Day 3: June 19, 2000
Learning to trot & to fly fish (at Laramie River Ranch)

We got up at 7am and arrived at breakfast a little late and ended up sitting by ourselves at an open table. Walendo had an omlette to order and I had toast and eggs. Then it was time to get ready to head out on a ride. At breakfast I told Walendo I was a bit disappointed that I hadn't picked up trotting and I was anxious that I might not get it. He rolled his eyes and made fun of me for being so impatient that I wasn't an expert after just one day. I made fun of him for making fun of me. (The fact that he turned out to be right really has nothing to do with this conversation, mind you.)

At 9am we gathered at the corral and they decided to take all of us out in one big group of about 7 people with two guides, Cara and Miah. We went up in the same general area as our first trip but we went off-trail more. It was a beautiful, sunny day, but it was very windy and the air was pretty cold. I had four layers on, including my fleece jacket with my windbreaker over it I was quite comfortable the whole time, quite a pleasant surprise for me. Fleece rules. Right from the start I felt more comfortable in the stirrups, and after we got a ways into the trail and we did a little bit of trotting I felt much more comfortable. After a few times, I started to get the feeling of moving with the horse. It was more of a sitting down-standing up motion, and I kind of saw what Penny meant by letting the horse throw you up.

Ellen with Flax

I had been moving forward and back more, trying to anticipate the movement up. I was really happy and was looking for chances to trot a little, though this time Flax had more energy and seemed to stay closer to the front. I definitely felt more comfortable in the saddle and sort of half-standing on my stirrups and I felt like I moved with the horse's rhythm better. He seemed happier too. Walendo also looked pretty comfortable on Cheyenne and seemed to be making friends with him. He said later that Cheyenne seemed to do what he wanted and he felt like they were getting comfortable with each other. It was nice to be in a bigger group, you ended up chatting with more people and I felt more a part of the group. When we got back, one woman said I had made trotting look so easy, which was pretty amazing, since I feel like I'm just barely getting it and am still using muscle strength to do it rather than doing it naturally without effort. But it was nice to hear. Oh, and Walendo said I looked good in my hat (I had bought a cowboy hat at the Sunnyvale crafts fair a few weeks ago so I was wearing it all the time. I think I looked dopey, but it's nice that he liked it.)

We got back for lunch, and for the first time, I was sorry when we got back, I wanted to keep going. That was a good sign. At lunch, I decided to go riding again in the afternoon rather than learning fly fishing with Walendo. Even though it was pretty windy, he still wanted to try it, so we agreed to split up. Lunch was enchiladas, and something called Sopapillas for dessert, which were little squares of fry bread with cinnamon. They tasted a little like cinammon toast, which Walendo had never had, so I agreed to make him some when we got home. We talked a little bit with Cara and Todd (two wranglers) and Lisa (who worked in the kitchen). The other end of the table was more chatty, with Jim & Chris, and Mary, Joy, and Donna. We teased them about how all the food wound up at their end of the table.

We relaxed a bit after lunch and then went our different ways. All the beginners had signed up to do "group penning," where you have to separate out specific sets of calves from a group by walking your horse around them. I wanted to try an intermediate ride so I could work on trotting some more, but I was ambivalent about having them take just me out on a ride. It turned out the Lisa wanted to go on a ride (it was her day off), so Cara took just me and her up. She said it was fine to take just us, so I felt okay about it. It turned out to be a great thing to do. I told her I wanted to do more trotting, so she took us way up into the hills in the opposite direction of where I'd been going. We picked our way up through some rocks and did more climbing and dipping.

SW View Overlooking Ranch

I felt quite comfortable with the horse and my stance now and wasn't phased by the angles when the horse went down or up steeply. At one point Cara said this was on the high end of an intermediate ride, which surprised me because we hadn't trotted, just walked up and down a bunch. (Unless she was being facetious...) It was a really clear day, still cool and breezy but again I felt comfortable. We got up pretty high and there was a gorgeous view back over the ranch and out to the Raywah Mountains with the Laramie River winding through the rolling hills with a deep blue sky above. What a feeling. There was more rolling hills in the other direction with reddish buttes and more big sky. I wished I'd brought my camera, but again I wanted to focus on riding.

