The Cowboy Olympiad
Today was the last day of our family gathering here in Southern Utah and what a perfect western day it has been. Tomorrow we scatter to the four winds (literally) with people leaving as early as son Roger & Valene and son Tom heading out pre-dawn to drive to catch planes in Salt Lake City for points east (Delaware and Brooklyn respectively). Niece Nichole & Domenic with kids Ethan, Jackson and Parker will be driving south to their home in the Phoenix area. Wabash and Kansas City are home to Pete & Susie and daughter Kate, who have represented the Midwest that both Kim and I carry in our histories, and they will start their drive north and east from here. Cousin Pete & Nancy are heading north to Montana to visit their youngest son, who has moved west and they will drop David off at the airport on the way so he can get back to his NYC life that he loves. Nephew Josh & Haj will drive with kids JJ and Leila to SLC to fly east for another family reunion on Haj’s side. Meanwhile Will & Ashley and Jeff & Lisa have a long days’ drive back to San Diego, as do Stephanie & Ben and Milla and Rhys, as well as Alex & Natalie and Charlie and Jack. So while they drive west, Frank & Lydia will drive northwest back to Sonoma. Jason & Nicky and Katie have perhaps the shortest stretch to get home in Las Vegas, so they will head southwest. Meanwhile Kim & I joined by Carolyn & John and Charlotte and Evelyn will head down to Zion and then the Grand Canyon (north and south rims) and even the infamous Antelope Canyon slot canyon in Page, Arizona. So while others are scattering back home, we will be extending the roadtrip for a few more days before heading back to the hilltop.
Today was organized by Kim to be a grand finale of sorts. I would venture to say that there are very few things in life that she likes more than family gatherings and this one has been 90% her doing. This morning I shuttled a bunch of kids and parents over to the Capital Reef Resort Stables for horse riding. Every kid got equipped with a safety helmet and patiently waited his or her turn to board a horse and be allowed to ride it around the corral. The kids had a ball and it all got them good and hungry for lunch at Slacker’s Burger Joint. They needed the energy because the schedule for the afternoon was established as the grand finale with the Utah Games as planned by Kim and daughter Carolyn. We have done a field day set of games every year for a while with the last one being last year in Ithaca. There is something about mimicking the Olympic spirit that appeals to us, so we always set it up as series of Olympic events. In years past I don’t know that we have had a particular theme to the games, but this year’s Utah plan and the fact that everything about staying at the Lodge at Red River Ranch has an extreme western theme, we have grafted that theme onto our field day games.
Every game that Kim and Carolyn designed for the Utah Games was a western themed game. They broke us into five teams of six people, which means that 30 of us were engaged in the sport while the rest sat calmly in comfortable chairs under the shade of a specially set-up tent. We started with a rubber snake toss into a cowboy boot, with all six of us participating. Then we had a ring toss with hula hoops over cowboy hats. We had a relay race where we each had to swap out and wear cowboy outfits made by Kim consisting of cow patterned vests, cowboy hats, and homemade chaps. We then had to run back and forth across the field on a rubber horsie, holding onto a cow-patterned balloon (what kind of mind thinks of this stuff?!). There was a bean bag toss (knocking empty cans of beans off a ledge), a gold panning relay with water and gold nuggets in the pans, and finally, a roundup game with a cowboy chasing his cattle (the other participants) around the yard trying to tag them with a branding iron. Do you get the cowboy theme coming through? Pretty and to miss.
When we were finished we all had an hour to rest and regroup before we gathered under the cottonwood trees on the far side of the back field. It was there that our friends from Capital Reef Resort came over with tables and chairs and five Dutch ovens filled with beef, chicken and pork as well as potatoes and mixed vegetables. They also brought with them a quartet of western cowboy pickers who played wonderful western tunes like the old cowboy standards (Red River Valley and such) and even some great Johnny Cash tunes. The setting was perfect. THe band was set up under the spreading trunks of the cottonwoods with the back fence at their backs and the river and red rock cliffs behind that. The cooling breeze blew through the shade where we sat and made the most commodious scene I can imagine. It felt like a lovely summer dining experience that any family would be thrilled to enjoy with music and good home cooked food that was basic but delicious. And then the mandatory testimonials began with Kim and I thinking everyone for coming and a set of awards for each group meant to memorialize some of the funny and quirky things that characterize us and happened over the past week to us. It was all good fun and provided us with a nice cap note to a great reunion week.
We said goodbye to cowboy Brett who had orchestrated the llama walk, the horseback riding, the dark sky stargazing and then this Dutch oven cowboy serenade dinner. We love coming to the Lodge at Red River Ranch as we have for the past twenty years. Charlene & Dave Van Dyke with their kids Phoebe and Grace have become family friends to us and are now family friends to a much broader swath of our families. We might even be able to add Brett and his wife over at Capital Reef Resort to our list of cowboy friends. We are not cowboy and cowgirl, but that doesn’t prevent us from having the cowboy spirit.
I don’t know whether we will ever do another Cowboy Olympiad again, but I am sure that we will all remember the one we had today here at the Lodge of Red River Ranch. Tomorrow we will leave for our respective destinations with fond memories the way Billy Crystal did in City Slickers. And the funny thing is that we will return with the one thing that means the most to us, just like Curly told Billy, and that one thing will always be family. Ala familia!