And the word of the day is 'Train' people . . .

So if you read the Facebook entries or listened to the Stable Scoop interview, you know that leaving Little America we headed into a large and lengthy Lightening storm. I was nervous, tense, terrified, the horses . . . couldn't have cared less. Now this might seem like the notable instance from this day, but oddly enough it wasn't. This was an unusual day, we had the storm. We were stopped, chased down and intercepted by several people, one of which drove many miles out of their way to come off the interstate to get back to us. I made a grown man cry, I am taking his trip, and had a woman begging me to let her ride one of the girls, she had left her horse in California and missed him terribly. All of this was not really all that memorable as the first tunnel of the trip.
We rode into Green River and through town based on the directions given us by our soon to be host family, the Spaldings, and arrived at the tunnel. It was a train underpass tunnel. It ran under the train yard, about 100 yards long and in the center, a full tunnel width metal grate. Delightful didn't hesitate to head down into the dark, the Train passing over head blaring its horn and squealing its brakes didn't phase her in the slightest. The traffic passing us from the other direction was no cause for concern as was the traffic behind us. All was calm, cool and proceeding with ease, until we reached the grate. It all happened in a few seconds, she stopped, dropped and rolled, back into traffic that is, spinning on her haunches and trying to head back the way we came, I kept her turning, in a full circle, presented her with the grate again and this time she kind of hopped and skidded over it. For this we received a round of applause from the waiting traffic, all of which had backed out of the tunnel as soon as she spun. The most amusing part of this incident for me was that Mystic just followed us around in the circle and over the grate with an odd expression on her face, I wonder if she was thinking that when she was the lead horse, she didn't circle all the time. These 2 horses are amazing, with a few exceptions, they are nearly bomb proof. Just keep the ducks away from Mystic and the mosquitoes away from Delightful and you are golden.

We're Coming to America, little America that is . . .

Now leaving the Land of the Lamborns we headed for my next destination, Little America, down Hwy 30 towards the intersection with I-80. I have been dreading this for weeks, you see, in Wyoming the only way across the state is by interstate highway. That means I have 2 options. Option 1 ride down the grass verge of the interstate, not a good option for several reasons. It is against the law, even in Wyoming, and more importantly, if something happens and I lose the pack horse or come off the saddle horse, they can wander onto the highway. Option 2 ride cross country through the desert. Also not a great option as you have to deal with the rough terrain, rocks, gullys, sage brush, scorpions, snakes and increased heat.
So as I rode along the verge of hwy 30 I contemplated my options and decided upon a combination of the two. I would cross the desert after reaching Granger and meet up with the interstate and ride the last few miles down it to reach my camp for the night.
I arrived at Granger, a small town rumored to have a cafe/store. It didn't, but it did have some nice people that gave me 2 bottles of water, which I needed since my large jug had exploded about 2 hrs into our day leaving me without water on a 10 hr riding and walking day(Thanks to the nice Oil men that gave me a bottle and the wonderful motorist that stopped to give me another). After downing one immediately, I put the other in my saddle tote and headed back to the highway and across and through the pass through gate to take the mares down to the river for a long drink. It is here that with Delightful's help I almost went swimming. She decided that she needed to wade out into the river to get a drink and then abruptly turned upstream, nearly pulling me head first into the water before I let her go. I had to wade out, knee deep to catch her again. Then, boots full of water, I remounted and we headed across the desert on a southeastern heading, to intercept the Interstate. While riding through the desert with 2 horses that both have names, I once again found myself thinking about the brave pioneers that came this way so long ago and found myself humbled by their stamina and fortitude. I think that we take advantage of a lot of the luxuries we have and sometimes forget what others went through in this nation to bring us to this point we are at. I notice how people are in such a hurry to get somewhere that they don't see what is around them and even overlook the simple beauty you can find in a desert. Sage brush, rocks, sand and dry washes don't seem very pretty unless you look at them. The sage brush is strong, hearty and enduring, its soft green coats the landscape with a soothing coolness. The rocks peek out of the sand and sage brush like stars tossed across the desert, shining in the sun. The sand is the canvas that the life in the desert paints the story of their existence upon. Rabbits running from sheltering clumps of sage brush, avoiding dangers from above and around them, foxes and snakes creeping and slithering across the desert, the only sign of them, their tracks in the sand. The washes, a simple sign that life giving water carves its path through this dry landscape, the water gone now, but the land still waits for its return. It is all this that the speeding motorists miss out on. This is not the first time or the last on this trip that I wish more people would slow down their lives and see the beauty and peace around them.

