Anyone who has ever followed the path of their heart, not the normal path, knows it's not easy, and there are days you even hate it, for how much you love it. I was my daughter's age when I decided I wanted to be a writer. Me, in the Colorado mountains. As any writers and artists know, there were many days and years when I felt depressed, trapped and angry -- that I didn't make an easier choice. I remember one day, crying because I could not pay the bills, thinking that be

Maybe I'm a risk-taker. Maybe I just like to travel off the beaten path. But the highlight of my recent road trip from Northern Colorado to Southwest Colorado (nine hours, in a car, with a 5-year-old) was a last-minute choice to stay the night in a remote yurt in Mancos. OK, I admit it, I wanted to say the word "yurt." And this yurt had a llama. And it was my birthday, and I wanted to do something different. We stayed at the Thunderbird Ranch's yurt, on 83 acres off a long, d