The summer of '98 was when I loaded my horse and camping gear into the trailer and hit the trail for the Oak, Nebraska's Annual Oregon Trail Ride. Two of my Internet friends and I made arrangements to meet in Oak, NE for the camp-out and guided trail ride.
We arrived Saturday afternoon and set up camp at the school yard in beautiful downtown Oak, population 124. It was a very pleasant evening getting to know all the new faces and horses. The official horse count for this ride was 253 and on Sunday morning the streets of Oak were filled to overflowing as we waited for everyone to get ready.
The Trail Boss got us headed out at about 9 am and our first bit of fun began about 5 minutes later. There was a big meadow with a small stream meandering back and forth across it creating 3 crossings before we got to the other side of the meadow. The Trail Boss's horse felt he had to jump this 3-foot stream and horses being who they are, all felt they had to jump also! After the second time, I decided to try going a little farther downstream to cross. I wanted to see if Sally would walk through the stream. She did and so did the others who followed me.
We had a river to cross along the way and that was my first river crossing on horseback. It was uneventful and cool. It wasn't deep but came up to Sally's belly. A little while later we came to a grave and we heard the story from the Trail Boss about an altercation between a wagon train boss and a young man that ended in the young man's death because he was endangering the whole train. There were a couple other spots along the trail that had very interesting stories of life on the trail to Oregon. There were places where the wagon ruts were still showing and it was very easy for me to imagine life on the wagon trains. Especially at the end of the day when I climbed out to the saddle! Wow, those people lived for months in saddles and on wagon seats.
Just before lunch we stopped at a cow pond to water the horses. People were lining up and I guided Sally up along side the last horse. She was about 2 feet from the water's edge when she started sinking in the clay. It scared me pretty bad and I thought of trying to jump off. If I did she would have fallen or stepped right on me as she was leaning away from the water and trying to get away from there. I just held onto her mane and kept my feet and the reins out of her way. I kept encouraging her and finally she struggled free just before she went down. I was so relived and apologized to her for putting her in that position. Although, the other horses weren't sinking I still felt responsible to her for putting us in danger. We had been warned earlier that the edges of these ponds were not very stable.
An old cowboy had been watching us struggling. After she got out and I was apologizing to Sally, he told me that she worked real hard trying not to go down with me. He also said that I had done the right thing by staying on and staying out of her way. At the lunch stop I was surprised to see that the mud was about 2 inches above her knees!
After lunch I was riding with another woman and we were discussing how to get Sally to slow down and learn to walk easy instead of always wanting to be in the lead. Sally had been a barrel racing Arab and didn't know that she could walk! I had been working on this for the last year since I had gotten Sally. When we were about 2 miles out from camp, I asked if anyone would be opposed to me taking off at a trot. Everyone was cool with that so I let Sally go. We had a great trot back by ourselves. She enjoyed the chance to stretch out and I was relived to not be continually trying to keep her calmly walking. It felt good! And, no, it didn't make her want to start running home every time we got close to the trailer.
After saying goodbye to all my friends, the new ones and the old ones, we started for home. It was a great experience and I will fondly remember this ride for a long time to come.
