Re: [RC] MY ARIZONA STORY - TypeF \(Jackie Floyd\)
As usual, another great story. I was supposed to
start my morning putting together the Quicksilver QUIPS newsletter and instead I
find myself being entertained by Angie. But I can never resist an Angie story!
And Angie, one can never have too many sponges ...
OK, better never than late. When you see how long it is...you'll know why
it took me so long to get it on here. If you get bored and stop reading I will
not hold it against you. I will not give a pop quiz on the contents. :-)
Angie
Well, none of my friends
can believe I've taken this long to tell them about my trip to Arizona but
I've been so swamped that I never felt like I had time to do it justice.
Finally got on fall break and my brother found out! :-(( Ring, ring, "Hey,
heard you're off work. We're over here painting the house for Mama and Daddy
and need you to do the trim" Wahhh!
But I'm ready to talk so
here tis.
The moral of this story
is that whining on Ridecamp can be a good thing. Apparently, I whined and
sounded a little down a while back and as a response I got a post from a Dayna
Weary saying that she had been conscripted by her husband Bruce to invite me
out to Arizona for an endurance ride lest I should fear that I was being
invited out by some pervert.I
didn't know it at the time but Bruce only wanted to allay my fears in that
area until I agreed to come and the airline ticket had been purchased. Then he
took a twisted pleasure in suggesting that I might just get off the plane and
be met by a person who I would consider the worst possible Ridecamp person to
have lured me out there. :-P Ha, ha, very funny. Even after I was convinced he
wasn't, he hinted that maybe I wasn't the only person he'd invited. Bruce has
a twisted sense of humor.
Normally, I would have
felt I couldn't miss school but it just so happened that the very weekend they
wanted me to come was the end of my daughter's contract at her dude ranch job
in Colorado. That meant either Bill or I had to buy a plane ticket and fly to
Albuquerque, NM to meet her and help her drive home. Bruce and Dayna assured
me that they could use their Southwest Airlines points to fly me back to
Albuquerque after the ride rather than home, so I could justify the trip. I
would get to do a ride, and SAVE MONEY!!!Anybody who knows me knows I can't
pass up a deal like that.
The flight from
Nashville to Phoenix was the most unusual pre-ride day commute I've made. My
daughter?s stuff had barely fit in the car when she left, so I knew I couldn?t
fit much in her car for the ride home. First, instead of filling up a truck
& trailer with my ride gear, I had to get it all in a backpack. I didn't
dare check luggage so I had crammed all my regular clothes and enough books on
cassette to get me through a 1400 mile marathon drive home into one carry on
suitcase, then had to get my ride clothes into a backpack. Turns out Bruce
& Dayna don't wear helmets so I needed to bring my own. So...in goes one
helmet, one pair of RIDE TENNIS SHOES, >phew!!< tights, gloves, sponge,
etc. Honestly, I was so afraid the security officers searching luggage would
open that bag. There's nothing quite like the scent of a pair of shoes that's
been in pond water, green manure, etc. etc. Ugh. If they'd lit a fuse I'm sure
those shoes would have qualified as a shoe bomb.I wasn't sure I'd be able to get it
all in so I just told Dayna the way she could recognize me getting off the
plane...I'd be the one in the helmet.
I'm not sure why, but it
was easy to spot Dayna in the airport. Endurance riders somehow manage to look
really fit without looking like aerobics instructors. When I had talked to
Dayna on the phone about coming out I asked her were they the type people who
would lure me out there just so they could drive off and leave me in the
desert. She assured me not, but when she whisked me away in her Lincoln, and
phoned Bruce to tell him "The parcel has been collected" I wondered if I'd
ever said something on RC that had really offended them.
:-P
Dayna and I talked a
blue streak for the 2 hour drive to the camp...mostly about raising teenaged
girls. It's hard to be scared of a 50 mile ride next to sheer rocky drop offs
when you've been facing teenaged girls daily. This would be a
picnic.
So...we pull into camp
and how are things different from the South? Well, first, you opened a gate to
get in camp and closed it behind you. Seems there would be cows that had free
roam of camp and the gate needed to keep them in. That was a darned big ranch
because we rode about 25 miles before we had to open another gate. Of course,
I think it had about as much graze-able forage on it as 2 grassy acres back
home. I saw one cow and calf and I think that might be all the land was able
to feed. >g<
First I met Bruce. I
know everybody has been waiting for me to get on here and describe Bruce to
them. Well, if you've seen the National Geographic show about Tevis, picture
Boyd with short blonde hair. The more I think about it, the more I think Bruce
may have been riding under an assumed name in that video. If so, he has taken
riding lessons since then. Since I came up to approximately his ribs I had a
feeling the horse I was borrowing would be a big boy. And he was. I was riding
Heisman, a big flea bitten Arab with a very impressive record (4000 miles) so
I was in good hands.
