The Outdoors Clique. That’s how I think of them. There are many sub-cliques within the outdoors world, but in Durango, Colorado, I enjoyed mixing with three of them.

I’ll never be a real outdoorsman — I’m too lazy — but I’m attracted to them any time I’m around them — it’s the cliché of the moth attracted to flame: I’m the moth and the outdoorsmen are the flame. When I’m around them I talk to them, and then I listen to them.

Ranchers and Farmers Clique

The first outdoors sub-group I encountered included ranchers and farmers in Southwest Colorado. My landlady, Holly, (featured in my previous blog, Number 9) is one. I didn’t see her much while I was there. She was too busy working, but I encourage you to check out that blog for my impressions. Another, Denny, was the neighboring rancher. Holly told us about him when we first walked through the property. “The neighbor over there,” Holly said, pointing to his house, barn and corrals, “is Denny. He’s an old guy. No one has the nerve to ask him how old he is. He was in some movies a long time ago; he’s just a rancher now. He won’t mind if you hike up his private road.” But, she added, “Make sure you shut the gates.”

Denny

I met him the first morning at the farm when I took Lucy, our schnauzer, for a run through the back 40 acres to watch the sun rise over the mountains. I was standing in the middle of a large overgrown cow field when he walked out of his barn with a stout white and brown working dog at his side. He walked with a cowboy’s off-balance gait, dressed in old jeans and boots and an old straw cowboy hat over a face decorated with a bushy gray mustache hanging down over his jaws.

He went into the field next to where my dog and I stood, a field flush with green hay, and two large draft horses who were grazing there ran to him like puppies. When the horses reached him, they and the dog maneuvered for his attention. I gathered my dog on her leash — she’d been running free through the field — and we hiked over to introduce ourselves.

Spying us, his dog jumped through the fence and ran menacingly towards us. We jerked to a stop. His dog pulled up, smelled me, smelled Lucy, but, at a yell from Denny, quickly lost interest and ran back to stand at Denny’s side. I walked up to the fence, said hello, said who I was, and said that he had some beautiful horses. Denny growled like he didn’t have time for me, but he was polite, said thank you, and that he had to get the horses in the trailer. “I have a parade at the church.”

I saw Denny several more times, but I never got a chance to talk to him again — and I understood why no one dared to ask him something personal like his age.

Fly Fishing Clique

A few days later, Melinda and I hired a guide named Patrick at one of the local outdoors stores on Main Street to take us fly fishing. She surprised me when she told me that she’d always dreamed of doing it; so had I. (I loved those stores, and spent too much time in them while in Durango. It got to where the employees looked at me like, “There he comes again.” I didn’t care, much — I just enjoyed listening to them discuss streams, fish, climbing, and the weather with customers and each other).

Patrick took us 8,000 to 10,000 feet up into the High Country to fly fish little streams. The valley where the streams ran was stunningly beautiful. Patrick acted like it was just every day scenery, as, of course, it was to him. We hiked upstream through little creeks in ice-cold water, and I felt like a nine-year old boy playing in the river bed. My sister, Brenda, has said that when I actually was nine and our family camped along the Red River that I kept falling into the water until I didn’t have any dry clothes left. So I guess I’ve never really grown out of it.

We both hooked several fish, and Melinda actually caught one, with Patrick’s help. (Anyone could catch a trout if Patrick was by their side helping, but we still felt the glow of accomplishment). We fished until I announced I was done. One of the many parts of that day that made it magical was spending it with Patrick, watching him operate, and listening to him talk about fishing and Colorado.

The Adventurers Clique

The third clique (much harder to mix with on this trip) was the twenty-something adventure crowd. I’d first encountered kids like these when we camped at Joshua Tree National Park and came up on a group rock climbing. They’re young, seem completely unafraid, and live a different lifestyle with a different set of rules. We saw them while we were riding mountain bikes down the slopes of the Purgatory Ski area. On a mountain bike, those slopes are scary steep, but we both came down pretty well. But when a line of those young men and women would approach us from behind, we would pull out of the trail and stop. They’d swoop by us at unbelievable speeds, jumping and sliding as they went. Just as we’d experienced with the kids at Joshua, they were very careful around us old folks. They gave us space and thanked us as they swept past in a blur. I do enjoy watching them test their limits.

All of these different outdoorsmen (and women) live lives I envy. Not enough to do anything about it, of course, but I still envy them. You may be one of them. If you are, know that I envy you, too. If you’re not, you may know someone who is.

Have you ever wanted to be unafraid to climb a cliff? Or to be the fly fisherman, like Patrick, who has a set of fishing flies pinned to the visor over his car’s steering wheel because they mean something to him?

I like to dabble in outdoor adventures, too, and — occasionally — I actually do; but unlike the young adventurers, I need a guide.

I’m good with that.