When we got all the way up, we were on a big, broad plain that was flat and had some horse trails that were sandy with no rocks. Cara had called it the speedway. She asked me if I wanted to trot or lope (western term for cantering). I said I'd see how well I did with trotting and then maybe we could lope. So we took off trotting and I felt pretty comfortable, pretty much in control the whole time and moving with the horse. I tend to stand up on the soles of my feet rather than pushing my heels down as you're supposed to, but when I concentrated on it I could get my heels down. I also need to keep my hand under the pommel, but still it wasn't hurting to trot and I felt okay. As we were trotting, Cara asked if I wanted to lope so I asked what I needed to do and she said just work your hips forward and back with the horse so I said okay, and off we went. What a thrill! At first I was bouncing all over the place, but I hung on and didn't let myself think about how fast we were going. We stopped and I asked for a few more hints, and they said to try to keep my butt in the saddle, and to kind of push my hips under me. She said the best way to describe it is like having sex! So we tried it again, and this time I bumped around less, though I was still mostly out of the saddle. Again, I got about two strides where I kept my butt in the saddle, and that felt great. Still, the second time I worked harder on the hip motion and tried to keep my heels down. After a little bit, Cara picked it up even faster and it felt like we were flying! It was just great! I shouted out with excitement when we were done, and I think Cara enjoyed showing me. What a blast.

I asked if we could take the speedway back, and she said we could. Lisa asked, "are we calling it the speedway now?" I guess that wasn't the real name. We started trotting again, and this time it felt much easier since I realized it was kind of the same motion but slower, and I guess the loping just got me that much more comfortable. Soon Cara's horse started bucking and she just calmly hung on and settled down the horse. I think after that she didn't want to push the horse, so we mostly walked back. We meandered through dry stream beds, just to make it interesting, and I felt even more like Flax would do what I asked him. A few times I had to turn him in a direction he didn't seem to want to go, but he went when I persisted. That was nice. By the time we got back, my left foot was hurting; I think I twist it around too much and then put weight on the outside, so the outer part of the sole starts to ache. My right foot is fine, I just need to get the left foot trained. Anyway, I was really happy when I got back, eager to tell Walendo all about it.

I saw some people fly fishing out by the river, so I figured I'd get my camera and take some pictures. I walked through the fence and tried to make my way over to them, but then I ran into a swampy area and I couldn't find a narrow area to cross it. I looked through the zoom lens and didn't see Walendo among the people. I thought maybe he'd headed in and the others had stayed out to practice, so I headed back. There were two horses grazing nearby and as I walked back, they started to approach me. They were clearly heading for me. I knew they weren't aggressive animals, but I thought maybe they were protecting their turf so I walked away, but they kept coming. Finally, I stopped and they both came up and sniffed me and kind of gnawed at me. I think they wanted me to feed them. Finally, I walked away and they followed me all the way to the gate. I petted them there, and then walked back.

Walendo reading on lodge back porch

I rested in the room a bit, and then went out to the lasso event — they were first teaching us how and then some people from other ranches were going to give a demo. On my way out, I saw Walendo sitting with three other guys, so I went out. They were telling fishing stories. We said a quick hello, but I didn't want to interrupt him, so I went over to the lasso area. Most people were just sitting around and the kids were still practicing. Finally, they said that the ranch people wouldn't be there for a while, so I left and found Walendo reading by himself on the back porch. So I joined him and we told each other how our afternoons had gone. It sounded like he had had a great time learning fly fishing. I'll let him give the details, but he did catch a fish, even if it took him longer than everyone else. He was really happy and wanted to try it again sometime. Apparently he had been there with the others when I had gone out to look, but he was behind the bend in the river where I couldn't see. I was sad that I didn't keep going, it would have been great to get a photo and maybe even see him catch the fish. It was fun to see him and hear all about his adventure.

Walendo: Flyfishing. Flyfishing is cool. I always wondered how it worked and how hard it would be to float the line back and forth like you see in movies. Turns out it's not that hard. Not that I'm close to knowing what I'm doing or anything, but after half an hour of lessons and practice, I was able to cast roughly where I wanted to be. I couldn't always make the distance, and I couldn't correct the cast very well, but the basics of it were clear.

