First Staff Ride to Helen's Rock

Yippee! Yee-haw! First staff ride of the year! We're all heading up to Helen's Rock this afternoon! Aren't Coulter and Kammie looking excited to go?

View from the fence. Lookie all the pretty horsies! All the names of the horses are written on the chalkboard to the right.

We have five wranglers that choose horses to suit our riding abilities, and help us on the saddles.

Heidi and her awesome chaps. She is always dressed perfectly for each Lost Valley event!

Chelsea (black hat), one of the wranglers, is helping Caroline to her buddy for the afternoon... I don't know the name. I don't know how people remember all the horses' names. For me, it's worse than remembering human names.

View from my horse, JR. Chelsea says that if you look at his blaze (the white stripe on his face), it looks like the letters 'JR' and so that's what they named him!

Off we go! Here is where I put away my camera because I didn't want to drop it accidentally and have a horse hoof smash it to pieces :)

When we got to our destination, we tied each horse to a tree. There is a special knot to keep it secure yet easy to untie... unfortunately, I didn't learn that in girl scouts :( 

The first group to get to Helen's Rock! From left: Rachelle (baker), Tish (gift shop), Kellie (wrangler), Coulter (kitchen), Brooke (wife of Tony, the manager, and mentor to all us girls), Becca (Brooke's daughter), and Kammie (cabins)!

When the rest arrive, CK and JHam (that's how I was introduced to them) tell us the story of how the huge rock came to be there.

Yes, this rock that is behind Charlie (wrangler).

Actually, it might be the rock to the left, behind CK and JHam. Whatever. There is a huge rock, and the awesome story behind it is that it is a huge clump of calcified horse manure, which was projected from a reactivated volcano at the opposite side of the valley, onto the body of Helen, the Texan sharpshooter, who was about to snipe her boyfriend, the head wrangler at Lost Valley Ranch in the 1960's, because he was cheating on her with the princess Shavoshala from the country Chechnia. Yeah, it's kinda morbid and confusing. But here is Lauren, giving a great interpretation of the Chechnian engagement dance!

It was FREEZING at Helen's Rock, so after the long story (I cut out a ton of stuff), we started to head back down to the ranch.

JR! Everyone loves him because he walks around with his tongue hanging out the left side of his mouth. See it peeking out? JR, you're so silly!

And down the mountain we go! Yes, everyone is ahead and I'm behind. JR is reliably slow. They matched me with him because I've never really ridden a horse. It was a bit frustrating to be lagging behind, but there was a good group of us with slower horses and I appreciate not overstepping my limits and playing things safe. Live to ride another day!