A New Chapter

This has been quite the summer of change for me. I started out with the intent of helping Meris and Seth out at their ranch for a couple months. As the summer progressed though, it became clear to me that I had found my way back to doing something I love.

Summer 2005

It all began when Meris and I met working at a dude ranch in Colorado in 2005. I worked there for 2 summers and fell in love with the West and ended up moving out to Colorado after graduating. Meris was still working at the ranch for a third summer when she convinced me to quit my first real grown up job and come back and be a wrangler for the summer (do you see a pattern with Meris here ;) ). Over the years as I moved back East and got my MBA and started a career and bought a house I kept in touch with Meris (who had since bought Geronimo Trail) and had gone back to visit multiple times. She asked me every so often to come out and work but I always had an excuse. I was always thinking of her out there living her dream though.

Summer 2006

So this past May when Meris emailed and asked me to come and work my first thought was actually 'yes!'. It all happened so quick that my original plan was to just quit my job and find something else when I got back in August. However, I was offered to take a leave of absence for the summer and come back to my job in August. I was floored and obviously accepted since I figured I could just live my dream for a few months and come back to reality. I just assumed dude ranching was a chapter of my life that I had already closed.

My first visit to Geronimo in 2007

When I arrived in New Mexico, I jumped right back into wrangling and housekeeping and other vagaries of ranch life. I was back in the saddle again! It wasn't until the first time it rained though that I was immediately flooded with scent memories of Colorado and it reminded me how much I had truly missed this environment.

Visiting in 2009

Eventually the Geronimo team offered me to stay full time at the ranch and take over some more of the operational aspects. I was faced with my dream but it was a hard decision as it meant leaving the security I had built up over the last 6 years with my job. However with every week that went by talking with the guests and going over my job history, my degree in marketing, my MBA in entrepreneurship, my love of nature, my friendship with Meris and her family, that it made me realize that everything in my life had been leading up to this job. It was funny because the first thing my Dad said when I told him I was going to help Meris out for the summer was "i always knew you'd end up back out there". I was quick to remind him that it was just for a summer but he must have known.

Visiting in 2013

Leaving KJT Group was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do as that was the first place where I actually had a career and not just another job. I had been through so many ups and downs there but the people and the culture were the reason I stuck it out as I felt it was the best workplace in the world. The whole company has been nothing but kind and supportive and it was more than I could ever hope for. They helped mold me into the professional that I am today and I am forever grateful for all the knowledge, skills, and experience I learned there.

Everything has been happening so quickly but as I have been home visiting for the past week, people have been commenting on how happy I am and that is the greatest compliment I could receive because Grandpa Burns always told me to do what made me happy. Well Grandpa, I finally found it!

Summer 2016