When we last left out intrepid travelers . . .

Whew, it has been some time since my last entry. A lot has happened since then, some good and some not so wonderful. So over the next few days I will catch you up.

So my last entry was in Kemmerer and we headed out towards Opal, actually slightly south to stay with the Lamborn (spelling) family. I was up for my second ride on Delightful and we headed down the grass verge on the highway . . . into a swarm of bugs. Oh Joy! Now Delightful is a good girl, needs some work on the mounting process but all around a good girl, except when it comes to bugs. She can't handle them. She tosses her head and stomps her feet and shakes her neck and then her body and comes to an abrupt halt to reach around and try to bite them. All of this makes for a less than comfortable ride and since she is a baby she doesn't quite know how to manage her and her riders combined weight, so there is a chance of falling over. We trudged through the onslaught of insects until the wind finally picked up enough to blow them away and soon after a truck pulled off the highway and out stepped Don Lamborn, our soon to be host. Now Don is a wonderful, kind man. He is also very tall. So tall he is capable of standing on the ground and seeing eye to eye with me. It was a little unnerving. He very kindly made sure I had accurate directions to his families ranch before leaving me and we were off again. It wasn't too much longer, about 2 hrs before we reached the Lamborn ranch to be greeted by Don, his also tall son, Chris, his tall wife, Kelly and their youngest and exceptionally kind but not as tall(still far taller than me) son Garret. I am not tall, 5'4" for those of you that don't know me personally. I found myself on the opposite side of the coin as Dorthy in OZ.
The stay with the Lamborns lasted 2 days, an extra to rest Mystic, and Garret, a true young cowboy gentleman, gave up his room for me. He slept in the barn. Not every young man these days would do that for a total stranger. So I say to the young women he will be attending college with this fall, this one is a keeper! Plus when you talk to him, you don't find yourself humming "We represent the Lollipop Guild." I say this a lot in these entries, but I had a blast with this family, they are your typical, hectic, crazy ranching family. Everyone goes 90 mph and has 5 things going on at once, but they always have time for one another and to help out a total stranger. I feel honored to have met them, short but honored. Now where are my pointy shoes . . .

And the worlds longest shortcut is . . .

So I have run into many people that tell me there is a short cut to where I want to go. Usually they know the mileage or even drive me over the trail to make sure I don't get lost (oh god the terror). So when I was told there was a shortcut from Cokeville to Kemmerer I thought, cool, that will be great. I got directions from 3 different people, they all added up to the same path, so I figured that the distance given was pretty accurate too. Hmmmmmmm . . . not really.

I was up early, to be on the road before 8am, allowing myself 10 to 12 hours of travel time for the day, making allowances for opening and closing cattle gates and time taken to walk to rest Delightful, who was making her debut as the saddle horse on this pass. The girls were ready and eager to be off, apparently kinda bored after their long break. I loaded Mystic up and saddled Pei Pei, and headed to the store for some water and ice before hitting the road.

Now the directions were simple, head down the highway, til you reach the Thompson ranch, the second ranch outside of town directly after the hill. Turn and cut through their land to the BLM road that goes through to Kemmerer. When that road Ys go left and follow the main road to the highway on the other side. Simple right. Yeah, sure.

Now, the Thompson ranch, is a few miles outside of Cokeville as promised and the girls and I turned in and headed across. We met a few nice people going through that opened some gates for us and I thought, "this was going well" big mistake. I stopped to check Mystics pack load and reposition the saddle pads to make sure they were not bothering her sore, was treated to a runaway cow being chased by a woman, her daughter (on horseback) and a man in the truck and trailer. Gathered up my mares and headed down the road again. After a few more miles I found a nice spot and got up on Delightful for our inaugural ride on this trip. She was perfect, smooth, comfortable to ride, well behaved, surprising. After a few more miles and several cattle gates, gotten off to open and close (Delightful is not quite perfect with the whole mounting and remounting thing) I ran into the BLM guy and verified my path and distance, he saying another 30 miles. Sighing I headed back up the trail, thinking that a 38 miles shortcut was not too bad since the highway was 44miles. We rode up the first hill, and suddenly, a very tired Delightful decided the bugs didn't really bother her, hmmm odd, exhausted horse, no flip out from mosquitoes, interesting. We reached the top, lovely view, and dropped down into the cattle valley, lots of cows, big meadows, smelly cow ponds, across that and once again climbing. At the top of that hill we reached the ridge line that we were supposed to follow into Kemmerer.