Our teacher for the day was Ben (I'm pretty sure that was his name, apologies to him if it wasn't). Wes, one of the ranch's employees, and Jim joined us. Wes had a lot of experience flyfishing, and Jim had done some but not a lot. He brought along his new rod and was eager to try it out. For Wes and me, Ben had brought along a few more graphite rods and a bunch of flies.

Since I knew nothing at all about it, Ben started from the beginning and told us about the different types of flys, showed us how to tie the various knots (if only I could remember...), explained how the rod worked, etc.

Then he set us up on the lawn and showed us the wrist motion we should try for. "Remember the movie ("A River Runs Through It")? Remember how they said that all casting was done between 10 and 2 o'clock? Well, forget that. Think 11 to 1." We practiced out on the lawn for a while, I think until Ben was sure nobody was going to lose an eye, and then headed out to a spot along Lagarde Creek - just a little upstream from the lodge.

View of Laramie River

As we walked up to the river, a trout jumped right at the shore where I was going to set myself up. This was going to be easy!

Screw the casting lessons, Wes and I spent the next 15 minutes trying to drop the fly from the end of the pole right on top of Mr. Fish. No luck, though, he wouldn't bite. He'd pop up every now and then for an insect, but he never took the fly.

Eventually, Wes and Jim and I spread out about 50 yards apart along a curve in the creek. I spent my time trying to get the line to float out twhere I wanted it and then letting it drift with the current. Unfortunately, it had gotten windy enough that Ben had to teach me a few more casting techniques before I could do this reliably.

After about 15 more minutes, Wes yelled out that he had caught one. I kept casting. Another 15 went by and Jim yelled out that he had caught one. I kept casting. Ben would come by every few minutes and give some tips, and maybe adjust the length of the leader. I kept casting.

10 minutes more. Wes gets another. Ten minutes more, Jim hooks one but loses it before he can land it.

I'm still casting.

Ben comes walking back (Note that Ben wasn't fishing himself, but keeping an eye on all of us. That was a nice thing.) to me and watches for a minute. A trout pops up across the river from us, near where I was casting but a little further out. "Let me see that for a sec", Ben says. I hand him the rod, and in one motion he casts DIRECTLY ON TOP OF THE FISH AND WHACKS IT IN THE HEAD. It has no choice but to chomp down. Sheepishly, Ben hands the rod back to me to land it. I land it, but we all know it was an act of mercy.

Ben, having proven that there are fish in the section that I'm fishing stands back and let's me cast some more.

Upriver, Wes gets another one.

I cast for another few minutes, working on the drift of the line and mending it when I can. Suddenly, with Ben as a witness, a fish strikes! I play it and land it, and it's official. All 4 of us have caught trout. In about 2 1/2 hours, no less.

Ellen: Dinner was Walendo's favorite meal: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce and unfortunately not corn but peas. Walendo was very happy. We sat with Chad, Brenda, Rollie, and the family with kids. We got a bit of a conversation going, teasing Rollie about riding a kid's bull in front of WalMart and such. Walendo got a good joke in there that got everyone laughing.

Guests in the lodge

After dinner, we sat around in the lodge as Chad showed some slides about cowboys and told some stories. He explained a few things about branding and the meaning of the symbols they use. I learned that when there's a vertical line over a letter you say "Bar," that a backwards letter is called "reverse" and that a sideways letter is called "lazy." I asked Chad why they ever came up with the idea of reversing letters or putting them on the side, but he wasn't sure.

We had signed up to go on the all-day ride to the overnight campsite, but now we were ambivalent about it because no one else had signed up. But we talked to Chad and it sounded like a lot of fun and he seemed to be encouraging us to go anyway. Walendo was a bit worried about his cough and all the riding, but in the end, we decided to go for the long ride, all day tomorrow and then back in the morning. It'll be just us, with Jeff the photographer, the wrangler, and Chad. After my experience having such a small group today, I think it'll be great cuz we'll feel freer to set a pace we like and to stop and take pictures or whatever.

So now we're upstairs and Walendo finished his book and then decided to go to bed early and I'm writing up the report. As I'm typing, he's being the kind of bug I usually am, so I guess it's time for me to finish. I'm psyched about the all-day ride tomorrow & the camping.

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