Brown's Canyon, Salida & a serious Buckaroo

 Jim takes a shot in the late afternoon of the Collegiate Range of the Rockies which look down on the Brown's Canyon, or ranch land of the Salida, Colorado region. Precious metals are less prevalent here, but cattle and horses are everywhere. Range, and water, are what its all about.

Salida is a small town with alot going on. Only an hour and a half west of Colorado Springs, people love to weekend out here where rafting the Arkansas River, or horseback camping, or just watching the amazing sky is worth any drive.

The region has also become a summer destination for retirees looking for places to park their RV's                                                                                       for the season.

For one good friend of Jim's, Jaime (James) Whatley, Salida is his current home. He has lived many places throughout his life, including Nederland, where he and Jim met 17 years ago.

Jaime is Lakota Oglala Sioux and Mexican.  He grew up tough in several places around the west of America and Canada.  He is a barber, and a respected one.  His shop is in the historic downtown district of Salida.

But of everything he is, he has been most often a true BUCKAROO.

The word as it applies to Jaime, and others like him in the west, is not a wild-wester, or a rough, tough, shootin' hombre.  He and his brothers in the actual trade of riding after cows and wild horses are called Buckaroos only when they meet a high standard of work knowledge, dependability, and horsemanship.

Jaime is a barber.  and he breaks broncs, ropes calves and wrestles them to the ground for branding, and lives by a code essentially Christian with the spiritual aspects of his Lakota heritage and a great many hours of meditation in sweat lodges and in conversation with some of the wisest of his Sioux Nation today.

But best of all, Jaime is Jim's friend, and Mona and mine.  He is a good man who has seen hard times and made some tough, and sometimes bad, decisions. But he has been redeemed and is now showing others God's path to redemption. A path to God, and of love for all others.  A road that leads to joy more than pain.

Jaime is a barber, a buckaroo, and a good man.

We are glad he is also our son's friend.

-Ken