The Adventure Begins.........The Road Hits Back...The Second NIght

The Adventure Begins

It was nearly 6 PM when I arrived at Jesse's place. It was a busy highway and I'd expected a quiet country road. The traffic whizzing by intimidated me as I looked for numbers on mailboxes. I was paying more attention to it than those numbers so I ended up driving right past Jesse's ranch. I had to call from somewhere down the road to figure out where I'd gone wrong.

I drove back down the road and found the appropriate easement road but missed the gate to Jesse's. It wasn't until I reached the farm at the dead end of the easement that I realized that mistake. It was a tight squeeze turning my rig around and I would probably still be there working on it if the owner hadn't come out to be an extra set of eyes for me.

Once I was faced back towards Jesse's my new found savior pointed out where I really belonged. By this time I figure I'd been lost at least a dozen times in less than six hours. My reputation for being geographically challenged was intact but I was exhausted.

Part of the latest problem was I'd been told that Jesse's gate would be open. It, however, was closed even when I actually pulled up in front of it. I sat there a few minutes before Jesse's barn hand, Richy, came to let me in. Then he directed me on where to park.

With the help of Richy I unloaded the horses and got them into stalls in a small barn down the hill. The little hike up and down that hill about did me in. This day had stretched on much longer than I'd planned.

Both Legs and Gypcy had trashed part of their leg wraps so I removed them. I hung them on the blanket bar wanting them to air out and hopefully dry some. I'd be reapplying them in the morning and there's nothing more gross than wrapping legs in soggy wraps. I doubt Gypcy or Legs would notice the difference but I knew that I would.

This barn was equipped with automatic waterers. I had hoped to turn the one in Gypcy's stall off so I could hang buckets to have a true measure if the filly drank. However, it turned out the shut off valve was up in the rafters.......way too much work for an overnight stay.

I crossed my fingers and prayed the filly would drink. Also, to make sure she was taking in some kind of moisture, I soaked her hay. I know from experience horses eating soaked hay don't need much water. I might not be able to get her to drink but I could affect her intake of water.

After feeding the horses, I worked some more on that tie job on the back of my truck. With more hay out of the pick up's bed I was finally able to move things around and really get the job done right. I was able to run that rope underneath the heavy refrigerator and bales of hay using their weight to keep the tarp down against the wind.

I wanted to be sure there would be no issues with my load when I was following Jesse. I had expected this fix to go pretty quickly but in actuality it took much longer than I thought. It was well past dark and I'd worked up quite a sweat before I finished with retying the load.

I'd hoped to get a shower before bed but that turned out to not be an option. My second choice was to wash my face but by this time Richy had gone to bed and I couldn't locate the water faucet in the barn. I was going to have to settle for the baby wipes I'd brought along. Next I set about putting my make shift bed in place again. Have I said before camping is not my thing? Well, this trip was starting to look like all the things I don't like about camping.

At least I wouldn't have the horses waking me. I set my alarm for the 4 AM start it would take that to have my horses loaded and ready to leave at Jesse's specified time.......5:30 AM. Glancing at the time as I set the alarm, it was 11:30. There wouldn't be much time for sleeping before we headed off to Tulsa.

To be continued................

The Road Hits Back........Day Three

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