If I believed in reincarnation, I would say I must have once been a Ute Apache. That would explain the connection my spirit has with this former hunting ground of Chief Ouray and company.<\/p>\n
For me, it was love at second sight. I first came here with the fam in the 80s to swim in the town’s famous hot springs pool. But it was just a day trip, and all I remember is that the kids cut their feet on the rough cement bottom.<\/p>\n
Then, in 1999, Charlotte, Joni and I drove my Toyota 4 X 4 pickup over precarious Engineer Pass and into America’s Little Switzerland. While eating lunch, sitting on an outside deck, gawking at majestic peaks that rise abruptly on three sides, it happened.<\/p>\n
I fell in love. With a place.<\/p>\n
In The Last Battle<\/em>, C. S. Lewis suggests that heaven looks like our favorite places on earth, only better. Much better.<\/p>\n I hope so. I really hope so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If I believed in reincarnation, I would say I must have once been a Ute Apache. That would explain the connection my spirit has with this former hunting ground of Chief Ouray and company. For me, it was love at second sight. I first came here with the fam in the 80s to swim in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}