Fun Valley

 

Sometimes its nice to take a vacation where all your meals are prepared in a resort area that has fun activities you enjoy doing. This is generally fairly expensive, but darn, we all work hard and deserve this occasionally. Here’s the story.

Fun Valley

 

Fun Valley is a mountain resort about 10 miles up the Wolf Creek Pass from South Fork, Colorado. They had national square dance callers come there in the summer months. We first went there in the summer of 1976 when we were visiting my Dads cabin in South Fork. At the time, we were square dancing with the Boots and Calico Square Dance Club in Borger, Texas. At that time you didn’t have to stay there to go to the dances. You just had to pay a fee at the gate. There were two other couples from our club there when we were there, and my cousin Rick and his wife, Charlene, were there also. So we had a full square. You were allowed to put up a club plaque if you had at least a square there. We danced about 4 nights while we were there. At one of the dances, they had some cloggers do an exhibition dance. This was the first time we had ever seen clogging and we loved it. We had no idea we would be doing it ourselves in 10 years. We had a great time dancing there that summer. The next summer we were in Colorado, they had changed the rules so you had to stay there to dance there. In 1978 we moved to Oklahoma City and got out of Square Dancing and stayed out until we moved to Bartlesville in 1983 when we joined Jane Phillips Square Dance Club.

 

Pam and I square dancing at Fun Valley in 1976.

 

The plaque we made in 1976 and nailed to the wall at Fun Valley. It may still be there?

 

By 1986, we were hardcore dancers and members of the “Mickey Mouse Gang” (see earlier blog). Lee Main, our club caller, was hired to be a caller at Fun Valley for the summer of 1986. We decided to make a reservation for a cabin and spent a week at Fun Valley in the summer of 1986. The place had changed a lot since 1976. They had built a new larger square dance hall, a stocked fishing pond, paddle boats, all day horse rides, miniature golf, and a large eating area where all the meals were prepared for the guests. We were pleased with all the improvements. Our daughters, Kristi and Tamara were 12 and 10 years old so there was plenty of fun things for them to do. The square dancing was great and we made friends with some Cajun dancers from Louisiana and we were having a great time. On the fourth night, I made the mistake of wearing a pink shirt with white ruffles on it and they weren’t so friendly after that. We had to dance mostly with old farts after that.

 

The entry to Fun Valley just off the Wolf Creek Pass highway west of South Fork.

 

The pink shirts with ruffles that the Cajuns thought was a bit too much.

 

The girls tried the stocked pond, but we found out you had to pay 1 dollar per inch for the fish from the pond, so we limited them to one fish apiece. They caught about $23 worth. They did clean them and cook them for the girls supper, however.

 

Kristi and Tamara with $23 worth of trout they had for supper that night.

 

Pam and I entered the paddle boat race and we kicked those Cajuns butts. We paddled to the bridge, made a sharp turn, and headed back to the finish line. We beat the closest boat by 5 boat lengths and we got a cheap little trophy.

 

The paddle boat race. Pam and I in the red boat heading for the finish line.

 

All four of us decided to take the all day trail ride. We left a 6 AM in the morning and rode up the mountain for 3 hours. My butt was seriously hurting when we got to the stopping point. They cooked up some steak and beans on top that were fantastic. I stood up the whole time. Then the hard part began. The trip down was much harder on the butt that the trip up. I was seriously hurting and I could feel nothing but numbness from my knees to the middle of my back. The best moment on that trip was when I saw that coral getting close.

 

Tamara and Kristi starting the all day trail ride at Fun Valley.

 

Pam, Tamara, and Kristi warming up on top of the mountain before food was served.

 

There were horses running loose on the property,  and Tamara was petting one when she spooked him. He came very close to kicking her in the head. Horses were our nemesis on that trip.

 

The horse Tamara spooked that almost kicked her in the head.

 

 

The girls tried the golf and we played some horseshoes. Overall, we had a fun week. We moved into my Dads cabin and enjoyed another week in cool Colorado.

 

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Thanks for reading Fun Valley,
Hawg Jaw Bill