Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Reno, Santa Fe, Pecos, Sonora, and Greeley

We've traveled thousands of miles and haven't quite hit our lucky streak yet.  But we are hauling on with our heads up high! 

On June 19th, I dropped Ace off at the airport in Denver for his 6:25am flight to Reno, Nevada.   Once arriving in Reno, he would get his rental car, check-in to his hotel, and get prepared for the Reno Rodeo performance that night.  I stayed behind in Brighton, Colorado with our rig, Mexico, and Porkchop.  Since I would have two full days to myself, I figured I should be somewhat productive with my time.  I dropped Ace’s rodeo attire off at the dry cleaners to be washed and freshly starched and then did a little grocery shopping.  I have to admit, I knew the day that I had to stay behind was coming, but didn’t realize it would happen so soon in our summer run.  Ace has been more than courteous when it comes to us traveling together, because he knows this is still such a new lifestyle for me – and being around the horses is just as fresh.  I can't lie, I was a little nervous to tending the horses myself, but they had a big pen to themselves and I had water and electricity available for my use.  It’s not always that smooth, but I’m very thankful I had those amenities for my first night alone on the road!

Since Ace flew to Reno, he would ride another horse for his runs out there.   As I wasn't there, I anxiously listened to his run online. Ace rode Cody Quaney’s horse, Spook, and made the fastest run of the performance that evening, 9.6 seconds.  Unfortunately, after the first round ended his run didn’t place in the round.  However, since he placed top three in the performance he came home with a little day money.  Day money is prize money given to the winners in the performance.


The next morning, Ace and Spook would match their second calf.  The calf came out of the chute and ducked left towards the fence and didn’t give Ace a chance to rope her, as the judge standing outside the barrier would come between them.  As much as rodeo is a drawing contest, it seems a little unfair to me that there are no options for a judge to offer a re-run option to cowboys that this happens to.  


I got in a little workout on Saturday morning before going to finish the rest of our laundry.  I had a little time to burn before I could pick up Ace’s clothes from the dry cleaners, so I went to Kohl’s and did a little shopping.  Ace’s plane was supposed to land around 10pm at the Denver airport, but his flight got delayed numerous times.  I watched a food documentary on Netflix:  Food, Inc.  After this documentary was over, I checked the flight tracker app and saw that Ace’s flight was delayed once again and was to land around 1:15am.  I started another documentary and set an alarm for 12:30am and quickly dozed off.  I woke up at 12:45am and hustled to the airport and drove up to arrivals just as Ace was getting off the plane.

On Sunday, we caught up on sleep and didn’t have any alarms set.  A knock on our trailer door awoke us to JoJo LeMond.  He came to pick up Porkchop to try him out at a few rodeos.  Ace and I had a fairly relaxing morning and a late breakfast at The Egg and I.  When we got back to the arena, we went for a jog/walk around the Adams County Regional Park and headed back to the trailer so Ace could watch the US Open. 



The arena was right next to a golf course and Ace wanted to get in a quick game on Monday morning before we took off to our next destination.   We called the course and unfortunately they didn’t have any tee times available until later in the morning, so we decided to get breakfast and get on the road.   We had breakfast at the Delectable Egg and headed back to the arena to load up.  While getting everything together, Ace had the idea to clean out the 35 gallon water tank that is mounted to the top of our trailer.   The tank has been full of gunk for quite sometime and we figured it was time to clean it.  A little dish-soap, hydrogen peroxide, a toilet brush, and some elbow grease later – we have a very clean water tank!  

We headed towards Greeley, CO where Ace had set-up to rope some calves and try a horse at Ricky Lambert’s place.  After roping, we played a game of baseball in the arena with Ricky’s son, Boedy.  Boedy is one of the wisest seven year olds we have ever met!  We stayed the night at Ricky’s and left for Santa Fe, NM on Tuesday morning.  On our drive, we listened to Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” on audible.  Cody got to Santa Fe before we did, so he snagged a stall for us.

