The Ranch

When I was young, maybe ten or so, my family made the long trip across the countries breadbasket to the mountainous and rustic state of Wyoming. It was the first long road trip my parents had attempted with me and my two sisters, and they had chosen to rely upon a small television that played VHS tapes to keep us quiet. The week long trip my father had been in charge of putting together brought us to a ranch where we went on daily rides into the forests and up the mountains of the west. While I don't recall much from those days, I will always remember the sheer sense of timelessness in that place. Mountains dipped into forested valleys. Tough grasses stuck up from rough, rocky crags. The ranch was something otherworldly next to the streets of Chicago.