carry it. Used to be you judged the age of a cowboy by the diameter of his bed roll. If it took two men to unload his roll in camp you knew; This ain't no greenhorn. That sucker has some age on him! Along with the growth of his wisdom ... the thickness of his blanket roll kept pace!

So... right after the 1st day of the first month of the year 2013... before my bedroll gains any more weight... and in search of sunny slopes, we'll be rolling our dusty selves back south to ride out the rest of this winter.

Finishing Up our Christmas Circle
Brian

3 comments:

Cindy Kingma said...

LOL, ya ole softy Snowbird! When we were young we did things we freak out thinking back on...so getting older we have time to enjoy the finer things in life...like the comforts you mentioned. Hope our plans come thru to spend OUR next winter from snowy Orient to the Parker AZ area and others places nearby.
Our rig will be truck camper pulling ATV trailer with quad on.

Box Canyon Blog.com said...

Merry Holidays, CowBoy and Ms Heidi :))
Cold is a state of mind :))
Box Canyon

Anonymous said...

The older we get the colder we get.