Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Dude ranch ... again!

Last July we went to the French Broad River Dude Ranch ... and it was wicked fun. So back again this year.

We left Tuesday night, against Q7's wishes, to stay at a Hampton Inn on the way down, get some swimming in at the hotel pool, and go to a cave the next morning. Of course, by K-Street in DC we already had to stop to let C8 use a bathroom. As if traffic wasn't annoying enough, we had to find a place to pee in downtown DC! I think we stopped three more times after that, so you can imagine how long it took to get to the hotel. A long time. But we did, and it was fine. After the C8-coveted breakfast buffet (worst breakfast buffet ever), and an hour of swimming we took off and headed for Dixie Caverns.

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Caves are not necessarily my thing. They start talking about earthquakes and I start thinking about getting crushed between the boulder above you and the rock below you. To be honest, it wasn't really the girls thing either, but I'm not exactly sure why. But C44 was very keen to go to one ... although probably he'd have preferred a cave that wasn't Dixie Caverns. The gift shop was supremely kistch-y and had really great mood rings, but we probably could have chosen a better first cave. But it was cool as long as I wasn't thinking about the ceiling caving in.
2013-06-19 11.00.00

By 4:15 or so we'd reached the ranch. The girls and I of course knew what to expect, but this was the first view for C44:

The lodge and lodge pasture

We hooked up with family and after checking in Q7 and A9 immediately set off with the wranglers to feed the horses:

Q7 and A9 with Wranglers feeding horses on first day

And that was the end of our first day. We sat around a corral and got the talk (HRS 101 How to Ride a Horse: French Broad River Style), then the day was pretty much over. Next up: Riding!

Last view of the day:

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