I had been worried since
the invite that they wouldn?t have a saddle with holes punched high enough in
the stirrup leathers for me. Bruce had told me I'd be riding an Abetta saddle
with a fleece seat cover so as soon as I saw the saddle there on the rack I
started taking up the stirrups to make sure they'd go up enough for me. I
struggled to pull the fenders as far up into the saddle as I could get them,
took the stirrups up to the highest notch, buckled on the keepers and then
Bruce noticed what I was doing and said, "Ummm...that's my saddle". Oops.
Dayna's motive for the
weekend was obvious from our first call. Seems she had just read my EN article
where I griped about people in campers running their generators. Her plan was
to corrupt me by having me spend the weekend in an air conditioned camper,
sleeping on a feather bed and eating hot meals. If they'd had the toilet in
their brand new camper hooked up it might have worked, but the walk to the
porto-let cleared my head and I think I passed the test since I haven't said a
word to Bill about taking out a second mortgage to get something like that for
myself. The hard part about sleeping in the camper was that Bruce and I are
both chronic ?one-upsmanshippers?. Every time one of us told the ?last story
of the night? the other had a better one. You know how it is at a slumber
party when you turn out the lights, everybody gets quiet...and you try to stay
quiet...and then somebody speaks and it all starts up again? >g< Poor
Dayna.
OK, enough trivial
stuff. The TERRAIN. I don't think I ever realized Arizona is so mountainous.
If you said Arizona I just pictured desert. Nope, it was mountains. BIG
mountains. The ground is a dusty, fine dirt with a scattering *everywhere* of
loose volcanic rock. You could be trotting along on a flat trail and suddenly
there would be a leg breaker type hole...the kind we get when an old dead pine
stump underground rots out, but they have no reason for them I could see. They
said it had to do with the volcanoes.
The really different thing about out
there is that you can see forever. You can see mountains that are a hundred
miles away. If I step outside my door at home I can see Lookout Mountain which
is maybe 4 miles from me to the East and it rises up to block anything else
that direction. Out there you could see a rider on a mountain from far away.
Out here a rider is out of sight behind foliage 20 yards ahead. Out there you
can see GROUND on distant mountains. There wasn?t much that I?d call a tree
till you got into the pines higher up the mountains. The ?scrub oaks? are
wicked little bushes that have *tiny* little miniature oak leaves. The limbs
are made of cast iron and it is a *grave* mistake to think you?ll just brush
one back as you ride by. Bending apparently requires moisture and there isn?t
any, so it?s like snagging your tights on a ragged metal rod. OUCH! They must
use cutting torches to clear trails.
The ?Man Against Horse?
ride is just that. They had a 50 mile endurance horse race, a 50 mile human
race, 25 mile LD horse, (don't think they had a people 25) a 12 mile human
race and a 12 mile fun ride. This was something else strange to me. There were
18 horses in the 50, and maybe that many runners. Maybe 30 in the LD and over
a HUNDRED in the 12 mile fun ride. We seldom have those here, and if they do
maybe 5 or 10 show up. I didn't get to see any of the fun riders. They got
there after we started and were gone before we came back.I don't know if they had fun or
not.By the way, this is the
first ride I've been to where the manager complained that antelope had been
eating the markers.
If you ever have a
chance to do an endurance ride over a course where they're having a human
race, I highly recommend it. Boy, do runners get a lot of food! Every five
miles or so we'd come up on a table and they'd offer us granola bars, tootsie
rolls, M&M's, Gatorade, pretzels...it was crazy. I have never eaten so
much at a ride. Next time I'll enter a higher weight division since I'll
probably make it at the end.There was a Native American guy whose name I wish I could recall who
had won the race and beat the horses for the past 5 years. I saw him but
wouldn't have picked him as a favorite. He was sort of the Jayel Super of
humans...just incredibly middle of the road. Not too big, not too muscled,
just handy. He said he wasn?t in good shape this year. Turned out he was still
good enough to beat the horses but got beat by a tall Caucasian. I guess I
could be happy...Caucasian pride and all, but the Native American was closer
to my height so I related more to him.A woman came in third; it was just hard to pick who would make it and
who wouldn't. A couple of younger Native American guys whose legs looked *so*
ripped gave out around 25 miles. Meanwhile there was a guy who looked like a
heavyweight still going (I think he finished) and there was actually a 67 year
old man who did the whole 50.
Back to the horses.
Bruce was riding his Fox Trotter mare that happens to be slim and gray so you
have to look twice to notice it?s not an Arab. She had a very ?Lemme At?em?
attitude so my job was to stay behind and not challenge her to a race. I kept
waiting for the catch with Heisman. He was steady, controllable, sound, and
strong! I actually had my camera out on the first loop taking pictures as we
started. THAT?S a dependable horse!
I had almost left my
sponge at home but decided to take it just in case. What I found were a lot
more opportunities to sponge than I expected. Heck, I figure if your horse is
drinking out of a green cattle tank nobody?s going to complain about a little
sponge getting dipped. There was even a puddle or two. Bruce had a little
collapsible bucket that he got off and dipped but good ol? Heisman acted like
he?d seen leaping sponges all his life and let me do my thing from his
back.
