Bonus: Pictures

An angle from the porch that looks down to the woods where we come in from rides.
My room was at that open screen door on the left.

The fields. Normally full of horses.

Close up.

The horses! Look at those mountains...

Inside the barn.

Where all the saddles go at night.

Another.

I like this picture.

My room. My bed is the lower far bed. Ignore the bed in the foreground...

Avery!!!

Day 56: The End

I'm headed home on Saturday. I gave it my best try but I wasn't happy here and it just didn't work out.

I have no regrets--I wanted to do this for years and the only way I could find out it wasn't right was to try it. Best to try than to always regret never trying at all.

I can't wait to be home in my bed, find a new car and an apartment and head back to everything I left. I'll see you all soon and I won't have any regrets.

Day 53: Fourth of July

So I had today off which was pretty nice since it was a holiday (obviously). We were still decently busy but I just stayed inside all day and lounged around with Avery (the cat). We napped, watched TV, and generally just relaxed.

At some point I got dressed and ventured outside to say hi to people, etc. After work there was a party at one of the photo girls' house so I got all dressed up for that. I wore a red, white and blue plaid peasant top that I bought for the day. I wore a little make-up and made it an occasion.

The party turned out to be pretty lame but there was a live band which was kind of cool. Most of us walked back from the party to watch the fireworks because the ranch had a better view of where they went off. They were pretty average fireworks but there were some that spelled out USA which was kind of cool.

So it was a nice day of relaxation and carefree-ness. I wish I had another day off, though. Can't wait to be home--80 hours a week will be a cinch!

Day 49: Drama

Two things to report:

1. My car was recently involved in a storm-related accident. A tree branch stabbed through the windshield of my parked car during a storm and damaged the dashboard and the instruments inside. The damage was enough to total the car so now I am car-less. Well, I've been car-less since I flew to Colorado but when I get home I will truly be car-less. The insurance will cover the value of the car and they're giving me more than I expected so that's a nice surprise. I plan on buying a new car when I get back and I'm trying to decide between four different cars: the Hyundai Elantra (which has gotten excellent reviews), Nissan Versa hatchback, Toyota Matrix (which I could get in 4-wheel drive and has excellent storage area), and Kia Forte 5-Door. If anyone has an opinion, feel free to shoot it my way. There probably won't be any progress on this front until I get home so don't expect a resolution on this blog.

2. One of the wranglers was fired this morning and left just about an hour ago. He has been doing multiple things over the past two months but the last straw was him loudly banging on the metal railings to get the horses in from the fields. It was really, really loud and woke up people who were trying to sleep (on their days off). Though it might sound rash to fire someone over just that, this was just one problem on top of many others. I'm not so sorry to see him go--he's been rude to me numerous times.

Anyway, that's the dish for today.

Upcoming events:
Tomorrow: Wrangler day
July 1: The start of 5:00 Steak rides, meaning we work an hour later than normal...
July 4: My day off! And fireworks!
July 14: Rooftop Rodeo (we get off work early!)
July 25: Lauren comes back to visit!
August 10: To be determined...

Day 44: Short Update

My wrangler day is now Friday so I wrangled yesterday. Took out a 1-hour and a 3-hour. It was an exhausting day. No sunburn!

Today was our busiest day of the summer yet and we all felt it. I even got to take out a random, unexpected 2-hour on one of the horses I had really been wanting to ride! His name is Spirit and he looks just like the horse character from the similarly titled movie. He was a good boy and I enjoyed getting out of the office for a bit.

After work today, Jeff, Shelby, Zak (new wrangler and nephew of the owner) and his sister, Selena, went out for Mexican food. It was delicious and we came home to Funfetti cake for Kelli's birthday party celebration. Yum!

Now bedtime, please. Thank god Monday is soon...

Day 40: Lauren

Lauren's leaving tomorrow. Hopefully you remember that Lauren is my bunkmate and we've become good friends so I'm really sad to see her go. She says she just can't do this work and then go right back to school and keep working hard. She wants a break and thought she could do this summer ordeal but has found she can't. It's her first time really away from her family and boyfriend and she's having a hard time so she's headed home. She's going to fly back, even though she drove here. She'll come back in a couple of weeks to hang out with us for a few days before driving home.

To say goodbye we had a little bonfire tonight and roasted s'mores and ordered pizza and sat on the porch and talked. I'm really going to miss her and I'll be a lot lonelier now but I still have Shelby and I think the two of us will soldier on. As Lauren told me, I'll be fine because I'm "already so independent" but having people out here that you really enjoy is what makes the work and the long stretches of time bearable. So I hope it works out but we'll see. I'm not even excited about having fewer people sharing one bathroom or having the dresser all to myself (and, if you know me, that says a lot)!

Day 39: Fifth Day Off

I was pretty productive today! Well, if you call spending money productive...

I started off by sleeping in pretty late. It was nice for a change. Then I got up and did laundry (of course), watched my show (as usual), and had lunch. I also found some cowboy boots online that I liked and bought them. Lauren has similar ones and I used hers to figure out what size I needed. Plus, there's a free exchange for a different size if I need it. They should be here in a week. Picture below!

After lunch I headed into town to pick up my hat which, luckily, had been delivered only a few minutes before I arrived. I picked out a hat band (which goes around the crown) and a stampede strap (which keeps the hat on when it's windy) and window shopped around town until the hat was finished. My hat looks pretty similar to the one below but my hat band is a nice red-brown. The hat is made of palm which is pretty sturdy and glazed to make it stronger. I'm pretty excited to wear it!

After getting my hat, I stopped into the local book store and bought a book called Lonesome Dove which is a cowboy story that has also been made into a movie. The boys here really like the movie so I thought I'd give the book a try. I'm in desperate need of something to do in the office when it's not busy so I think a cowboy book might do the trick.

Then I headed to Safeway to pick up groceries for dinners throughout the week and also got a Swiffer WetJet so I can spot-clean the office. We have a big, old-fashioned mop but it does a really awful job and I usually only need to clean specific high-traffic places so I think the Swiffer will work out better.

All-in-all it was a good, productive and expensive day. But what else am I making money for, right? Kidding, of course.

Bonus: Today was payday!

Double bonus: We're going to Smokin' Daves tonight!