On Wednesday the 24th, we woke up and got ready for the slack.  Santa Fe was hot and dusty – just as you’d imagine New Mexico to be.  We didn't have any luck on the first run in Santa Fe.  I cooked lunch for the guys – chicken pasta – and we all re-grouped.  Ace and I went to play golf with Byron Wilkerson and had a fun afternoon, while Cody went to a local gym to get in a workout.


I loved being able to see the mountains on the horizon.


So many of these little guys were on the golf course... This one even posed for a picture!


I just loved this site!  A blooming rose bush positioned right by a cactus plant.  


Ace and Byron had a good match!

Thursday morning’s slack was a repeat of Wednesday morning, so we loaded up and headed to Pecos, TX.  We made it to Pecos at about 6pm and went to the hospitality for dinner.  Right as the performance started, we were plundered with rain and hail.  This would make for a very muddy slack on Friday morning. 



On Friday morning, Ace rode a horse that Frank Holliday sent for him to try.  Ace had no luck on both calves, so we really couldn’t gauge how he and the horse got along.  Cody made a good run and made it back to the performance that night.  During the day, Cody took the truck to a local park to workout.  I went for a run around the arena before Ace and I went to lunch.  We all finished listening to “Gone Girl” and started watching the "Gone Girl" dvd before the perf that evening. 

Saturday morning would take us to Sonora, TX.  When we arrived, we turned the horses out on a baseball field while we threw the football around. 



Sonora had gotten a little bit of rain, which made for pretty muddy arena conditions.  Ace and Cody both rode Frank’s horse and Ace placed fifth overall.


After the rodeo, Ace was debating on horses and trying to rope some to help him make a decision.  This led us back home to Cuero, TX and we arrived around 3am.  On Sunday morning, Ace’s mom and sister brought us breakfast and a baby – boy was Stratton excited to see Uncle Ace and to meet a new face – Cody!



I cleaned up the trailer and started our laundry, while the guys started roping.  I filmed a few runs and ran into town to get a few more cases of water for our trailer.  I heated up our leftover Paleo Porkchops and broccoli (click HERE for the recipe) that I made in Sonora and Ace’s mom, Lonna, put some stuffed bell peppers in the oven.  We had a late lunch/early dinner and made a horse decision before loading up.  Ace and Mexico have been getting along good the past few runs, so we loaded Mexico, Spook (Cody’s horse), and Sleepy – Alan Thibodeaux’s horse that Ace split the Jackpot in Buffalo, TX on.  Ace drove from Cuero to Luling, I took over for the next few hours, and Cody got us to Amarillo around 4am.

We slept until about 10am on Monday and started towards Greeley, CO.  We made it to Greeley about 30 minutes before the perf started.  Ace and Mexico had a good start on a quick calf.  Once he flanked her, she kicked a bit but he got her tied in one of the fastest times of the perf.    



Our schedule for the remainder of our Fourth of July Run:

6/30 – Cody flew to St. Paul, OR to rope on 7/1; Ace and I headed towards Caspar, Wyoming

7/1 – Pick up Cody from the airport in Billings, MT and head to Cody, WY

7/2 – Cody, WY am slack; West Jordan, UT perf at 7:30pm; Oakley City, UT slack after perf at 8pm

7/3 – Prescott, AZ

7/4 - Day off



                                  We hope everyone has a fun-filled and safe Fourth of July!!







Friday, June 19, 2015

Here We Go Again...

Yep, it's that time again.  Time to pack our bags, load the trailer, grab the horses and make a run for it.  Time to not look back until late September.  Time to look forward, hit the white lines on the road hard, keep each other motivated and grow closer together - because you never really know someone until you've spent several months with them in a 13-ft confined living-quarter horse trailer.

Last Sunday, Ace and I started cleaning and loading down the living quarters of the trailer pretty early in the morning.   After hours of cleaning, we went to his sister’s (Kailey Leske) house.  She had told us to pack as much as we could in the morning, because we needed to block off Sunday afternoon to hang out at their house before we were absent for the entire summer.  We were told to wear something “cute casual” but we were clueless as to what the plans for the afternoon were, so Ace and I thought we were taking family pictures again.

