I'm still not to the horse races yet.

8 (9?!?) years ago when I moved to Wyoming, I remember feeling like I was really and truly in the Wild West when I was late to work after my lunch break because of slow traffic caused by a cattle drive.

Today, I got closer yet. I got to be /in/ a cattle drive. Can't you picture me, racing about after cows, chasing them hither and yon, whirling a lariat over my head, etc etc? If you did, you were wrong (but what a cool picture!) - what I did was walk and sometimes trot my horse after a placid bunch of black cattle. No racing or chasing, no ropes. I'm quite sure I was entirely unneeded. But I feel quite proud of myself because twice I encouraged a small bunch of lonely cows to go on and join the main bunch, and several other times, I chivvied lazy ones into moving again. Go me!

We are out at the Williams on the 4-3 Ranch. It was an absolutely gorgeous day today. Warm, probably in the 50s, cloudless blue sky, a bit breezy but not cold... And talk about beautiful country! This was the longest I've ridden for quite a while - about 4 hours, I think - and I admit to starting to get sore about the knees and ankles by the time we were done. Ok, ok, I admit to being sore a bit before we were done. ;) But I could almost have just kept on riding and riding and riding, just to look at the land. It's not mountainous here, but neither is it flat. There are lots of gullies heading down to the creek, and lots of low rises and hills. If you ride up to the top of one of these, and look off in front of you, you see fold after fold of land, golden in the afternoon sun, hazing into purple in the far distance, up against that incredibly blue sky. I saw (after the cows were safely in their new pasture, and not scaring everything off and raising a dust) a rabbit - practically under my horse's hooves; a meadowlark - heard him too; and some green grass, just starting.

As you can see, I'm finding it just a little hard to settle down and study for meeting tomorrow!