I find a cart for my luggage, grab my suitcases at baggage claim, strap Grey’s carrier to the top, and walk slowly to my car, smirking down at the magazine cover the whole way.
I might have joined Snapchat with a random, covert user name and followed him. And yeah, maybe I’m checking his Instagram three or four times a day. But so what? It’s not hurting anyone. It’s a crush, and it’s fun, and it feels good.
I deserve to feel good, don’t I?
Yes, I tell myself as I back my black 4Runner out of the parking lot. I totally do deserve to feel good.
I’m not being unreasonable or weird here. I don’t expect him to call me up or anything. I don’t even know if I’ll ever see the guy again. I’m just thankful he helped restore my lady parts to fighting form.
The drive to Estes Park takes about an hour and a half from DIA. I drive a good chunk of it on I-25, cutting northward in a straight line. I smirk at my magazine cover a time or two between reassuring Grey, who’s awakening from his kitty sedative. I spend the rest of my time listening to Taylor Swift. I was never really a fan before Southampton this year, when Charley of all people got me hooked. Bumping into Taylor a time or two at parties didn’t hurt.
I hang a left on Highway 66 and smile as I head into more rural parts. Wood-carved bears at roadside stands, marijuana shops, and these adorable little summer pie-and-ice cream booths greet me like old friends. The little town of Lyons is bustling with tourists sipping frozen coffees, listening to live music in the shadow of the Rockies, checking out Native American art. I crack my window and let my hair down because damnit, it feels good to be back.
It’s true I fled Georgia, fled the entire Southern U.S., when I came out here, but it’s also true that I’m built for a place like this. It’s rural like my native Georgia, but without the awful heat. It’s low key here without the judgment you’d get there. And it’s crunchy. Always bonus points for crunchy.
The road between Lyons and Estes is twisty and thick with tourist traffic. I curse the ones from far-flung states like Massachusetts and Texas.
“Just go, damnit!”
I pass a couple of them, gassing the 4Runner, loving the pull of gravity against the speed of the car, just barely keeping me in my lane as I fly. Riding horses is like this for me, too: reckless and freeing and just a little dangerous.
That’s another thing I love about both home and here: horses. And fields and lakes and forests. Nature.
The sun is setting as I climb the last hill before the Estes Park sign and the overlook where you can see the Rockies, and the valley below. God, this place is gorgeous. The sky is cloudless, dark indigo; the mountains have lost snow in the three weeks I’ve been gone. They look so green and lush. Kind of like the landscape on the Isle of Gael, which I’ve found is just northeast of Scotland.
I smirk again down at my magazine and keep on driving, through the adorable downtown, with its fresh-made-caramel-corn joint, organic restaurants, mom and pop breweries, jewelry stores, art galleries, and homemade pie places. I point myself toward the Rocky Mountain National Forest, passing the iconic Stanley Hotel and climbing a few more hills before I see the sign on my right for Flagstaff Ranch.
The ranch is bordered by a log-constructed fence, its slim paved road rolling under an archway with FLAGSTAFF RANCH in black iron script. I round a curve, driving into a grove of aspens, and pull over to my right to check my mail box, one of six. The blue one.
It’s a big box, which is good, because I’ve got a heap of mail.
I turn the music down and start the song “This Love” off TaySwift’s 1989 album as I pass what we Georgia girls would call the “big house” on my right. It’s a two-story ranch home belonging to Frank and Frieda Smith, a champion horse breeding team and good friends of my dad’s from college.
Maurice, one of the ranch hands, lives in the small cabin nearest to them. I pass the homes of Bucking Bill, the cook; Sheila Adamson, a real-life horse whisperer and part-time palm-reader; and Juan Fernandez, the cattle guru, before winding onward down the road, into the trees at the base of the foothill, to my own place: Flagstaff Inn, a Gold Rush-era mansion that was, in the late 1800s, a resort for people with pulmonary disease.
A rocky creek with ice-cold water flows behind the home. I can see birds flying from their perches in the trees as I park between two firs.
More recently, the house was a bed and breakfast, but Frank and Frieda closed it after Mom and Dad told them in spring ’15 that I wasn’t doing well (I had transferred from Rhodes to UGA to room with Amelia, and still couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed) and had mentioned a desire to work with horses.
I’d ridden at Flagstaff Ranch a few times during vacations and competed in horseback competitions since I was 8, so I think my family felt relieved when I mentioned it. Amelia and I left UGA at Spring Break and drove out here together, and she stayed an extra week with me, making sure I was okay before she headed back.
Since then, I’ve spent the better part of most days with Frank, Frieda, or both, learning the finer points of equine sexy times, foal delivery, and training. A little about racing, too. This summer, we have Dear Abby (Please Help) on the ranch. She was one of the runners up at Belmont in 2014.
I climb the porch steps slowly, dragging my rolling suitcases, nearly getting strangled by the Vuitton duffel bag slung over my arm and around my neck. I set Grey’s carrier down, then dump everything else onto the porch, unlock the door, and punch the passcode into the alarm system.
I step inside and inhale deeply. This house smells amazing, like the lavender I have in one of the front windows, old wood, suede, and fireplace. It’s the perfect “Western” retreat, and I feel fortunate I’m able to rent it for a while longer.
Some people might think it feels lonely, but to me it’s perfect. I put giant puzzles together at a table by the fireplace in the front parlor. I spend hours in the old-fashioned library, sipping whiskey sours from a crystal tumbler.
There’s a little nook under the stairs, with a velvet-covered bench and a bunch of pillows and a lantern-looking lamp on the wall, which is papered with a leaf pattern. I have no idea what it’s for exactly, but sometimes when I want to feel snug, I take a book in there and sit cross-legged on one of the pillows.
The kitchen is enormous and not updated—in the most charming of ways. Since bed and breakfast guests were never going to see it, it’s all chipped hardwood and big trough sinks. The refrigerator is pale aqua, manufactured in 1974, if the sticker inside the door can be believed.
I drag my luggage inside the foyer, then sit on the rug in the entry hall and free Grey from his carrier. He gives me a pissed-off look, then scampers off.
“Welcome home to you, too.”
I spend the next few minutes wandering through the downstairs, touching little things I missed seeing and looking at the way the dimming sunlight falls through windows.
Home.