Remembering the Firsts

Arriving

It's been four weeks since our frantic closing up of the cabin and the toboggan ride down our long, steep, snow glutted driveway in our SUV.  It was an exhilarating first stay in the beautiful completed cabin, and exhausting too, feeling driven to get this image I'd been working towards for a year and a half out of my head and into reality.

Bottom of the toboggan run...oops, I mean driveway

We had to move out of the trailer to move into the cabin.  And then there was all the stuff we'd brought with us and a huge truckload of things stored in our friends' basement in Colorado Springs which required fetching.  After a couple of nights of sleeping on the floor on pads we realized our 60-something bodies were none to pleased with that and a 100 mile round trip run to Costco for a bed was an imperative.  We decided to stop by the Broadmoor Consignment stop, not far off our route in The Springs, just to have a look.  We ended up buying a table, a couch and an antique dresser; another trip to pick them up.  All the shelves in the kitchen a bathroom had to be lined before moving into those rooms.  And there was the kitschy fake white Christmas tree to get up and decorate and the colored lights to be put up on the porch.  Artwork I'd been collecting needed hanging, the bathroom towel bars, hooks and holders had to be installed, as did the swing-arm reading lamps in the bedroom.  Firewood had to be fetched from the pile and moved near the back door, and the fire needed tending relentlessly.  There was a lot to do, but it was exciting to see the vision of a finished, furnished cabin become a reality.

There were a lot of firsts:

First running water EVER!

First fire in the wood burning stove

First morning's light on the knotty pine ceiling

First snow storm

First cabin Christmas

First sub-zero (note the minus in front of the 13)

First overnight guests

First snow for a desert dog (an unhappy desert dog)

First hypothermia for a desert dog

First watching of ice skating on the lake below the cabin

We also had our first family visit; Bob's three nieces made the three hour trip from Denver for lunch and a hike, pre-snow (and we also had the first announcement of a pregnancy during that visit, a great-nephew with whom to look forward to sharing the cabin).  We had our first dinner guests, our dear friends from across the lake -- after years of incredible hospitality from them it was such a thrill to host them in the comfort of a real cabin.  We had neighbors stop by for hot chocolate, and other vigilant ones to check to see what the lights and chimney smoke were all about (they were relieved to find us there and not interlopers).

Each day was so fraught with "firsts", so thrilling, and yes, so exhausting.  After a year and a half of planning, consulting with our builder, Brian Shelton, two months of being on site during the construction, deciding on materials, looking for just the right things to help make it an "instant" home, and writing checks that made my hands shake, we were finally able to live inside the dream turned to reality.

It was so hard to leave right when I could see that I might be able to just sit and enjoy our labors for a day, but duty called.  The white knuckled, but successful 4-wheel drive sleigh ride down the long steep driveway behind us, the road slowly improved, and soon -- too soon -- we were heading south to our other home in the Sonoran desert where we'll once again dream of the reality of the cabin and look forward to a long, and often lazy, summer in the cool Colorado Rockies.

Desert homeward bound