“Waiting For the Winner”
For the last twenty to twenty five years, my wife Corinne, and I visit Estes Park, Colorado in early December of every year. During our visits, one of the things we always try to do there is go to the Safeway Supermarket and get a picnic lunch (generally fried chicken) and take it up to the MacGregor Ranch for lunch. This watercolor painting is based on the first view that you will see from the road in the ranch near the entrance.
Of course, the elk in the painting are from my imagination; however, during our visits to the ranch we generally do see some wildlife.
The entrance gate to the MacGregor Ranch, founded in 1873, is just north of Estes Park on the first turn of the Devils Gulch Road. The last of the MacGregor family that owned the ranch was Muriel MacGregor. Before she died, she did a wonderful thing for all of us, our children and our children’s children through the ages. She set up the Muriel L. MacGregor Charitable Trust. This trust keeps the ranch pretty much the same way it has been for the last hundred years and we can all visit it.
The mission statement of her trust is as follows: “The mission of the Muriel L. Macgregor Trust is to continue operation of the MacGregor Ranch/Museum as a high mountain historic working ranch and to support youth education. This mission will be carried out by maintaining the presence of a cattle and horse herd, preservation and interpretation of historic buildings and education tours. The focus of the Ranch will be on quality experiences through respect for the land, the ranch and its history for the future generations of tomorrow’s leaders.”
The ranch is now part of our national park system and is open to the public in certain places such as the hiking trails. The ranch road, that is open to the public, goes by the museum, which was the MacGregor ranch home, the range manager’s home, the barns and pens and then on up to the side of the mountain near the base of Twin Owls Peaks.
When writing this, I had a flash-back to the day on this road when I saw a small flock of Red-breasted Nuthatches in a tree beside the road. And then the day up there when we watched three coyotes try to take a magpie away from another coyote that had caught it. At the end of this road up on the mountain side, there is a small gravel parking area, for a few cars, for the hiking trail that goes along the side of the mountain and into the valley that you can see in my painting. This hiking trail connects up with the hiking trails in Rocky Mountain National Park. We have walked for a mile or so up this trail a number of times.
It is generally cold up there at the parking lot in December, so we sit in the car, eat our chicken and enjoy the view. From up there, you look down on the ranch pastures in the foreground, the town of Estes Park in the middle distance and then in the distance the magnificent snow-capped peaks and mountain scenery of Rocky Mountain National Park as a backdrop. Sometimes we see elk grazing down in the pastures or see a coyote or two trot by. Believe me, there are no five star restaurants in the world with a better view.
Cheers,
Acree
P. S. I will be in the St. Francis Art Show, 2009, at 335 Piney Point, Houston, Texas , Saturday, Jan. 31 st, 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM, and on Sunday, Feb. 1 st, 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM.
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