Letter to the Editor: People thankful for Meeker hospitality

Dear Editor:
We just arrived back from Meeker, Colo., after our 20-plus years of hunting in your county. I felt it necessary to write and thank the members of your town for their great hospitality.
We are both senior citizens and feel so thankful that we are still able to hunt. In our earlier years, we camped, cooked our meals and struggled to take care of our own meat. However, we now enjoy the wonderful accommodations at the White River Inn (we have been staying with LD Grove for almost 17 years).
With arthritis taking a toll on both our bodies, it is so helpful to be able to return from the field to a clean, comfortable room and be able to take a nice warm shower to rejuvenate our bodies after climbing the hillsides after elk.
We then found the perfect place to have our evening meals. Kris and Henry Arcolesse and their wonderful staff made us feel so welcome (almost as if we were family) each evening as we arrived at Ma Famiglia for “supper.” Note: We still have not met Mr. Arcolesse, but if the quality of his meals are any indication of his talents, we know he, too, is someone special.
Finally, we can’t say enough about how our meat has been processed by H and H Processing. We met the Halandras family the first year they began processing wild game. Having spent many of my working years as a chef and baker for several ranches and resorts, I am very particular about how our meat is handled.
We love the fact that our animal is processed in a spotless stainless steel kitchen and that all our packages contain only the meat from our hunt.
I just opened the first package from this year’s hunt and, again, we were looking at clean meat that looks like it came out of a high-class meat market. While we did not get to see John this year, we had nice visits with both Tawny and Regas. They too made us feel like part of their family.
Thanks to everyone who made our trip so nice. Now, if someone could arrange with the One Up Above to bring a little snow in during the second rifle season so that more elk were drawn down a little lower, it would be perfect.
We did get a nice cow elk, and she is resting well in our freezer.
Bobbi and Jim Futterer
Fort Collins