Again, the day dawned bright and clear with a stillness only slightly marred by the occasional truck out on the highway to the west. The popular group decision was to have breakfast in the diner by the highway. It consisted of a set of old train carriages and made for an interesting start to the day. I settled for eggs and bacon but others waded into piles of pancakes and lashings of maple syrup. Proceedings were enlivened by the arrival of Tom, clearly something of a local character, with a pickup truck of cattle heads (horns still attached). He was tall, lean and looked strangely similarly to Uncle Sam of the First World War recruiting posters, with a massive variant of a top hat and enormous whiskers. He clearly had an eye for the ladies and trotted out a series of pick-up lines.
“What’s your name?”
“Catherine”
“May I call you Catherine?”
“Yes.”
“OK, I’ll call you about half nine.”
Suitably refreshed and entertained we set out for the Badlands, an experience beyond good. The formations were fascinating, the light perfect and we walked out on several of the trails to get a proper feel for the place. Many cars were moving through even this late in the season, but most only stopped at the viewpoints, of which there were plenty. Surprisingly, for such an arid place we saw plenty of wildlife, notably a range of birds, a small desert squirrels and in the muddy pools that still existed from the last rainfall, a healthy number of frogs, some suitably kitted out in Norwich City colours.
In the afternoon we went to take in the pleasures of Wall, a small town on the edge of the Park. Here we found the ‘world famous’ Wall drug store. The operation was somewhat like Roys of Wroxham gone mad and totally cowboy. The shop dominated the mainstreet and had numerous ‘rooms’ selling everything from leather goods (I bought a belt) to extreme tatt. We lunched in the restaurant and tried out the buffalo burgers. You wouldn’t know it wasn’t beef really, except the meat was perhaps a little leaner, but hard to say in a burger.
By now we were ready for the planned highlight of the day, the cowboy style horse ride. As we pulled into the camp site where we were to stay and the ride was to happen the omens were bad. The site was deserted and everywhere seemed terminally dilapidated. Some of the group had hoped to stay in a cabin rather than camp but I wouldn’t have fancied it, the cabins looked ‘well used”. Eventually, a women turned up and said that only one cabin was available as the others were closed for refurbishment. Not much evidence of that. The premium asked was ludicrous. The ladies’ toilet facilities were out of action but it would be OK to use the men’s. Here, only one of the 2 cubicles had a door on it. At least, we thought, the horse riding would be OK and Rick, our tour leader rushed off to the nearby Camps of America site to get us in there. That, at least was a stroke of luck.
Down at the corral we were greeted by a cheerful Indian girl called Richelle who introduced us to Moses, the monosyllabic indian in charge of events. Despite the fact that we were expected and had been about the place for over an hour the horses were not all ready. Some of us were mounted up comparatively quickly but a number of the horses were refusing to co-operate and kept setting off on little solo journeys, despite the fact that they had the more experienced riders aboard. My horse was desperate to follow something but he kept following various recalcitrants into the barn, where it was with only the utmost difficulty that he was to be persuaded back outside. Plans to change some of the horses failed when said horses refused to be caught. In fact , Moses was knocked flat by one of his horses as he tried to restrain it. After about an hour of this we set out, in the sense that we left the yard, but it took several attempts until we were formed up into something like a column minus Richelle who was supposed to be riding tail, as she couldn’t get a horse to co-operate. My horse dutifully followed the lead horse with Moses aboard but it broke into a mini trot every time it feared that it was being left behind. My only riding instruction consisted of orders like “Make it stop” or “Make it go right”. This was about as much use as being asked to drive it on one’s first lesson in a car. The ensuing, rather brief ride took us past some magnificent scenery, but, as most of us were fully preoccupied with staying on board, few photographs were taken. Back at the corral, we somewhat gratefully returned the horses and hightailed it for a campsite of sanity. I of course, distracted by events, and buoyed up by my new found ability to approach horses and lead them into the corral, left my fleece behind. I hope it’s still there tomorrow.
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