Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - Ride Day

It was such a beautiful day today, upper 70's, sunny and a milder than usual breeze, so we decided to take advantage and go for a ride. Our hostess was originally going to be back today, but a change in plans postponed it until tomorrow, and since we knew we would be working with her the rest of the week, we decided today as the day! We'd been told there was over 2000 acres of state "trust" property very close by, so we got directions and headed out. We had to go out the neighbor's driveway, as our hostess has a cattle guard and no alternative gate, but the neighbor has an electric gate with no cattle guard. So we left out her driveway, went only a few hundred yards to a turnoff, which was the road the went directly to the state property, just a mile or so away. It is mostly rangeland, with some fascinating "sentinels" at the end of the valley, rock carved by water and wind into a huge swath of monoliths, as if they were once mountains, but all that was left was what looked like a fence made by nature. There were cows grazing on the land, presumably they lease it from the state. Mostly wide open range with a road going through it. Only trouble is our horses tend to not understand what to do when there's no definite trail to follow, they tend to wander, straying from one side to another, unable to keep a straight line. The other thing is, when he sees that much wide open space, my horse tends to get this overwhelming urge to run willy-nilly across it, often starting out with some bucking before he gets his stride. A couple of times I just had to let him go, to try to get it out of his system, particularly when they got close to the cows, those strange animals that they didn't know what to do with. No crashes, fortunately, and no missteps, so all said and done it was a wonderful 3+ hour ride, though I have to say it's not as interesting just riding across the range. I was always worried about holes and uneven terrain and rocks that just seemed prime to sprain an ankle. A good time nevertheless! When we arrived back to the ranch, we discovered four bighorn sheep in the pasture nearest the one where our horses have been staying in, and they came in quite close, curious about what was going on. I'd never seen bighorn sheep in the wild before, much less in our own backyard! Quite the adventure! Anyway, the rest of the day is dedicated to relaxing, tomorrow morning I'll probably do some bushhogging with our hostess' tractor just to tidy it up a bit, then dinner with her and her mother and a few others tomorrow night, then work the next few days. Probably will ride on Saturday, weather permitting. We're thinking about the trail on Spanish Peaks, two very dominating fixtures in the landscape just south of here. Last trail we had planned to do while we were here, and considering we're planning on leaving early next week, high time we did it!