Ruthie, you are my hero! Way to go, Lady! My sister had cancer some years ago and beat it. She still gets her checkups. I have terminal melanoma and take treatments for it. Just don't want to leave my wife of 20 years... lol Couldn't make it without her. One of the tumors is in the rear part of my brain which they say controls motor movement. I have learned to live with it, just not the stares of the people in the restaurants as I come staggering in.... lol ps. I still garden too. woopee ty yie yippe yippie yaa for Ruthie! Shot

Isn't this the same photo you posted in the other ID thread where you thought it was Verbena bonariensis but wasn't?? Did you mean to post another picture? Vera

Had never heard of the websites, thanks for that. Love seeing the pics. Had a Maltese as the kids were growing up but he passed away after 17 years!!! Loved him. Now I have become a 'cat lady'. Have always rescued cats, taking them to the shelter to have them fixed and placed for adoption. I also fostered a couple of kitties this past winter. I have of course Bowie who is very affectionate, his mother was dropped off here with five babies. All were taken care of and two adopted out. Kept Bowie, but no one wanted his mother, she is very shy, I suspect she was treated badly. I also have the sister Chloe, who is also shy, but a sweet cat. Here is a pic of the three together. Bowie, Mommie Kittie, and Chloe. They are a very closeknit family!! Bowie follows me everywhere when I am outside, which is of course all day long !! They stay outside and I have a shelter for them when the weather is cold. Then I have Sweetums, who is my spoiled inside baby, never was going to have an 'inside' cat, my daughter found her abandoned at a park several years ago when she ( my daughter) was taking pictures, just before winter, she was starving, and we couldn't leave her. There were two kittens, and my daughter's boyfriend's mother took the other one. So Sweetums stayed in the house to recover from the surgery (spaying) and then I didn't know how the others would react to her and she is long haired. So needless to say she stayed in and I love having her in the house. She is very quiet and very well behaved. She has bonded completely to only me, hides when anyone comes over. This is her living the good life. Then lastly and once again never thought I would have a cat inside. This is scaggs. I named him scraggly, cause he was such a mess and no one knew what his name had been. Very sad story, his owner who had been evicted from his home, just left his cat outside on the porch of the house, after he had been an inside cat for almost two years. There were a couple of businesses in the neighborhood and they would feed him, but not every day. I knew about it and couldn't stand it, so I took him to the vet, he had already been neutered. Other than being hungry, he was in good health. But he was a big mess. He had been living under a dumpster for awhile, (after crying on that porch for weeks,) and with his long fur, it was a disaster, so I took him to the groomers to have him cleaned up. He stayed in my garage then for a few weeks, while I tried to find a home for him, He is very loving, and seemed thrilled to be in a garage. I slowly introduced him to sweetums, and it worked out, so in he came and now i have the both of them inside and they get along great. He is the 'company' cat, cause he likes people, in spite of what he went through. Boy that was long, sorry. Aren't you glad you started this!!! Cindy

Hi Pixie, When you posted about Little House on the Prairie I looked some things up and was planning to post but just haven't found the time! I'm glad you explained why you wanted to do the plains! At least now it makes sense! After you posted I looked up DeSmet on google Earth--to get the "lay of the land," and I think your daughter would be really disappointed with the "plains" we have out here compared to the terrain you'll find in eastern SD. The link I posted to a pic of "our" plains up above really is pretty accurate--there is simply nothing out there! If you do DeSmet I doubt that she'll actually be looking at "the land" very much when you do it, and she'll have all the Little House things, which is what she actually thinks of when she's reading the books. (Love it when kids are reading books!) So rather than taking her for a hot, dry, flat drive, and destroying her mental image of Little House, I now very definitely think you should skip the plains and enjoy the extra time in the hills! A couple things about the fishing if you're gonna stick that in. Wherever you do it you'll need a Colorado fishing license, so be sure you plan ahead for that so you're not disappointed. And if you do decide to go to the Poma Ranch near Pagosa Springs, you'd really need to stay there two nites to have time for fishing. Checkin is at 3:00, so that wouldn't leave much time on the day you arrive, and checkout is at 10:00, so there wouldn't be time on the day you were leaving. The Weminuche River that runs thru the ranch flows very gently and it could easily be fished wading or from the bank. Check out their Fishing page at the link below, and there's more fishing info on their FAQs page, including that they rent "basic" and "kids" fishing gear at the ranch. I don't really know anything about fishing so I'm not sure what all that would include, but if you're seriously considering it and have any questions, call the ranch and ask for Karen! Also, since the river flows gently--and is shallow (a "river" out here is not the same as a "river" in the midwest or east!) your daughter might enjoy wading around in it (probably with a pair of cotton tennis shoes or at least flip flops since the bottom will be "rocky")! But she probably wouldn't stay in too long since water in the mountains is COLD--it's melted snow--and the ranch is at 8,000'! Also, if you're seriously considering staying there, PM me and I'd be glad to send you some more pictures of the inside (and outside) of the Hideaway cabin! I've stayed there three times now so I have pics of the outsides of the other cabins too. This is a favorite pic! I couldn't help but smile the first time I drove in there and saw the Welcome Home sign! I immediately knew I was gonna love the place! (The sign is on the back side of the "bathhouse" building that has the "waterfall showers!") And before I got to the welcome home sign (on the small building on the right) I ran into this roadblock on the drive in! (If it looks gloomy, that's because it was raining on and off on the drive from Pagosa to the ranch the first year I stayed there! Then, right after I got there, the sun came out just in time for sunset!) This was a view heading out of Pagosa toward the ranch that year! The ranch is in them thar hills! I also highly recommend the "Cozy House" at Dolores for the Cortez part of your trip, and would be glad to send you a bunch of pics of that place too to help you decide if you're interested. One more thing since Zinnia brought up Dinosaur Ridge! Just a little further down the road, in Morrison, is a place called Tiny Town! Perhaps in lieu of Little House your daughter would like to see some "little houses"---and other buildings! I don't have time to live link these pages, but here's a copy/paste link to their site, and if you google for images of Tiny Town you'll come up with lots of pics of the buildings with people standing by them so you can get the scale. I haven't been out to this place since the late 70's when it was a run down (tiny) ghost town all overgrown with weeds, but it's been all spiffied up and is back in business, and this could be a real fun Kid Thing! You could plan your whole last day to do Red Rocks, the dinosaurs, and Tiny Town, and then head to the airport for your last nite's lodging! http://tinytownrailroad.com/ Out of time for tonite! I can't wait to find out what all you finally decide to do! Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: Fishing on the V. A. Poma Ranch!