Where was I?

I was in Colorado, spending a week on my uncle's ranch. The boy got to meet not just an aunt, uncle, cousin, and grandmother of mind (add 'great' to those terms for him, I guess, though I'm not sure 'great-cousin' is the proper term), but also 6 dogs, 6 chickens, 5 horses, 3 cats, 2 ducks, 2 ostriches, and a partridge, no, wait, no partridge. But one of the dogs was a beagle named Bagel, while another was named Cream Cheese. I never get over that.

He had an opportunity to spend quality time with all of the animals except the ostriches; they lived on a neighboring farm. There was trepidation at first, but by the last day he was feeding the horses treats (albeit with some squirming). Two of the cats were so friendly, allowing him to pet them, that he was so confused to come home and realize our cat is a stand-offish beast that he began throwing things at her. He never warmed up to the chickens, but he enjoyed eating eggs. I did, too.

We also drove to the North Pole which, surprisingly enough, is in Colorado, near Colorado Springs, partway up the mountain to Pike's Peak. He had so much fun on the rides that at one point he lost his shoe. On even the most uninteresting rides, there were bigger kids breaking out into tears. The boy kept his cool, even going with me on the Scrambler and Tilt-a-Whirl, two of my favorites. I did come to the realization that most amusement park rides just involve sitting in something the goes in circles, and sometimes it goes up and down. The thrill is in the rides the go in circles very, very fast. Rides for smaller kids go in circles more slowly.