Wow, we cannot believe we have not taken time since 2016 to write a blog! Where does time fly off to? So, sitting on a snowy Sunday afternoon looking at all of our beautiful alpacas, it is time to catch up! A lot has happened in 5 years and we feel proud of what we have built and achieved here at Pleasant Journey Alpacas. Our breeding choices have improved and thus, we see a much better quality herd than we had several years ago. Fortune has been with us to do well in shows, winning banners and gaining recognition in the alpaca industry. The proof also comes in being able to sell our alpacas to established ranches and to get new people involved in this great industry. Bringing new people into the industry and seeing the joy these animals bring to people is truly heart warming. The alpaca industry is made up of a lot of great individuals who are ready to talk, help and support one another. One of our dreams when we moved to Hesperus, CO in 2012 was to build a good agri-tourism business. We wanted people to come visit, meet alpacas and see great products that we offer made from the lovely alpaca fleece. It has been overwhelming for us that this has been achieved. 2020 was actually one of our best years for people visiting the ranch. When the woes of the world began in March of 2020 we, like many others, wondered what the year would be like. Well, well, well....for Pleasant Journey Alpacas, it was great. We had many ranch visits from local residents as well as tourists visiting the area. However, our biggest draw is our participation with HarvestHost.com. As a host location, we have RV's coming to stay on the ranch overnight and they are very supportive of us in terms of our ranch store. Trying to maintain "safe" for everyone, we held to one RV per night for most of the summer. Sadly, by doing that we were turning people away who wanted to stay with us and "spend the night with alpacas". In the fall we opened for more and had several nights of 4 RV's at a time. Everyone did well and maintained their "social distance". Our summer/fall brought so many smiles to people's faces and was our best year ever for the ranch store. Yes, it takes our time but it is worth every minute of it. 2020 gave us some of our best crias as well. Yes, a couple of heart breaks along the line but all in all, wonderful crias playing around and we are looking forward to show season in 2021. The reward in this comes with selling some of our young crias early on too. And we are happy that they are going to great homes! What have we been doing since the last blog in 2016.......well, making friends, re inventing our business, building an awesome herd and just plain staying busy! What is 2021 going to hold for Pleasant Journey Alpacas. We do not know, none of us have a crystal ball but we are sure it will be an interesting ride. We only hope for the best for our friends, our customers and our alpacas! Come visit us!