Barn News
09/29/2008
Best Mule Days Ever!
It's been a while since an update, but I had to let you all know that we are doing great. Mule Days was just last weekend. We camped out from Thursday through Sunday afternoon and it was really fun. From the mud sling to rodeo we had the best time. Read on for all the funny stories!
Category: Barn News
Posted by: lee
So Thursday night it rained so much we thought we were Noah. We made the best of it and consumed almost nine racks of awesome grilled ribs and ran from camper to camper like idiots. We awoke Friday morning to find our horses were now standing in about four inches of water. So before we could make breakfast we moved our entire corral, about twelve 16' panels, to get them out of the water.
Friday was a great day of riding with much better weather. We went out a couple of times to ride around town. By this point most of the campsites were already set up. Oh yeah, remember that water our horses were standing in? Well that area is where all the trucks had to drive through to get to another camping area. It ran right in front of our campsite. By Friday night that "road" had turned into a mud sling. We took our turn driving through it thanks to Ben's courage and four wheel drive truck. His run left Mel completely covered from head to toe in mud. She had tried to position herself to take some dramatic photos and instead ended up being the subject of a few funny ones herself!
Saturday morning was the big parade and everybody lined up for it. There seemed to be thousands of horses lined up all around us. Everyone from our barn had on matching shirts and we looked pretty sharp if I do say so myself. Next year we are going to register as a riding group so we can get in first and ride as a team. The coolest group we saw was a group of Mexicans with authentic dress and tack. They looked really great in their gear and they were nice guys.
The rodeo at McLamb's on Saturday night was really good this year. The bronc bustin and bull riding were awesome despite a slightly muddy arena. The stock was really healthy and it really made for an entertaining show.
By Saturday night the ruts in that mud sling were two feet deep and we watched about a dozen trucks (and one white ford escort!) get stuck up to their axles. Every time we saw headlights everybody jumped up to watch and try to guess if they were going to make it through. We stayed up till about two in the morning watching trucks try and fail and then get pulled out by really big, beefy trucks.
Sunday morning we slept in a bit (8:30) and by that time Benson was clearing out in a hurry. Most everybody seems to want to get up and get out quick for some reason. We like to take our time and get one last ride in before we go, so that is just what we did. We rode over to McDonalds to grab a biscuit and then rode around Benson to watch everybody pulling out. Finally it was time to say goodbye and get back to our camp to tear down.
It was a really great camping trip this year. We met some really cool new friends (shout out to Randy and Olivia!) and got some really funny stories to tell. If you didn't make it out this year you should definitely make plans to come for the day next year. We'll try to post up some information when it comes back around. You can also look into Railroad days and Farmers day coming up really soon.
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