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1. ERFR HAS A NEW LOCATION! |
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How far did you actually ride? Using standard maps and computing mileage between towns and cities, the number of miles is closer to 2,400 than to 2,500. Factoring in fences and obstacles riders had to skirt, as well as having to ride into the actual campsites, all of which add miles beyond the road miles, I'm still calling it at 2,500 miles. A sidebar to this question is a starling fact. While the horses and riders went 2,500 miles, my little red truck logged 30,000 miles! That one surprised even me.
How long did it take to make the whole ride? It was five months and nineteen days from the day we left Bandera until we rode into Calgary at Stampede Park. Using Hoot's journals and subtracting the days we set camp due to weather or mechanical breakdowns, we counted a total of 107 riding days.
How many miles did you ride each day? It varied. The day we rode into Texline, Texas, was a short, ten mile day. Hoot and Mark rode 38 miles on at least two occasions when we needed to make up time. Using the 107 riding days figure divided into the total of 2,500 miles, we averaged around 23.5 miles a day.
How did you feed the horses and mules? They were fed twice a day. We fed a 12 - 14% (protein) textured grain and the best hay we could find on the road. They always had hay available on the ground in the pens and they thoroughly enjoyed eating wild alfalfa along the route. We also supplemented them with electrolytes in their feed because of the workload on them and the dangers of dehydration. We filled large plastic tanks with water wherever it was available and kept a metal stock tank filled with water in the pen. Rivers, ponds and puddles served to water the animals on the road.
How did you handle shoeing on the road? Hoot is a horseshoer and he did most of the shoeing. We carried shoes with us in sizes from 000 to 3's to fit all the animals. They wore down the shoes so fast in the early part of the ride that Hoot switched to shoes with built up toe and heel metal corks and frost tip nails, which gave additional protection against the wear and tear. Some of the early shoes wore so fast and so thin they looked like razors.
What did you eat? When Jack cooked, he cooked up a storm and it was great. We had blueberry pancakes, eggs, bacon and/or sausage for breakfast. Dinners were chuck steak over the open fire, chicken fried steak or chicken, cornbread, biscuits, Cajun stews and gumbo, dirty rice, beans, salads, fruit, lots of tortillas. We didn't starve by any means, but we all lost weight, despite eating plenty and well. Jack even made cakes and cobblers in the cast iron Dutch ovens. Very occasionally we ate out in restaurants.
Was the heat worse or the cold? It was never hot until the day we rode back into Bandera. Other than that it was cold, colder and coldest. It worked in our favor since heat is a much bigger stress on animals than cold. They benefited and we just layered on more clothes.
Did you have saddlesores? No. We did have broken bones. We did have aches and pains from bodies of an "older age" dealing with cold, damp weather. And when you get dehydrated, lactic acid builds up and makes your body lock up and it's painful. We also lost most of the hair on our legs from the friction of denim jeans against skin. This was, for me, one major plus of the whole trip!
How many trucks and trailers did you have? We started out with three trucks - Old Blue, Goldie and Little Red, and two trailers - Mark Andrews' big rig and Hoot's four horse stock trailer. We added Goldilocks and the cook trailer, which was a two horse with a front storage bay, in Fredericksburg, Texas. We bought my RV in San Saba, Texas, and Snowball was added in Great Falls, Montana, when Goldilocks broke down. So it took four trucks, three horse trailers and my little RV to get us to Canada. It took the addition of Whitey to get Hoot home to Bandera from northern Wyoming on the return trip, for a total of five trucks.
How many horses did you use? We started out with Keystone, Reckon, Crystal, Tiny and the two mules, Bull and Rock. Baggs was bought in northern Texas and Lucy in central Colorado. The six horses and two mules made the whole trip and all of them came home with us safely and in much better shape than we were.
How many riders were on the ride? We had about twenty-five riders on the kickoff to Camp Verde and about that number who rode into Calgary with us. In between, we had Terry Click, EJ Gibson Rutherford, Renee Bludworth, Hoot Barker and two other guest riders in Texas. We had one guest rider in Colorado. Daniel and Stephanie joined the ride in northern Wyoming and we had one guest rider in Montana. In Canada, we had eight guest riders off spread out over several days. Call it 70 to 75 riders total.
How many went the whole distance? Only Hoot, Mark and Mary went the whole way to Canada and only Hoot Gibson and Mark Andrews made the entire 2,500 miles horseback.
Would you do it again? In a heartbeat!
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