This morning, I left the metropolis of Freedom, Oklahoma to go to Denver, Colorado, a tiny town you've probably never heard of. Or something like that.
Because I went home each night when I shadowed Shannon, this visit with Jan was my first full-time stop. I hadn't ever been to western Oklahoma, and this, friends, is the way to do it. When I showed up Wednesday night, Jan and her husband Arly were sitting on the porch watching the sun go down. No phones, no music—no invasions of modern technology save the impressive line of pickups parked in the drive. My arrival was greeted by introductions and hugs, then we all sat back down on the porch and watched night come. I was in bed by ten. This, I thought, is gonna be good.
And it was. My awareness of time disappeared like the "ing"s off the ends of my participles, and for the next two days I lived on ranch time. Thursday morning, Arly and Jan took me to feed the cows. We rode the pickup around their pastures, feeding the cows with a contraption on the truck bed that dropped the cows' food onto the ground. A few cows had been raised by their kids for cow shows, so I got to feed those by hand.
We went to town for lunch and ate with Jan's sweet friend Sharon. After lunch, we toured Freedom, which has two restaurants, a bank, a museum, and a school. They showed me where the rodeo is later in the summer, when the town swells from 250 people to 10,000. The rest of the day consisted of recipe-making, cow-feeding, a long, lovely walk, and watching the sun set. Idyllic.
On Friday, Jan took me around Alva and the surrounding area to visit her home health patients. She is a physical therapist who visits Medicare patients who are homebound. This was fascinating and interesting and I think I could write a whole book just on that day, from 8am to 4pm. I got to watch not only how the patients responded to physical therapy, but how the family members interacted in different ways with these patients. Jan was present and patient and completely impressive—by the end of our last appointment I was exhausted.
Dinner was breakfast food—plain pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, pumpkin pancakes, and pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes. Pancakes are one of my absolute favorite foods, and I about ran Jan and Arly out of chocolate chips by the end of the meal.
Jan and I followed dinner with another beautiful walk. I took my camera, which made me feel like the Pioneer Woman. We took this pic because Jan said Ree had done it before; I was a fan even though my angle is a little wonky.
I continued channeling the Pioneer Woman by photographing some cows, though with tawdry results. Actually, the pictures are decent, but they're not PW's, and I wanted to use the word tawdry.
Then Jan began to take pictures of me, taking pictures of the cows.
Then I began to take pictures with myself with the cows, but the camera lens wasn't cooperating, so Jan donated her phone, so I got that picture, then Jan hopped in and we got one together, with the cows of course. And those pictures are so good (read: bad) that I'm hiding them away. Catch them in the book? You'll have to read it to find out.
Anyway, we got back to the house after the sun had gone down. We joined Arly on the porch, and I took this crummy picture even though the exposure was off because I wanted a snap of the memory.
And I left this morning. The time spent there was amazing, and it stretched so wonderfully slowly, I learned tons, but you'll have to wait to hear all that. For now, to finish, this adorable picture of Arly, who doesn't like being in pictures (I empathize), so I took this when he didn't know. Stellar second stop! Tune in tomorrow to hear about adventures in Denver!
