New Blog Series: From Sea To Shining Sea Part 9

Wednesday, Sept. 29

We arrived in Carson City last night.  It was dusk, so we hastily parked in Michaeleleah’s driveway and all went to Mexican dinner.

Since her husband’s death a few years ago, she’s responsible for the whole ranch.  Fences, corrals, garden, dogs, horsebacking into the mountains by reservation, handling the horsetrailer, the truck, the house and its contents, and let’s not forget she’s a competitive distance horse rider.  That means she spends most weekends adding more miles to it on horseback.

Carson has become a megalopolis and the traffic is shocking since our last trip through here.  New freeways under construction add to the clutter.  While Mike goes to work the next day, we did housekeeping, shopping and car washing.

And today Abby met a real dog.  Shorty is an Australian Shepherd.  Abby made the mistake of assuming all dishes on floors are her domain.  But alas, Shorty had to straighten her out about that.  Abby ran to the trailer and didn’t want to come out for the rest of her life.

After dinner, it had become dark, naturally, and when we turned in we opened the door to the trailer.  We hadn’t realized the closest corral fence was about 18 inches from our open door.  As I said, there wasn’t much room.  Darrel jumped a foot when Rascal, Mike’s half Arabian pinto whuffed in his ear then nickered at him.  Inches behind his head.

We celebrated my birthday again with more cake on Tuesday, then Mike made us breakfast--an amazing steak dinner on the front porch, where the stove lives.  We were instructed to go out to the garden and do a little digging to gather our potatoes, which was something I’d never done.  Then I was presented with my birthday present--a  sure-to-kill-them fly swatter.  I didn’t know there were flies large enough to justify it.  But it will not get lost.

The next day we took Rascal out of his corral to have a good talk with him without all the mules stampeding us while we discussed the weather.  Rascal is extremely social and had taking up staring in our windows asking us to come put and play.  We brushed him and took some pictures, fed him carrots.  He’s not very big as horses go, but he’s an endurance horse with a documented 50 miles ride on his resume.  He’s 18 years old, born where he stands, five gaited and darling.  If it hadn’t been so much work to get him brushed, saddled, bridled, stirrups adjusted, we would have taken him out for a little ride.