Let's Ride

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 Horse of a Different Color

This was going to be good, we pulled into the parking lot, causing the people already there to cautiously move up to the porch of the stable office. Chuck and Stormy sauntered up on the porch while Greg and I took our time, we checked in and paid our money, standing around bullshitting, Chuck and Stormy told us they have ridden quite a bit, "We're suckers for these rides I guess, just rode one down at Estes Park in Colorado a couple days ago, Storm's folks used to own horses, she's a pretty good rider," said Chuck. They had the animals lined up ready for us, all that remained was to be "Issued" a horse and mount up.

One by one, the wrangler came through and got each one of us up on a horse, they all looked like the kind they used to use back in knighthood days, huge things, not like the kind you see actual cowboys ride or in the movies. The wrangler came by and adjusted my stirrups too far down I thought, I ended up having to stretch my lags a little to feel the stirrups.

After a lot of fooling around, and introduction by the head wrangler, we were off, since Chuck and Stormy professed to be good riders they got to ride towards the front and not have to eat all the dust and watch the horse in front of you poop, speaking of which, Greg was riding that one. The string of horses stretched out as we plodded along, snorting, farting, trying to snatch mouthfuls of grass. I was able to snap occasional pictures of Greg's back as he rode along, I had to admit, we were traveling through some beautiful country, scenery you don't see from the road. Slowly we climbed, twisting and turning, on a couple of occasions I tried to get my horse (sandy) to move away from the deep rut the others insisted on walking, no luck, she stayed right on track like a robot horse. Taking my mind off that I looked off towards the south and saw dark clouds down where the campground was roughly located, Rain, "I'm sure I zipped everything up" I thought.

The couple behind me were yammering on about some stupid TV show they watched last night in their motel, I wasn't familiar with the show in question but resolved never to watch it, Gad! They were annoying. When we finally reached the crest of the mountain, we stopped for a break, naturally all the horse's heads went down in some cases yanking reins out of hands. I moved up next to Greg, "How ya doin lover? I asked, "Not too bad, babe, hold still let me get a picture of you," he backed off a little and got a quick shot of me, we milled around a little longer allowing others to take pictures as well, then it was back down. We were negotiating a rather steep grade when there was a commotion behind me, people shouting for the wrangler, a girl crying, I was able to turn my horse enough to see that a teenaged girl had fallen off. The wrangler rode back to the accident site to check on her, her father and mother were down off their horses checking her over; she was scuffed a little but appeared to be OK. I strained to listen but couldn't quite hear everything that was said, however it sure sounded like she had been trying to text somebody and wasn't paying attention when she fell off.

Once order had been restored, the ride resumed, somebody saw some elk in the distance, but that was about it, eventually we came out where we started, a good thing too, my ass was sore as hell, I think I strained a leg muscle trying to reach the stirrup all the time. We managed to get our mounts lined back up along the fence where they were originally and dismount. We tipped our guide and limped off towards our bikes. "Problem babe?" asked Greg, "Yeah I think I strained a leg muscle and my ass is sore, other than that I'm all right." He chuckled but I didn't think it was so funny, his probably did too but he wasn't saying anything. We said good-bye to the Walkers and headed out for the northeast and the Beartooth highway with its twists and turns. We rode over Dunraven pass stopped for pictures at the elevation sign. Turning east at Tower junction we made good time passing RV after RV, Druid peak, Mount Norris, we enjoyed the day, the sun was out, it was warm. By the time we made Cooke City, I was running on fumes, we hit the only gas station in town paying highway robbery prices for premium but what could we do. We stopped at a bar for lunch and a beer. Which ended up two or three beers as more biker came in and we got to shooting the "shit."