Now I calculated that at that time I had come about 12 miles and after another mile I came to the Emigrant Camp ground (this is significant trust me). We continued along, going up and down the hills that rolled along the ridge line, marvelling at the lovely scenery, trying to ignore the time ticking by and hoping for a random car. My wishes were answered, in the form of a truck with 2 women and some kids in it. I waved the down and asked how far I was from Kemmerer and received the answer of 15 miles, not what I wanted to hear. I noticed some ominous clouds on the horizon and started wondering about the forecast I had gotten that morning. The women came back the other way, passing us, stopping long enough to tell me that they were sure that I was 12 miles from Kemmerer and mentioning the gathering weather, and that it should miss where I was. The wind shifted directions and brought that storm right down on us, the temperature dropped to about 50 degrees and the skies opened up and dumped buckets of water upon us. It wasn't long before I was soaked to the skin and the constant 20 mph winds soon had me chilled to the bone. We rode on in the rain for about 40 minutes before it slacked off to a light sprinkle, wind still blowing. It was about this time that those women came back, to tell me I was 5 miles away from the end of that road and to laugh at the fact I didn't have my rain jacket on. This was probably the first time on this trip that I was not polite to someone. There I sat, shivering violently, and they thought it was funny. So I made a less than cordial response to their comment (no swearing, I promise) and when they drove off put my head down and rode on towards the promise of an end to that road. I had to get off about 3 miles later, I was seriously cold, most likely hypothermic, and took 20 minutes to dig out my oilskin from my pack, stripped off the soaking wet fleece and buttoned myself up, then proceeded to walk 5 more miles to get warm. Now you might have noticed that made 8 miles from when I was told I had only 5 to go. . . 2 hrs later and 8 more miles it got dark and 1 hr 45 min and 7 more miles I reached the highway. I had to get off about 10 minutes after it got dark to open a cattle pass through gate, and since it was pitch black and I couldn't find a place to get back on, I walked the rest of the way. Upon reaching the highway I headed towards town only to find myself standing in the middle of the road, staring into the darkness. I decided I needed to find a place to stay and headed for a house that had its lights on, went through the pass through gate ( I really hate those things) and tied the girls to a telephone pole in front of the house's fence and crossed the last grate to knock on the door. It was answered by a saint of a man, Ken Moon, who took my greeting, subsequent bursting into tears and laughing in stride. He asked what I needed and when I said permission to tie my horses at the pole and pitch a tent, he responded with that wasn't his land . . . but I could bring them onto his land and put them in his pasture and pitch my tent in his barn. All that accomplished he asked if I needed anything and me being me, I asked if he had any soda, Coke preferably. He did! So Coke pounded down, some nice conversation had, I headed back to my tent to strip the still wet clothes off, change into dry ones and slide into my sleeping bag to warm up and stop the shivering that had resurfaced upon the removal of my coat.

So for you math buffs, that was a distance of 30 miles from Emigrant Camp plus another 12 before that for a grand savings on the shortcut of 2, count them, 2 miles. Factor in the extra time of 10 to 15 minutes a gate (and there was 12 gates on this road) and we have a short cut that actually took me an additional 2 to 3 hrs.

Well it was a beautiful ride, til it poured rain on me . . .and it got dark . . .and the mosquitoes came out . . . and I got exhausted and lost my sanity . . . and burst into tears in front of a kind stranger. Yep, totally worth it . . . Oh God I am tired.

Happy birthday Cokeville

Now I don't want you thinking that this town is not full of wonderful people that have been very kind to me for my entire stay here.

We have the Dayton family, Charles (who kidnapped me from the fair grounds my first Sunday here), his lovely wife Jill, Sharron (Charles Dad) and his lovely wife Janelle, who invited me over for lunch and the whole family let me stay at their cabin on their ranch for several days. Tom, who let a complete stranger into his house to use his phone to call Neil, the fish and Game man that brought be hay, couldn't find me, called the police in to find me and then brought me hay again, and who also let me use the Fish and Game pasture to camp in and house the girls when I needed to move in off the ranch, the ladies of Blondies, who helped me find Neil, the Toomer family, who invited me into their home and entertained me so thoroughly, the owner of the Store, Cokevilles finest grocery store, who have put up with me haunting their establishment and allowed me to use their phone countless times, Jeremy Oswald, the town newspaper man for putting up with countless emails from Mary (hugs for Mary) and my favorite, the Prouse family, who's son Ty, befriended me on my first night here, they brought hay and fly spray for the horses and Ty's grandma got me into the Little Buckaroo Rodeo to watch Ty get bucked off his mini bull, unfortunately before the buzzer sounded, but nice landing Ty, Ouch!