Vet checks were
different. Out here they?re usually in camp and I have an elaborate area set
up with a truckload of stuff set out. Their checks were away, which make sense
because if you rode within 12 miles of camp all the time you?d never lose
sight of it out there. When we came into the check we stood around the water
tank and a pulse taker came to us and took the pulses. I looked around and
there was no sign of a ?vet check area? but there were horses occasionally
trotting down a strip of driveway so I guessed somebody down there was a vet.
We got our pulses, then instead of going to vet through we stood around at our
food that Dayna had set out and let them eat and had a bit ourselves. Finally,
when it was almost our out time we went down to the vet and did a trot out.
Very casual.
Now lets talk rocks. We
have rocks, but we have some dirt under the rocks. They have rocks under their
rocks. If I had been in charge of the pace on this ride we?d have had to walk
the whole time. I just didn?t look down. I figured if Bruce thought it was
trotable and Heisman was willing, I?d just mind my own business and take
pictures. There was one huge mountain that we had to get to the top of and it
involved a narrow switchback trail cut into the side of the mountain. The air
was thin and we?d been about 25 miles. There were a couple of 20ish
*extremely* fit looking runners who ran out of steam there and were calling it
quits. Bruce got off his mare and was tailing up and I was riding along in
front turning around taking photos of them. Heisman meanwhile was expertly
picking his way over loose rocks and around the switchbacks. I suddenly
realized what I was doing and noticed that though there was lots of scrub
brush around, there was absolutely nothing capable of slowing your tumble if
you took one step off the trail. It would have been a long roll through cactus
and boulders to the valley below. >shudder<
The ride itself was a
great experience. I finally got to see the West without a freeway in sight,
and on a *good* horse. It was fun to see the way the westerners run things and
how and why it works for them. I got lucky on the weather, everyone said it
was uncommonly pleasant...really warm but not the least bit miserable. The
temp didn?t feel bad at all to me. I think the South is ?bake? and Arizona is
?broil?. I could feel the heat burning my skin but not inside my head. I did
forget the sunblock and chapstick. By Monday my lips looked like one of those
westerns where someone has crawled across the desert with cracking lips. I
think there were 4 mouth sores. (Dentist appt. 2 days later with new
dentist...perfect timing...trying to explain that I *don?t* have Herpes type
6).
As we got down off the
mountain and traveled along the sandy washes again I was just thinking how
impressively sure footed Bruce?s western horses were and how I had trusted my
life to them trotting those switchbacks...not like Kaboot, who does
summersaults on decent footing. As I pondered this I saw Bruce?s mare?s front
hoof hit a soft spot and in slow motion she demonstrated a *perfect* Kaboot
tumble. First, Bruce realizes he?s riding a short horse with no head, then he
has to tuck and roll left as she continues her flip. Boy, I sure was glad she
did it in a sandy wash in the valley instead of on the side of that mountain
where I?d have had to wait around for him to climb back up if he was still
alive.Bruce was bruised but
fine.
I finished the ride
feeling great. I hopped off my horse, trotted him out for the vets, and
suddenly thought I was going to puke. It?s hard to look nonchalant when you?re
blocking the vet line with your hands on your knees hoping you don?t puke and
let everyone realize how much of the runner?s food you scarfed up all day.
Also, since I?d finished top 10 I really needed to weigh before losing any
weight so I managed to pull tack, and stand on the scales before I handed
Dayna the horse and collapsed in a worker?s chair. Someone suggested the heat
got me but no, it wasn?t even particularly hot and there was no humidity. I?d
say it was either thin air or all that runner food I
ate.
The moment passed, I
felt better and enjoyed a great ride meeting with nice awards, then went back
to Bruce?s house which is the absolute antithesis of mine. I live in a log
cabin with wood floors, walls & ceilings (to match the dirt). Bruce?s
house is white...inside...outside, up and down. My house has stacks of
magazines, walls of bookshelves that are full and have more books stacked flat
on tops of the rows. My furniture consists of primitive antiques (mostly from
my primitive ancestors) His is tastefully sparse... refined, like a decorator
magazine. My horses eat along a wood plank fence with the buckets hanging on
posts by baler twine. Bruce has 4 large pipe stalls (which he designed) with
feeders and automatic time locks on the gates to let them out after they?ve
had enough time alone to finish. I just looked at it all and thought, ?It?s
amazing how much a person can accomplish with no
humidity?.
I am profoundly grateful
for the big adventure Bruce & Dayna gave me. They flew me out, took me
into their home, let me ride a wonderful horse on a beautiful trail, drove
back and forth to Phoenix to pick me up and deliver me to the airport...and I
gave them...my sponge. I?m trying to come up with something better, but so far
that?s all they got out of it.
I did find out that
though Bruce hit SEVEN THOUSAND miles at this ride, he?s never done a ride in
the east. That gives me an idea...I?m just not sure I can get my house clean
enough for company! :-)
