Story Meadow

   The Ranger talked about how The Cabin is a place where our family grows. He talked about some the places nearby that we enjoy within a few hundred yards of The Cabin. We love those places and visit them every day. But there is another “must go” place at The Cabin. It’s the place we learned how to fish, where we access the Continental Divide Trail, where we get to some of our elk hunting grounds and where we grow closer to our Heavenly Father. (Heck, it’s even the place where my dad proposed to my mom.) This place is called Story Meadow.

Okay, it isn't really called Story Meadow, but that’s as close as I’m going to get (We have to keep some cards close to the ol’ vest, after all!). It’s not much of a hike from the trailhead, but it’s time enough to tell a story or two. Grandpa has shared many stories about his dad and his dad’s friends on the trail to and from Story

The Ranger and The Apprentice

Meadow. The Ranger and me love these stories. I’ll save typing any of them down for Grandpa to do, for fear of butchering them (and he can tell a story just about better than anyone – although I’m still trying to figure out which ones are true…). All the stories have a purpose - some of them are hilarious and for pure entertainment, some of them are to illustrate life lessons, and some of them are about what not to do (just ask him sometime about riding a horse in a lightning storm). We have all laughed and learned on the way to Story Meadow.

   We go to Story Meadow at least once during a trip to The Cabin – it’s an absolute must. In the summertime, one of the main reasons we go is to fish. We get up in the morning at The Cabin, pack a lunch and the worms, and head to the Meadow. When we get there, we head for our picnic spot where the non-fishers get out their books and the babies get put down for a nap. The fishers then head

out to see how many we can catch. We’ve all caught some of our first fish in this meadow – from our moms on down. And although the fish don’t normally get much bigger than six inches, it’s always a special feeling watching small hands reeling in them in. And when it’s time to head back to The Cabin, we clean the fish in the same spot we’ve done it for decades, then pack up and head out.

       Story Meadow is also the gateway to some of our elk hunting grounds. Almost every year we walk through it, sometimes hopping over the creek, sometimes falling in the creek, at around 4:00 A.M and again at 8:30-9:00 P.M. to get to where we sit at during dawn. It is amazing walking through that meadow with no artificial light sources but our flashlights and the stars above. Walking beneath the skies at this time of day or night, I sometimes think of Javert from the musical, Les Miserables:

Stars

In your multitudes
Scarce to be counted
Filling the darkness
With order and light
You are the sentinels
Silent and Sure
Keeping watch in the night
Keeping watch in the night

It really does feel like that. You can look up and see thousands of stars and galaxies. They look down at you, and you are reminded of how loving Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ must be to have created all of those worlds and stars, just for you and me.

     We all have our special places. In one of my family’s favorites, we fish, we hunt, we learn, and we grow closer to our Heavenly Father. I love this place. It helps our family grow closer together. It is our special place.

-The Apprentice