|
I'm writing this column from a Casita at Grapevine Canyon Ranch in the southeast corner of Arizona. My wonderful bride and I are here to celebrate our 31st wedding anniversary, and after diving with sharks in Fiji for our anniversary last year, what better way to follow up such an adventure than with a visit to a Dude Ranch.
Yeah, a Dude Ranch - shades of Billy Crystal and Jack Palance. Horses, cows, wide open spaces, and city slickers like me. In fairness, we're not doing a cattle drive, and none of the wranglers here at the ranch are anything like those in the Billy Crystal movie. If that disappoints you, then just remember how things went in that movie, and the memorable line of, "I'M ON VACATION!"
Yes, indeed. We're on vacation, even if it's just a long weekend vacation. While the cattle drive looked like an incredible adventure in the movie, few city people would truly be able to handle hours upon hours in the saddle for many days in a row. Riding a horse looks simple in the movies - you settle into the saddle, and the horse does all the work. I hate to burst your bubbles, buckaroos, but even though the horse is doing the lion's share of the work, you ain't along for a free ride.
It's been over thirty years since either my wife or I were on a horse, so we opted for the short, one hour trail ride this afternoon. Now, my better half has forgotten more about horses than I'll ever know, and still knows magnitudes more than me ("Dear? What's the difference between these two brushes?"). She owned horses when she was a teen, and paid for her boarding bill by working at the stable, so it wasn't just her own horses she had experience with. Me? I've ridden rental stable horses a very few times in my life, and know just enough to know that I'm fairly ignorant about horsemanship. I listened to what our wrangler told us, and accepted that it's better to admit ignorance, than to look like an idiot by claiming to know more than I do.
My horse was named Hank, and Hank is known around the ranch as an excellent roping horse. With a skilled cowboy on his back, he's a valuable member of the working team when the ranch is rounding up the cattle several times each year. (Yes, this is a Dude Ranch, but it's still also a working cattle ranch.) Hank is also smart enough to know when he has a n00b on his back, and at one point, I was certain he was channeling Jack Palance and telling me, "I poop bigger'n you."
Our wrangler kept telling me to let Hank know who's boss, and Hank would just huff a bit. I don't speak horse very well, but I'm fairly certain he was saying, "Yeah, n00b, you know who's boss, so you just sit up there and behave yourself, and I won't smack you into every mesquite tree and cactus we walk by, okay?"
"Okay, Hank. Whatever you say." I sure wasn't going to argue with him. If you've ever seen a mesquite tree, you'll understand.
So I tried my best to look like I was following the wrangler's instructions, while also doing my best to not irritate the horse that could give me more piercings than a punk concert. To be honest, he knew what he was doing far better than I did, anyway, and if he thought a certain segment of trail needed to be taken at a slower, more careful pace, who was I to argue? If I were walking along a path with lots of loose rocks, carrying an extra couple of hundred pounds on my back, I wouldn't want someone telling me to hurry up. Seriously, do you really believe that horses don't know what will happen to them if they break their legs?
"Listen, n00b; I ain't riskin' a bullet between my eyes, just 'cause YOU think I can handle this trail faster."
If they were going to shoot me if I broke a leg, I'd be more cautious, too. Okay, Hank; I once again defer to the voice of experience. Besides, it's beautiful country, so why hurry through it?
With our working relationship safely established, we rode through wooded areas of oak, manzanita, and mesquite trees, across dry washes, and back along high ridges of grazing land with stunning vistas of the valley in the distance. We finally dropped down through a gate from the grazing land, onto one of the dirt roads that criss-crosses the ranch, and with smooth, solid footing, Hank picked up his pace. I suspect it was more than just no worries about loose rocks beneath his hooves - I'm sure by that time he was getting tired of lugging my sorry butt around.
Arriving back at the corral, I managed to dismount without falling on said sorry butt, at which point I was reminded of the statement I made earlier in this column. This ain't no free ride. You may not realize it while you are in the saddle, but you are using muscles that haven't been utilized in such a way before. I learned the hard way, many years ago, that if you just sit in the saddle, you will very likely pay for your lack of effort with two rows of painful blisters - one across the top of your tush, and the other across the bottom. To prevent this, you have to learn to ride properly, which requires effort to move with the horse.
The moment I hit the ground, my legs were talking to me. "Dude!" (I think this is where they get the "Dude" in "Dude Ranch") "After all that, you expect us to WALK now?!?" My legs were nearly frozen into the saddle position, and I probably looked like a bow-legged trail bum from an old Western movie. I should have just walked with a gimp and yelled, "Marshall Dillon! Marshall Dillon!" (You young'uns probably won't get that)
Hank, however, displayed his trail savvy once again. "Just stand here right beside me, and brush me down once you get the saddle off my back," he said (my comprehension of horse seemed to improve along the ride). By the time I got done grooming him, my legs had managed to return to something resembling normal bipedal posture, even if they still yelled, "DUDE!" at me every time I moved them.
Please don't think, though, that I am disparaging the experience. I grew up in the suburbs, and have been a city boy pretty much my entire life. Yet, I can see the appeal of this life. It's quiet out here, and evenings are best described as tranquil. The days are filled with chores, and despite the work aspects of a working ranch, the folks who keep this place running all the time truly love what they do. Many of them came here as guests, and ended up coming back full time (one from as far away as Germany). This isn't just a form of make-believe anachronism, but rather, it's a taste of a lifestyle that much of our Nation has left behind. It still exists, though, and it serves a vital role in both land management and food production.
I've had a little fun with this column, spinning the day's events with a humorous take, but in all seriousness, I've had a blast out here so far.
In fact, I think I could get used to this.
So, city slicker, if you ever get a chance to spend some time at a working Dude Ranch, go for it. Maybe it won't win your heart, but at least, you'll get to try some things you might never have done otherwise.
And if you decide to go to Grapevine Canyon Ranch, tell them I sent you.
|