Trailing

Should I be posting something here about vacations? After all, the focus is supposed to be on my working life. Well, these one week vacations where I imitated a ‘wrangler’ were working vacations, so I think they qualify for entry.

The first year of the ride, I had no idea of what I might be doing during this one very long week with 150 horses and riders. I got a list of things to take with me, from Bill. The list included gloves (2 pair), hay hooks, hats, boots, socks, shirts, thermal underwear and lots of Levi’s. And a camera. Oops, almost forgot; a bedroll and a pillow.

We left very early on a Saturday morning and drove down US 395, on our way to Riverside. We were supposed to drive into San Bernardino first and meet up with Judy, the head wrangler, and then pick up the trucks and trailers we would need to load all of the gear onto.

All went according to plan. Even if we weren’t, Judy was very efficient. He had been doing this for many years. We stopped at a truck rental firm and picked up the ‘bed’ truck and another, larger truck for hauling hay. We were all assigned trucks to drive; except for me…the new guy. I would fill in as needed.

Then it was time to pick up the ‘iron’. The word described it well. Steel posts and cables and Come-alongs and chains and nuts and bolts, huge bundles of portable mangers…tons of gear that I had no idea as to its purpose. But…I would find out. This was all loaded into a horse trailer, along with about 50 long and narrow wooden poles; ‘kick poles’ that were placed between horses to keep them from kicking. Horses kicked?

After all was loaded, we followed Judy to a hay supplier who loaded our hay truck for us. OK, we helped, a lot. A full load of heavy 3-wire bales. Giving me a chance to see how my new hay hooks worked.

Once loaded, we headed over to the club headquarters of the Riverside Rancheros. It was from here that the ride would begin.

Explanation: Every year a different trail was used. I believe there were about half a dozen different ones. And every other year, the ride would begin in Riverside. In alternate years, we would begin somewhere far away and then trail back to Riverside. This year we were going to San Diego; actually a little bit east of the city, to Alpine.