After finding each other in a chat room online in December of 2000. Rich flew to Michigan from Boise, Idaho where he lived to meet me. This was after our conversations each night for three months online and over the phone. Rich had gone to Phoenix to compete in The Phoenix Gay Rodeo. We did not get to talk until the last day of the competition. He called that day to say he had won some events and was coming to see me in Detroit. The Day he arrived, Feb 15th, was one of the coldest days of the winter. It was -20 degrees with a wind chill of below -40F. The heater in my Oldsmobile Bravada had stopped working the day before, my driver side window got stuck in the down position and his flight was already late by three hours. I stood waiting in the baggage claim area waiting as his plane disembarked. Then I saw him. He was wearing his big, white stetson cowboy hat, had his rodeo buckle he had just one on his belt and was carrying a small, stuffed pony and a long stemmed red rose in his hands. He walked up to me and said "You must be my long-distance Baby!" I smiled and replied "and you must be my Blue Ribbon Cowboy!" He grabbed me up in his arms and kissed me, for what seemed like an eternity. Afterwards he looked around us at all the other people gazing at us and said out loud to all that could hear him..."That's right! He's mine and you can't have him!" We laughed and grabbed his luggage and left for home. He did not return to Boise until two months later when we drove cross country to get the rest of his belongings. That was the beginning to a beautiful life together. A relationship many felt was doomed from the start. Many people thought Rich was insane for moving 2000 miles to be with someone he barely knew and had only chatted online and on the phone with for a few months. They were fearful for him and thought he would get hurt. My family worried if I was making the right decision and if I needed my head examined. But we made it work. We knew it was right from the start and we did it together, every step of the way, side-by-side. Against all odds and oppositions we showed everyone that True, Unconditional and Devoted love can comes from the least likely of placed and overcome the most incredible of obstacles and endure, thrive and grow into something that only God could separate. We had found the kind of love that most people only dream about and never realize. We took the "big" risk on each other and found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in each others hearts!