Out West

One night my freshman year of college I was back in my hometown. It was spring break. My old high school boyfriend had taken me out on campus and I had insisted my best girlfriend come with. We were at a party at an apartment. Somewhere along the line my girlfriend met a fraternity brother of my old boyfriend's, who told her about his summer job on a ranch in New Mexico.

Well, for whatever reason that planted an idea in my girlfriend's head. She convinced me to apply for a job at the ranch, and she did, too. A few weeks later we had our employment papers and were booking plane tickets for a summer out West, in a state we had never been to.

A couple months later my dad drove me to the St. Louis airport for my flight. I was expecting New Mexico to be dry and arid with cacti all around. So I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived at the ranch with plenty of green, lush mountains surrounding us. That was the beginning of what ended up being an amazing summer. My best friend and I lived together in a large canvas tent and took every opportunity we could to hike, road trip, go to Santa Fe, our friend's cabin in the Taos Valley, the lake at Eagle's Nest, or whatever other adventure we could dream up. I have a feeling this is the first thread in what will be a recurring thread on this blog - our summer out west - so I'll leave it at that for now.