GRV - Curly's Cabin

October 15: Day 3
It’s another beautiful morning. Although it’s still in the low 30’s, rumor has it that the high will be close to 60. We decided this is ride day, so we fixed a big hot breakfast so Mike can join us before work. The rest of the time he will be staying somewhere else, house-sitting for the directors while they are on a 2 week vacation.

About 10:00 am, we saddled up and head cross country, looking for a trail to a cabin that Elisa has heard about. We pass an old log house that was built for “City Slickers” when it was filmed on the Ranch. It certainly looked like the house in the movie. The colors are beautiful with the trees in full swing of fall; lots of gold and red trees standing out against the red cliffs and blue sky.

As we come over a rise, riding through the scrub, Buford launches himself toward us from one of the bushes at the side of the trail. Jesse, who has been looking for reason to romp, hopped about 6 feet to the side. (This is the new trick she’s been perfecting this summer.) I had just recovered a stirrup from a couple of her crow hops, and you guessed it. This time I didn’t stay aboard, landing on some hard rock and smashing my bad hip and sore shoulder…again. One of these vacations, I’m going to get to ride without being sore from a spill. The bruise on the hip was gone in about 5 days and wasn’t much problem except for sleeping the first night. The shoulder is going to take longer. (It's a month later and I'm still in a sling and swathe from my spill. Thanks a lot Jesse!)Poor Bill is going to be pulling and throwing two heavy saddles for the next few days.

We spend 3 more hours covering a lot of space and looking for the trail, finally finding a really steep slide hill that I didn’t really feel like negotiating with a hurt shoulder, especially since we didn’t know if the gate we were looking for was in this particular ravine or not. We backtracked a ways and then just did some exploring. The canyons and ravines were beautiful…and challenging. Sure glad we ride surefooted mountain goats. There aren’t many horses I would trust on the stuff we were traversing. We stopped for a short lunch and headed home. The horses certainly earned their roll in the dirt when we unsaddled.