Dude Ranch Part 1

We spent the month of August 1996 settling into our new house. It was our biggest house yet, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and a laundry area. Rob was of the age where he was crawling everywhere and getting into everything so baby proofing was a must. We finally felt like we had a handle on everything.

I heard a commercial on the radio one day advertising a "working dude ranch" not too far from El Paso. I love horses so I was very interested. John had 4 days off for Labor Day weekend so I called to make reservations. The girl was so sweet. She did specify that it was a working ranch but there were cabins to stay in, a pool to use, a babysitter for Rob while we were riding and we could even bring, Lady, our dog. It all sounded too good to be true. You know what they say, "if it sounds too good to be true it usually is" and we were going to learn that the hard way.

John got a pass for the weekend and we left early in the afternoon on Friday. The directions sounded easy enough. Drive out highway 9 into the desert for about 180 miles then turn into the driveway on the left. So we set the trip meter and off we went. Of course mile after mile in the desert it begins to look the same. Rob started getting a little fussy so we saw a building coming up. We pulled over there and while I fed Rob, John went to ask where we were. They tried to be helpful but they had never heard of the ranch. We set out again thinking that we hadn't driven far enough.

We drove and drove and drove....nothing. It was starting to get dark out and we were really getting worried. So we turned around and went back to the building we had found before. I fed Rob again and John used the phone to call the ranch and get better directions. Apparently we had went too far. The ranch owner said he would go out to the road and tie a red shirt to a tree next to the driveway. Finally a landmark! We just prayed we wouldn't miss it in the dark. For once luck was on our side we saw the shirt!

We turned off the highway onto a dirt road that seem a little overgrown. We looked at each and shrugged, it was late and we had come too far to turn back now. Suddenly we heard lots of loud barking and our Suburban was surrounded by dogs. That didn't make Lady very happy at all.

More to come.....