July 8

Today was a good day. After breakfast, I went on a wild mustang tour. It was great. The Bureau of Land Management owns 100k acres of land near Cody that is a preserve. About 150 mustangs live on it, along with pronghorn antelopes (the fastest land mammal in NA, second only to the cheetah in the world), golden eagles, prairies dogs, and prairie chickens.

We found the herd after 15 minutes of looking, with about 20 individuals. The guide told us that actually it’s 4 separate groups, each with its own dominant stallion, mares and babies. Then there are some bachelor groups, where the males live until they defeat a dominant male. The bachelors also try to snake mares and babies away while the stallions are fighting off other bachelors. The mares chase off their female babies after about a year, which is a guard against inbreeding. She’s almost immediately adopted by a bachelor or another group. The male babies get to stay for 2-3 years before they get kicked out, at sexual maturity. Absolutely fascinating.

The mustangs are fat and happy right now, because they’ve had so much rain on the high desert. Grass and water are plentiful. But I heard a lot about the roundups. Apparently BLM tries to keep the numbers down by doing annual round ups with helicopters and 4-wheelers. Those mustangs are either adopted out or just removed to somewhere else—a pasture or feedlot. Apparently the cattle farmers want the land for themselves, so they lobby to get rid of them. The roundup sounded pretty cruel. And apparently even if you adopt one, the older it is, the more difficult to “tame.” Many are unbreakable.

The horses descend from those that the Spanish brought when they were conquering the Native Indians in Mexico. This was their home, far before it was ours.

After that trip, I was all pumped to do some riding. I went to the Bill Cody Dude ranch and signed up for a two hour trail ride. Fortunately I only had one other rider on my trip, so it was nice to be able to talk to the guide. He was a very nice guy from Texas, and who attends Liberty University in Virginia.

My horse was named Gunsmoke. He was a “Dottie” horse…white with brown ticking. I was able to mount without a block, which I’m proud of. The last time, I was too heavy to get myself up.

We wended our way through several canyons, through several creeks and up to the top of the nearest peak. I was feeling so good at dealing with Gunsmoke. He balked a few times but nothing serious. It was wonderful to hear nature, and see the beautiful scenery at a nice slow pace. We were getting towards the end of the ride and all of a sudden, Gunsmoke stumbles and goes down to his knees. I was thrown forward, but hung onto his mane to keep from falling off. Then he got back up and everything was ok. I just had my heart in my throat to see if he was going to roll. Exciting nonetheless.

After the ride, I went to eat a late lunch and began looking for hotel. Apparently nothing is open and if it was, it would cost an arm and a leg. Finally I found a basic hotel good enough for one night. It’s manageable.

Then I went off to the Cody rodeo, which was pretty fun. They had riders of all ages and types—barrel-racing, trick riding, bronc busters, and bull riding. They had a junior division, which was cool. One of the youngest girls was doing the trick pony type stuff. She’s only 7!! They also had rodeo clowns, one in particular doing all of the sight gags. Also notable: we prayed before it started, the 10 sec later, the guy’s telling a joke about a nudie bar