This is a cool town, full of amazing people. Unfortunately, I have been "trapped" here, without cell service, unable to communicate with my friends or family for over a week and a few of the people I have met, have made this more difficult by failing to follow through with their promises and by sticking to a stiff rule, limiting my access to the internet. To the main body of this town, I give you a strong and heartfelt thank you. To the others, I hope you are never in my situation, dealing with people like yourselves, you might feel frustrated and trapped too.

I apparently have worn out my welcome . . .

Now as you all know, I have been stuck in Cokeville for what will be over a week by the time I can get out of here and my only link to the outside world is the library and its internet capabilities. Cokeville Library has a one hour internet use per day limit, something which I find odd since as long as I have been in here usually I am the only person here, all day. I talked to the librarians and they grudgingly waived that rule for me, until today. I arrived at the library and was informed by the head librarian that due to the heavy internet usage today I would only be allowed 1 hour online. They computers where I usually sit are covered with signs reminding people about the one hour limit and I have been here for a half an hour so far and once again I am the only person here. This leads me to believe that they are simply tired of me not following their rule, so today, I will have to sit around this town, that literally has nothing to do and wait, and wait and wait til its late enought to go to sleep. I guess I must have worn out my welcome here at the Cokeville Library. This is gonna be a long stay, I hope I can get a farrier soon, or I will go nuts.

I give them 36 hrs . . .

Now I know that I don't talk about the girls enough on this trip so today that is what I am doing.

They have been truly amazing on this journey of mine. I know that they would prefer to simply graze all day long and travel about 3 miles a day, preferably in a circle, near the barn and their stalls. All that aside, they have been troopers. Both doing amazing on the road, nothing bothers them, trucks, tractors, motorcycles, log trucks, you name it, unless its a duck, they just don't care. Mystic goes just about everywhere I send her, she might hesitate, but with only a small amount of prodding on my part away she goes and normally Delightful is right behind (with notable exceptions being ditches and gulleys, nearly unseating me sometimes when she puts on the brakes). For being 2 replacement horses, I really lucked out. They are great girls, really, except. . .

If they were ever set free in the wild, I give them at most 36 hours to live. There is not a whole heck of a lot of "Street" smarts in these two, well I should say, Back Road Smarts. We have on several occasions been riding along to find a large rattle snake barring our path and both of them choose to ignore the threatening rattle and try to just walk over the top of it, seeming somewhat annoyed when I stop them or take the round about path past the nice poisonous snake. Delightful loves to try and go and touch any animal she sees, cows, calves, deer, elk, porcupines, skunks, I am sure Bear or Mountain Lions too. And the capper for me was yesterday, when I moved the girls off the ranch to a 3 acre pasture in town that has a large creek running through it and no water trough because of that. I put them in the pasture and headed back to the library to pass the day online and returned about 8 hrs later to two very thirsty horses. They came trotting up to me, nickering, followed me across the pasture to the creek, where I watched both of them trying to get a drink, stretching their necks as far down as they could. Failing to reach the waters surface 18 inches below the bank, they both snorted and came trotting back over to me, as if to say "Please help us, we can't reach the water, we are sooo thirsty." Smiling at their dilemma, I walked down the bank to a place where the bank smoothly met with the creek and called mystic over. It took her 15 min and my pulling her to the spot, then leaning down and splashing in the water, 3 times, before she gingerly crept to the flat spot and stretched her neck down, legs shaking to get what was obviously her first drink of the day. Delightful, seeing her mom drinking, came trotting over to us, and attempted to reach the water from the higher part of the bank, legs shaking, knees buckling . . . It took every once of self control I had not to shove her into the water, I have never wanted to do something so badly in my life, and it wouldn't have been hard, she was really off balance. I refrained and as soon as Mystic had drank her fill, I showed Delightful where to go to get the illusive water she required.

They are wonderful horses and when Delightful is sold at the end of this summer she will make someone a fantastic partner, as long as they don't expect her to survive in the wild, cause after 36 hrs, she would probably be dead.