Here 's I sit in a Starbucks in Rock Springs, Wyoming, waiting to meet Steve's plane. The horses are in camp in Granger, in a semi-flooded field with enough grass to keep them happy. The dogs are outside greeting all newcomers. Walmart is across the street, beckoning.
The days have all run together. I've now taken 5 days off out of 25, but it sure doesn't feel like I've ridden 1000 miles. Sage and Scarlet both have 410 and 415, and Pema 175. There have been some long days but we've been blessed with very little hot and dry, and the grass continues to be abundant, even at 7500 feet on the Wyoming plains. The Wind River Range is covered in snow and all the rivers are still at risk for flood. We had a tremendous hail storm yesterday, topping off a morning of sun and thundershowers. As soon as I got my jacket off it started to rain again, until I finally just waited out the storms, drying in between.
We've been in Mormon country for a few days now. We rode past Independence Rock and around Devil's Gate. And as we ride the original Mormon/California Trail and Pony Express route, sometimes in the very ruts left by the wagon trains, there are groups of Mormons re-creating their journey west. We see them dressed up in costume, pulling loaded hand wagons, which is how10s of thousands made the journey. We see the grave markers along the trail for the thousands that died of cholera, along with all other manner of illness. One morning we stopped our horses to take pictures of the handcart procession along Martin's Cove (where a group took shelter from the disaster of a late start meeting an early winter). As I looked around I noticed another group of costumed folk taking our picture!
Scarlet is rideable again; her saddle rubs have healed enough so that I can cover them with gauze and ducktape and the saddle (now refit) doesn't bother her. Sage is however out of the lineup for a few days as she reacted badly when a stray tarp blew through my camp yesterday. She reared up and cut her lip. The rig next to me had a small animal vet and board certified surgeon who sewed her up and gave me the needed antibiotics. She is feeling good enough to head butt me for attention, and all three had a good gallop in the roping arena where we stayed last night.
Steve has been home this past week and I hired a young woman Morgan from Eureka to help me. She had a parting of the ways with the woman who hired her originally, but I've found her wonderful crew and company. Hula follows her around like a puppy. Happily, another woman's crew has cancelled his last 3 weeks and now Morgan is hired on with her for the rest of the trip.
If there is a rest of the trip: our leader has been in a terrible mood lately and very very churlish. Last night he told us at the meeting that we don't have any permits to ride in Nevada. The BLM in its infinite wisdom has now added so many requirements we can't possible meet them. They've had the paperwork for 2 years, and a supplemental list of stuff for the last nine months, and just looked at them last week. The final straw was that the person in charge is now on vacation and can't even answer questions until 2 days before we are supposed to get there. So Dave is looking at alternatives, such as going as far as the edge of Nevada and the Shell Mtns (we get there weekend of the 4th) and then turning around and riding east again as far as Nebraska. Some people are thinking of just getting the GPS coordinates and doing the rest of the trip as individuals, since that is okay. Somehow a group of thirty five is dangerous, but any number of individuals is safe. More on this later.
All the events now seem routine and not even worth mentioning. People fight, gossip, and then make up; horses go lame and then heal; people fall off and then get up again. Crews continue to quit and get fired, and then rehired by someone else in camp. We have hired, as a group, a water truck to get us water on the trail and in camp (horse water only), but there are fewer access points for them as we go down the original trail. Yesterday we rode 20 miles with no water for the horses, and it was tough. Hay has also been a problem as no one is haying yet, given the long wet winter. But we are figuring it out and working pretty well as a group. It is completely up to us as the entry fee only buys us the place to camp (sort of - sometimes we have to scrounge) and the maps and coordinates. And 3 checks per day of our horses - we trot by Dave and he gives a thumbs up or down. The good news is the group is very resourceful and skilled and we are all (almost all) capable of taking care of our horses.
Time to get Steve now. I promise more pictures as soon as I have more time - maybe on our rest days this week (Monday and Tuesday). We plan to go to Park City UT to stay with Deb and Janice again, get supplies, do more laundry, find horse food, etc. I'll try again to get Steve to blog then.
Hugs and I miss yous.
