Taylor and I did a 'medium distance' relationship for a full two years. He was in McCook Nebraska, and I lived in Brush Colorado. That's 3 hours, 172 miles one way! We took turns on who would travel each weekend to keep it even. Every Friday when the work day was over the duffle bag was waiting in my car or his truck so we could enjoy our weekends together. After some time we decided enough was enough and I moved to McCook on Easter of 2023. In our travel of 110 weeks before choosing to live together that comes to a grand total of 37,840 miles and 660 hours driven(and that is rounding down), to say we were familiar with US 34 for would be a massive understatement!

*Monday, April 7th 2025* It had been a long day at work and I was content coming home and easing off the day with a slow relaxing evening of doing nothing. Taylor was waiting outside for me with his El Camino ready to go - and when I saw our bread collection sitting in the middle bench seat I knew where we were headed. I remember it made me smile, Taylor and I occasionally go feed ducks down at Barnett Park- it's our little special date when we want to switch it up and a relatively rare occasion. I told him I would be right back to change out of my work clothes. Given that I was tired from the daily grind I didn't exactly choose my Sunday best for this occasion - I dawned perhaps the most faded T-shirt I own with my least favorite pair of jeans (they were close at hand, laundry was in the dryer-you get it) Wiped my makeup for the day off and returned as promised. My boyfriend said goodbye to our close neighbor and off we went. It was early April, the chill of early Spring was still in the air and I was glad to get a moment in the sun and fresh air in my lungs- he was happy too as we exchanged our usual stories of how each others day went. That was until we got to our location of course. Barnett Park has resident and non resident ducks and we always make our way around the entire park trying to find where in which pond they had chosen to peruse that day to feed them. We circled the park damn near three times, we weren't finding them. I remember thinking he was trying much more than usual to find this particular set of water fowl but I wrote it off knowing that we preferred our ducks rather than the grumpy Canadian Geese or the theft prone flying gulls that linger in the park at that time of year. Finally, (duckless) he took me into the small stone shore where people are known to push small boats in the water. There were some Canadian Geese near there and we planned to lure them in with our bread because second best is better than nothing at all. We talked a little, mostly quiet as we enjoyed our peaceful tradition in the early Spring air. I was standing closer to the water line tossing North and Taylor was behind me tossing West where I couldn't see him. He says he had to reload his supply and I thought nothing of it- nodding my acknowledgement. I think a minute-maybe two went by before I heard him again. I remember he cleared his throat, but as I write this I still can't remember if he said my name. Either way he had caught my attention and I turned around to see him smiling on one knee, ring in hand asking me to Marry him. The first thing I remember is tears, and then a series of gasps that then turned into shocked repetitive laughs as I stared at him. I think I was so happy he actually had to ask me a follow up "Is that a yes?" because I had forgotten to answer him. Fast forward to about 10 minutes later, after the confirmation call to his mother had been made about the plans she was already aware of - the topic got brought up if the popular practice of recording/photographing the moment had happened. He explained that if I had looked at him, and then saw a camera he knew with how self conscious I am that it would have distracted or disturbed me so no- there is no evidence of this moment happening-and I think there's something beautiful in that. His proposal was so him, so us, so natural. He isn't a fan of makeup, we are both very private, and it wasn't just a proposal for me-it was for us. Duckless shore and faded shirt be damned- we had made it.