I awkwardly twirled and swayed, feeling every bit of my fifty-three years. Pretty people, mostly in their twenties and thirties, rocked about me shouting and whistling, urging the guitarist, my husband, on with his riff of fingers moving fast and furious across the frets with an occasional wail when he would slide his hand up and down the length of the strings. He would glance over to the other musicians in the band for his cue to bring it up or down a notch. The drummer hit his cymbals with precise abandon, the bass player drove the groove and rhythm and the singer spoke to the dancers in the language of lyric and blues with deep and sexy tones, and the crowd who packed the small dance floor at the old western Lariat Saloon in Grand Lake, Colorado, carried on with the uninhibited boogie until one o’clock in the morning.

I danced with a seventy year old and a twenty-two year old who sweetly said to me when I told him that the guitarist was my husband, “He isn’t going to beat me up for dancing with you, is he?” I assured him that he would not.

The urchin who slept at the table, occasionally nursing a glass of beer, pulled out a bag of weed from his pocket just to see if it was still there, raising his head long enough to sneeze on my drink and then fell into his slumber again with his head so close to the speakers I could only imagine the ringing in his ears that he would surely be hearing for days to come.

Waking up the following morning to the sound of the announcements that were blaring throughout the town from the SUV with bullhorns perched atop telling us to come join the pancake breakfast and Buffalo BBQ was harsh and amusing. Dipping our toes into the cold lake waters while watching sail boats gracefully skim by was delicious and reminded me of how I miss living near water and that I must do this more often.

Coming home to my stepdaughter’s visit and the huge smile that seeing her put on my husband’s face was wonderful. One of our outings had us at dinner at TAG in Denver followed by a trip to the Denver Botanic Gardens where there is a fabulous Chihuly Exhibit in residence through November 30, 2014.

If you are not familiar with his works, Dale Chihuly is an international glass artist who has led the avant-garde in the development of glass as a fine art. The marriage of the incredible glass sculptures amongst the gardens is truly spectacular. If you live in the area or are traveling through Denver, this is a must see.

We were also treated to this absolutely scrumptious blueberry and peach cobbler that my stepdaughter, Stephenie made for us.

Truth be told, it was so yummy that Ric, Stephenie and I devoured the smaller cobbler before dinner (we made two, one small and one larger for photography purposes), and we all made room for a second helping after dinner.