Week's End

Well, it's getting to be that time when we have to break ourselves free of the reunion lifestyle, pack our bags, say our goodbyes, and begin the long journey home.

The refrigerators at the lodge here contain the dregs of a week's worth of gourmet food gone bad, now resembling a series of runaway biology experiments.

We have a pile of garbage outside that should require a permit.

There are shopping receipts, board game pieces, and mismatched Keens all over the floor.

But we also have a whole week's worth of reunion memories to carry us through until next year.

Various members of our clan hiked, rode horses, climbed, rode gondolas, shopped, tubed on the river, hot-tubbed, rested, and talked. We've seen waterfalls, hot springs, snow-capped mountains and glassy lakes, all under clear blue skies.

Kevin likes it so much here he put in an offer on an acre of land for a future log cabin vacation home.

We have mixed feelings about leaving this year. Although we have fun with our families in the exotic locations we immersed in, we also have two home closings looming on our horizon and we're anxious to get moving.

So it is with both sadness and excitement that we leave our big lodge mansion nestled amidst aspen trees, high up in the mountains of Steamboat Springs.