In the mail last week was a packet of letters from a family who had stayed as guests this past summer.  There were two teenage girls and their parents; while they were here they didn't strike us as anything out of the ordinary.  The girls worked pretty hard to appear cool, unaffected, and trendy, but the letters they sent after having a few months to reflect on their week were effusive, emotional, and very enthusiastic. 
We've seen this phenomenon we call the "Latigo Effect" many times in the past 20 years.  Our guests, like us all, come with various forms and intensities of brokenness.  Some pain they recognize, but some has been buried out of sight and out of mind.  When they spend a week at Latigo and allow themselves to absorb the beauty that surrounds us, healing begins.  This has nothing to do with us as owners and very little to do with our staff or our facilities.  Our job is to make the beauty easy to observe.  We keep people well fed, comfortable, and entertained, and God does the rest.

I read a devotional today that touched on this.  "I am convinced that God has built into all of us, in varying degrees, the capacity for an appreciation of beauty, and has even allowed us the privilege of participating in the creation of beautiful things and beautiful places.  I think it may be one way God brings healing to our brokenness, and a way that we can contribute toward bringing wholeness to our fallen world."

We're honored to have a role in God's plan for affecting our guests with Latigo's beauty, but we know that the biggest benefit of owning and operating Latigo is the first-hand healing and wholeness available to us.  What joy is there for the taking!a .....The Best Dude Ranch in Colorado!