As we drove up to Kailey’s house, we noticed a bunch of vehicles and knew that she had something up her sleeve.  We arrived to find that our family and friends had gathered together to throw us a surprise send-off for our summer travels!  They had gifted us with gift cards for our travels and an awesome digital camera to help document our summer.  It was the perfect Sunday afternoon surprise and we will be forever thankful for the gratitude of the individuals we are blessed to call our family and friends! 



I think our faces can show that we were extremely surprised!! 


Em made us the perfect card!!


How cute are these cowboy cookies!? 


We are so grateful for each and every one of you!! 


Monday morning, we continued packing the trailer and finally finished shortly after noon.  After loading everything we needed for our travels, we loaded everything we needed for the horses.  We finally hit the road about 5pm on Monday and we stopped at Buc-ee’s one last time before leaving Texas (Ace is obsessed with their sliced sausage sandwhiches!). 

Ace had some ropes shipped to Bloomer Trailers and we wouldn’t make it to Salado before they closed for the day, so they placed his box outside for us to pick up along the way.  When we opened the box, we found some Bloomer hats to sport this summer, along with an awesome card of encouragement!  Thank you, Bloomer Trailers!!

We made a pit-stop at Slovacek’s in West, TX and got some kolaches and other snacks for our drive.  Our first destination is North Platte, NE and we figured we should make the trip in two days.


We stayed in Denton on Monday night and would travel the rest of the way to North Platte, NE on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning, we woke up pretty early and had breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  Ace wanted to use the selfie-stick that was given to us by Kahlei Matejek, and the checker board outside of Cracker Barrel was his scene of choice!


We utilized our first gift card from our send-off party….Thanks Cliff and Brynn Foulds!!  We picked up Cody Quaney from his house in Cheney, KS and had a quick lunch along the way.  Of course we had to take a selfie with the selfie stick, since we were reunited again!  


We made camp in Gothenburg, NE and got the horses put up just before getting hit by a little thunderstorm. 

Wednesday morning, we woke up and drove about 40 miles to North Platte, NE for the slack.


 Ace warmed up Mexico, while I exercised Pork Chop.  We both headed up towards the arena and I found a spot in the stands to video from.  Ace and Mexico were in the box and Ace nodded, but the gate malfunctioned and the calf didn’t come out of the chute.  Ace ran another calf at the end of the slack, but Mexico didn’t stop correctly and walked up a few steps after Ace got off.  This made Ace have to run farther to flank the calf and also left too much slack in the rope and it resulted in a longer run.


Ace and I drove into town and had a quick lunch before heading to an afternoon backyard roping jackpot.  We were pretty exhausted after getting back to the fairgrounds, so we decided to make camp and call it an early night.     

We got a little more rain on Wednesday night and woke up to pretty muddy conditions for Thursday morning’s slack.  


Mexico scored good, but didn’t work as well in the field and it made for a sloppy, muddy run.


After the slack, Cody jumped into Will Howell’s rig and Ace and I took off in our rig towards Cheyenne, WY.  We stopped about an hour outside of North Platte, NE to get a quick lunch.  I drove the remainder of the way to Cheyenne, and I think Ace is finally  getting comfortable with me driving the rig because he kept dozing off in the passenger seat!  At lunch, Ace decided that he was going to fly from Denver, CO to Reno, NV for the Reno Rodeo – instead of driving the whole way.   We met up with Will’s rig in Cheyenne and Ace left his rope can and boots in Will’s rig so that he wouldn’t have to fly with them.   We drove towards Colorado and Ace got me set up at a little arena just outside of Denver.  The horses have a huge pen to themselves and I have water and electricity.  I guess this is about as easy as it can get for my first time being alone with the horses on the road! 

This morning, we woke up at about 4:30am and headed towards the Denver airport.   I dropped Ace off for his flight to Reno, NV.  Ace’s first run at the Reno Rodeo is tonight at 7pm (PT).  Since I am states away, I will be listening to the live stream of the rodeo on our iPad and cheering him on from Colorado.

http://prorodeolive.com

Here's to a summer of fun, sun, and fast runs!