Welcome to October! I had an “opportunity of a lifetime experience” a couple weeks ago. Former US Congressman and current Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture, John Salazar, asked me if I wanted to join him, and a few other life-long professional cowboys and cowgirls on a 4-day cattle drive. This was not a “dude ranch experience” offer in a nice hotel or with any gourmet meals – but a real-deal-all-work-and-no-play-endeavor. I of course said yes without any hesitation, promptly went out and proactively bought a bottle of Advil, and then sat down and asked myself how am I going to pull this off and hold my own with these folks? One of the first cowboys I met, before even saying hello, just looked at me when I arrived and said “you better be able to cowboy-up tomorrow…” and walked away. I just smiled and didn’t really know what to say – so I popped some Advil.

What an experience! I can’t even put it into words – other than say it was “Livin’ the Dream in God’s Country”. We road over 40 miles on horseback through some pretty gnarly wooded and mountain terrain, and drove over 400 head of cattle. We started at a beautiful mountain pasture near the headwaters of the Rio Grande River, and down into the warmer valley grazing areas below where the cattle will winter. We slept in old Army issued sleeping bags in a cloth tent with no heat, water or electricity – and cooked over a crop plowing disk that had a propane heater somehow welded underneath… It was awesome and I would do it again in heartbeat!

You can’t help but have a much deeper appreciation and understanding of the food that ends up on the grill or in the oven, on our plates at home, or in front us in restaurants, or that we see in the isles of grocery stores after an experience like this. I felt like it was “Truly American” at its core – and opened my eyes to a whole way of life that really is what makes this country tick.

The Salazar’s are developing their operation, “Salazar Ranch Beef”, into a 100% grass-fed, organic, “cradle-to-grave Colorado” cross between an Irish Limousin and Black Angus. Sage Restaurant Group is pleased to be able to work with them on this endeavor – and looks forward to being able to offer it to our customers exclusively in the near future.

While I have been playing – our teams and businesses across the country continue to do insanely great stuff – which I encourage you to read in our October blog.

Following are some photos of my trip. Enjoy!