Our last guests for the season will be arriving soon and will stay through Sunday morning. When they checkout we will officially be closed for about 6 weeks until mid-July when we re-open for the remainder of the year. It has been an incredible season with a lot of great times! and thanks to all the wranglers, staff, and of course the guests for making it so enjoyable. Updates on the staff - Trey is back in Canada on the Rodeo circuit and Scott is in Big Bear, CA with his wife Sherry at the YMCA camp. Craig is staying on this summer to watch over the ranch, dogs, cats, and horses with Randy. Jeremy, Jodi, and Sophie are leaving the ranch on Monday and will be moving back to Wisconsin and will be “replaced” by Dan and Carrie’s daughter, Vicki, and her husband, Tony, who have both lived and worked at the ranch in the past. Their will be more information on that in a later post as I just don’t want to close that chapter yet - still have 3 days left here at this beautiful ranch.
A well deserved Happy Mothers Day to all of you out there! We had a great one here as Sophie rolled completely over for the 1st time! She did it in room #8 while cleaning today and was a real Mothers Day treat for Jodi and Grandma. We even had the video camera on hand to catch it on tape.
Also Trey finally won his 1st horseshoe tournament with his partner Gloria (7th time returning), a well deserved win as they beat me and my partner Katja from Germany in a close championship match of 11 - 6.
The weather has been great with some days in the upper 80’s and some in the 90’s. We will probably be switching to our early-summer riding schedule soon with 1 ride before breakfast and 1 ride after breakfast. The afternoon rides will go out a little bit later as well to accommodate the heat.
Even though it is Mothers Day I wanted to post this pic I took of Daddy (Jeremy) and Sophie at sunset. To achieve the same effect when you are at the ranch just set your camera to manual mode if possible. Wait until sunset when you can achieve a very hight contrast. Then choose the fastest speed, usually in the thousandths of a second (2000-4000) and then choose the lowest ISO rating (50-100). Then get really low to the ground with the subject above as much of the horizon as possible and snap away.
We had a long day but we got all the Christmas decorations down in the Frontier Lodge and Hualapai Dining Room. We tend to put up a lot of decorations so it is usually takes a couple of days. However, with the help of the Pano family visiting and all the other great guests we had everything done in one day! Thanks everyone for all your help!
Below you can see a 360 view of the Frontier Lodge with all the Christmas decorations. Use your mouse to click and drag 360 degrees around the room. You can spot “Fuzzy” up above the saloon doors as well. Sorry I didn’t have time to take one of the Hualapai Dining Room but it looked really nice as well.
We received a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Hansen family (Dan’s sister and brother-in-law) when they were visiting us over Christmas. Uncle Pete had Carrie’s name and as she opened a big box a huge buffalo head was staring at back at her! She absolutely couldn’t believe it, and first thought it was bigger version of a stuffed animal she had bought, but no - it was an actual stuffed buffalo mount that Uncle Pete found on eBay in WI where they live. He will keep his previous name of “Fuzzy” as he is just that. He hangs above the “Bison Room” in the Frontier Lodge. Thank you Hansen’s and Merry Christmas!
Click on the Quicktime .mov file below to see a 9 hour time lapse video comprised of over 100 shots to create a 10 second summary. It is very quick and pretty cool! It is something I have always wanted to do but this year I finally remembered. I will post a high quality image of the lodge completely decorated when we eventually get it 100% done sometime this week.
A Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We had a beautiful day here at the ranch with almost perfect weather of about 72 degrees and sunny. Everyone enjoyed a morning horseback ride, brunch, and an afternoon activity in the large riding arena. We had 7 different events including - sling shot, potato sack races, horseshoes, “calf” roping, “calf” dressing, ladder-ball, and “barrel racing.” Thanks to all the families who have returned for for there 2nd and 3rd Thanksgiving weeks in a row. We hope to see you all next year as well!
