14 days in...

I am fully aware that this blog is long overdue. I had intentions of keeping you all up to date but between not having as much time to myself as I expected and just being overwhelmed by this place I haven't found the right words.
Melissa and I arrived in Grand Junction on Tuesday June 11 to a whopping 95 degrees. I sort of loved it, I craved dry heat after all the muggy rainy days we had in West Palm leading up to our departure. I picked up my SUV from Hertz, and after a couple of errands and Wendy's chicken nuggets, we set out for an 1.5 hour drive to Somerset.
The road was empty and with no cell reception. We remarked to ourselves how this is usually how scary movies start. We had made a plan to stop in the last town before our destination, Paonia, Colorado to pick up milk and a few other groceries to make dinner for the evening. I waited outside with Charlie while Melissa ran inside and one lady that walked by me said, "You must not be from around here, you must be from one of those big fancy cities." Apparently having a fluffy white dog and a fresh blowout made me stand out from the rest of the Paonia residents.
After a cherry soda and making friends with a few other Paonians at the Revolutionary Brewery we headed out for "the Town". Once we finally found the gate entrance (after missing it twice and driving up a mountain in Gunnison National Forest) we stopped at the gate house and signed confidentiality agreements that we would not talk to the press or take pictures. Gulp. There goes my idea of blogging everything.
It's a long beautiful drive up the mountain to the Town. Wild daisies and mountain views, deer and elk frolicking, and 15 mph speed limit. Upon entering the beginning of the town, we see a little chapel at the top of the hill and a little red schoolhouse across the street. There are pink and blue victorian looking homes, log cabins, a bank, several saloons, a hotel, two jails, a train station with a caboose (He hopes to build train tracks around the town), a gun store, a cookhouse/dining hall, a birdcage theater (with a huge projection screen for movie watching), a candy/ice cream parlor, a women's dress shop, a firehouse, all amongst other buildings. There are around 70 buildings on the property. The spa that I work at is gorgeous with teal-stained wood floors and tin ceilings. Across the road is a barn and corral with 7 horses, 4 miniature ponies, 2 sheep and 2 goats, and a chicken coop. Beyond that is a gorgeous snow capped rocky mountain.
Out the back door is Ragged Mountain, that lights up as the sun begins to fall in the evening for what the locals call the "magic glow." It's pretty phenomenal.

More to come...