July 6

We left the next morning with Buena Vista, CO as our next destination. Here, among the 14,000 foot peeks is Jumpin' Good Goat Dairy, which we toured. The dairy itself was not that amazing, nor was the tour guide that interesting, but oh the goats! We got to handle and love on so many goats! They let them out to the grazing fields and we got to interact with them. The kids were snagging their shirts and shorts away from their mouths, petting them, mimicing their bleating. It was fun. One scratched it's head against my butt for several seconds. Then we saw the babies, petted them. Then we saw the newborns. I got to hold a 4 day old goat baby and, get this, name it! They name all their goats so I asked if they had named the newborn and they said no, so I got to name it Dutch, in honor of my husband and his people.

Dutch!

On our way back to the store to sample fresh goat cheese, a lady on a tractor stopped in front of us and asked if she could have Rhys join her at the controls. Um, heck yeah. So after a few minutes of instruction, he was off around the farm, lifting and lowering the bucket and returning with a big grin. I learned then, that she was the owner of  the farm, whom I had been talking about with the not very informative tour guide. She is in her 60s, still working the farm/dairy, and looking very healthy.

Our next go was Independence Pass in which we stopped at the continental divide after some hairpin turns that I must say I handled like a pro. Then on to Independence, a mining ghost town, and the Grottos, a waterfall and carved out rocks from the erosion.

Hugging aspen near Aspen, CO

We made our way into Aspen and walked around John Denver Sanctuary. Got a photo with Rhymes and Reasons, one of my favorite songs of his. We made it back to the car just as it started to rain and continued on to Glenwood Springs for the evening.

Rhymes and Reasons

Rocky Mountain High...seems appropriate for this trip!