Horseshit.

I hope this account is accessible to all. I just want it to be simple.

So.

Day one. Done.

Well, technically, yesterday was day one, but I didn’t do much.

Let’s start at the beginning.

At 2:45 on the 25th: I finally pull into the Estes Park ranch (more than just a little surprised that Estes Park is a city, complete with fast-food, a library, and a movie theatre) amongst a lot of activity. I’ll post a picture of the ranch if I get a chance– but it is not exactly “ranch”-like. Or maybe that’s my mis-conception. When I think of ranch, I think of wide open fields and very few people. Now, imagine the opposite. The horses are kept in various pens. There’s a decent amount of room, but we’re up against mountains on one side and a city on the other.

(I’m pausing to pull down my hat… but then I remember I’m off duty, and not wearing my hat.)

I go in, introducing myself as the new wrangler. A girl dressed more fashionably and less westernly than me leads me upstairs, mumbling that she doesn’t think there are beds, are there beds? no there are no beds. She doesn’t know what to do, so she decides to wait for the manager. The girl’s name is Chris and the manager’s name is Holly. But Chris has to go help someone do something, and I am left standing around feeling foolish in my very western wear… minus the hat. I decided not to wear it just yet. I’m easing my way in.

As I’m standing in the office wondering what to do, a woman who looks like my aunt, and talks a bit like her too, flies in and looks me over. “Are you the new help?” she asks. I nod.

Okay.

Let me pause to apologize for this writing so far. I don’t like it, I’ve been being blocked– and having lived through the past two days I hardly want to discuss them in detail. So I’m leaving things out. Like the way the pines smell, or how the Rockies really are magnificent. How I drove past a herd of elk in near-dark, at the crest of a mountain, and the buck bellowed at me. How horses feel and smell and are generally ornery.

I was going to try to explain all of this, with poetry and… I don’t know, grace. With all the details.

But I don’t think I can.

Let me point out some important things.

I forgot to remember that sometimes stereotypes are the smoke indicating fire: the number of discriminating jokes I’ve heard in the past two days makes me feel ill. I won’t relay them. They are vulgar and… backwards to the forwards I had gained. If that makes any sense.

The long and short of that first day (that wasn’t a day) was that I helped with the horses (clumsily, stupidly, I had no idea what I was doing… I know so much more after one other day already that it feels like it’s been a week), and then I got sent further… up. Not north. Just… up. Up the mountain. To the other side. To work at a site called Grand Lake.

Estes Park… was interesting. I didn’t like the city-ishness. But the staff seemed pretty okay, and they were all women. It’s a perk I’ve been looking forward to, after last year– being around some estrogen, in all of it’s volitile glory.

Grand Lake– where I am now– is all guys. And these aren’t sweet, ridiculous, Captain Ahab types. These are GUYS. Already I’ve been propositioned in several different ways, most of them involving a video camera (that’s what I get for mentioning the film thing).

On the other hand– they’re all right. One guy, Ben, has a smile, always. I think the other guys make some fun of him. But he’s cool. He brought a ride in and trotted his horse around, because he loves it. I helped him take down that ride, myself. Then we were looking at his ride– a paint, a beautiful horse– and he was just lathering love on her. He fed her and apple. His eyes were just– lit. He loves it. I asked him how long he’d been doing this (the usual questions as we all get to know each other), and he said, only a month. He said, “I’m like you– I’ve always loved horses but never been on one. A month ago I couldn’t tell a mule from a horse!”

That sentence was the thing that made the yelling this morning (“Who the fuck tied these horses up this way? Who the hell did this?”… and subsequent whiplash), the absolutely awful living quarters (a huge basement full of beds, all completely soaked and mildewy, with leaky ceilings and bug infested space in general), my incapacity as a horsewoman (i can’t get my foot that high up)… that sentence made all of those things go away for a second. Cuz the thing is, I didn’t tell him I loved horses. So how did he know?

Tomorrow the insurance guy is coming. We have to be perfect. You know, bollucks to that. I will do my damndest. I hope I don’t get yelled at more (I hate being yelled at)… but at least the guy who was yelling at me was yelled at for yelling.

And oh.

Today, I road a (very cranky bastard of a) horse, for four hours. I’m sure I’ll be deathly sore tomorrow. But still.

Ha. This probably makes no chronological sense!

I’ll lay it out.

25th:

Arrived at Estes, helped dress a horse’s legs.

(Pause as Arturro–sp?– comes by from the bar. He is nice to me. This is the guy who was yelling. AGHGHHG sometimes I don’t understand. No, I do, because it was exactly this way last year with Pat. Dad described it this way– or maybe it was Aaron, I don’t remember: “Sometimes some people can just compartmentalize better. The yelling went in one compartment, and is completely separate from the compartment of what they think of you, or how they treat you when they walk by as you’re doing your email.”)

ANYWAY:

then, helped unsadle and give grainbags to horses.
helped clean kitchen (almost said galley)
drove over rocky mountains in dark to Grand Lake

GRAND LAKE, day 2
woke up, 5:00
sat around looking at coffee, 5:30

um
then i don’t remember how the order went

we loaded up rides
guided rides
unloaded rides
loaded rides
rode rides
unloaded rides

i’m tired.

but i got steak for dinner.
and will get a prime cut of steak every night for dinner.

i am tired.

that is all i have.

i miss ALL OF YOU PEOPLE. tell me about your lives!!!