Rendezvous 2023
Thursday May 25th came fast and furious. I made a commitment to attend my girls’ horse events and this was one of them. It came way too fast. With their 4H judging workshop Tuesday and me working in town Monday, I only had Wednesday for my farm chores. I was hoping to complete most of a rental renovation but gave that up due to complications with power and plumbing. I switched gears to finish up some irrigation work to keep my plants from dying but also had to give up on the planting of seeds. Wednesday I managed to harvest some logs for firewood and clean up some fire hazards up mountain and finally prepare the truck and trailer hook up for the trip.
As much as I want to or need to work, I want to and need to spend time with my girls. The many directions of thought are pulling mind apart. Fortunately mom/Alli did all the food and trip planning so I did not have to think of much other than drive. As the wheels turned I managed to focus my mind on the trip.
Day one, Thursday, we left home around 10am. Our route was through highway 8 which was devastated by fire and flood last summer. It had only recently opened with unpaved gravel road. The drive was long and slow but picturesque. We saw colourful mountain sides laden with turquoise and red rocks. We saw mountain goats.
We arrived in the town of Merritt just before 1pm to collect our groceries and meet up with mom’s friend Jessica and John before heading to our camp at the local rodeo grounds. Day 1 and Ama was literally having the best day ever! Jessica did lots of research with her riding friends and got directions to a gorge. We were riding up cliffs and through what seemed like caves. Seren was riding Jack and managed him wonderfully through tight turns and up steep slopes. When we got back to camp we had a fire with John’s propane pit. We did not have s’mores; Ama felt it was fine. Ama thought we had marshmallows and said we didn’t need it when I offered to buy some with the bars of chocolate. We went to bed at 10:24.
The next day Ama woke to the thought of “I forgot my saddle bags.” Those are something very important to her. When her panic settled, she grabbed her container of muffins and sat down to have breakfast. I made Seren some runny oat meal which I had to reboil and thicken. The Western Family brand of oatmeal did not sit well with her so she had some toast instead. At 10am we did a group ride on the pink loop which is about 8.1 km. It was a very slow ride with many stops. The group leader was very concern about the few wild horses we saw. She was also firm on a slow steady pace to keep the group together. The ride must have taken about 3 hours. We got back to play games and attempt a mountain trail course. There were many obstacles: 2×6 bridge over a mattress, 1 foot wide bridge x 1 foot off the ground, pool noodles, teeter totter, raised platforms, and mats. The instructor poured water on the obstacles and created a new perspective for the horses. With the water, many horses avoided and resisted the obstacles they had done when dry. After that, we had a nice warm shower. All there was left to do was dinner… sadly there was a catch. Each table was assigned a number and there’s a pot with each number in it. A junior picks a random number and repeats this until there are no numbers left. The table corresponding to the number drawn gets to go to the potlatch/food table. We got drawn almost dead last. When we finally ate, it was time for the lip sink contest. 2 minutes before our Chapter’s turn to perform, Mom, Seren, and Jessica got called up to join lip synching a song they have never heard. Tehy did great! After all that, it was bedtime at 9:56. Despite my snoring, Ama fell asleep at 10:05. Not sure how she knew the time she fell asleep.
On day 3 Ama woke up to a screaming 9 year old. Something to do with riding? It was 7:00. With the horses all tacked up we trot up the mountain. We were riding as a family today with intentions to follow at 9km blue loop. To our surprise, we saw blue ribbons climbing up this amazingly steep hill! We had planned to do the blue loop, so we followed the ribbon up the steep hill to a barb wire fence where the ribbons ended. The horses never worked so hard in their lives fight up this hill; what great training! Mom thought for a bit then thought about yesterday. She said, “yesterday the guide asked if we were having trouble on that little hill. It’s funny to compare the two trails; it’s like black diamond in comparison to green”. 5 minutes later, we realized this was not our blue trail. We made a slow decent to the bottom of the hill walking beside our horses. We continued on the original route. The turn-off to the blue route was unclear so we decide to do the green loop. It was 11.9km. We saw wild horses and herds of cows. It was a great day and Seren did wonderfully keeping up. She was pretty tucked by the sun by the end of the ride. We get done to have our last rendezvous shower and get a catered dinner. Bedtime was at 9:87.
On the last day Jessica and John lead the ride. We found and took the blue route today and continued on to the green. This was probably close to a 15km ride. We trotted a lot of the way and finished pretty quick. We had wanted to do some more mountain trail obstacles or ride in the arena but clean up took pretty long and we concluded to leave by 2pm. Before pulling out we realized one of the trailer tires was low on air. It was difficult but we found air at a gas station that can accommodate the truck and trailer, but we had to pull up along an alley way. The nuts on the tire was pretty tight and our Dewalt driver with 400 lbs of release torque was not able to move it. Luckily we meet a nice guy with a Millwakee driver that has 600 lbs of release torque. He gave us a hand and saved us 4 hours of waiting for BCAA. We got home at 7:30, just in time for bed.
Rough Canyon Ranch 