Cross Country Trail Ride, Eminence, MO

My friend Sherrie and I have been going to the August "Cross Country Trail Ride" (CCTR) held in Eminence MO for over 10 years. After moving to South Carolina I've been able to make it home for the trip occasionally and have gone a total of 6 times. Sherrie's a little ahead of me with 8 trips. We each earned our coveted "5-Year Silver Buckles" and are working on the "10 Year Buckles". We've had such a good time each year that I'm always a little sad in August if it happens to be a year when I can't get back to Missouri for the ride.

I wish over the years I would have written about each of those weeks. They hold some of the special memories of my life. I decided I was definitely going to get some of the moments down on paper from this year’s trip (August 5-11, 2007). Maybe some day I will write about the funny things that happened in the past.

But, first a little about CCTR, CCTR is not trail ride where all the participants get in a long line and follow each other through the woods, though the name sort of implies that. CCTR is actually a 75 acre campground that sits along side the Jack’s Fork River in Eminence, MO. Sherrie and I were able to go to the August 2005 ride which marked CCTR’s 50th year anniversary.

Cross Country Trail Ride Campground


Campground Map

To register for the ride you pay a fee to reserve your camp site (15$), a fee for each horse stall you reserve (15$/stall, we always get four stalls) and a registration fee that is amazingly less than 225$/person for the week. There are about six week long scheduled rides during the year (about one every two months) and a few special 3-4 day rides over the Fourth of July and Labor Day. We’ve always gone to the August ride. There are usually 2,500 to 3,000+ riders in August. It's one of the biggest rides for CCTR, the other being the October Ride.

All your meals are provided, so other than any snacks and drinks for the cooler at your campsite the only food you need to bring is what your horses need. And if you run out they will surely sell you hay, feed and horse bedding in the CCTR Camp Store. The people food is home cooked and served in a huge Mess Hall; breakfast, lunch and dinner. They also have a snack bar for stuff like burgers and fries and a camp restaurant if you want to purchase a meal rather than eat whatever is being served in the Mess Hall. But, the food in the Mess Hall is great and it's always amazing to me that they can serve as many people as they do in such an efficient manner.

You can tent camp or bring a camper. Each campsite has electricity and water. They have around 3000 stalls in multiple barns that are scattered around the campground conveniently located near the campsites. From our campsite we can see our horses hanging their heads out of the stalls watching us. The stalls have easy access to water (need to bring your own hose, though usually the first campers that bring their horses in the barn hook up their hose and we all share it for the week).

Our campsite is #143. We sit at the intersection of six camp roads. From our comfy chairs in front of our tent we see every kind of horse and every kind of rider go by. One of the camp farriers is across the street from us. Everybody calls him Arkansas because that's where he's from. I don't know his full name but he comes over every morning for a cup of our coffee before the Mess Hall opens. We've met lots of friends over the years that camp close to us or keep their horses in our barn. It's always fun to see them again and catch up on what's been going on.

There's an inside riding arena at the camp. During the week events such as barrel racing, kid horse shows, amateur horse shows, and horse sales take place in the evening and you are free to ride your horse in the arena anytime of the day or night. A country western band plays on a stage under the stars every night during the week. You can faintly hear the music from most places in camp. One evening during the August ride there is special entertainment by a prominent Nashville entertainer. We’ve seen George Jones, Joe Diffie, Rhett Akins and Daryle Singletary to name a few.

The horseback riding trails crisscross the Jack’s Fork and Current Rivers in the Ozark Mountains and are accessed from various river crossings and logging roads from the campground. Most of the trails are in the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, Missouri’s largest national park. CCTR sponsors daily organized rides guided by CCTR trail bosses or you are free to venture out on your own. Riding along the rivers and crossing them are experiences every rider should have. The horses like playing in the cold water also. They splash it with their noses or paw at it with their feet and nothing feels better than having your horse flip his wet tail and send a spray of cold water on your back in the hot sun. Every once in awhile you see someone get bucked off in the river which is sort of entertaining if it isn't you.

When the horseback riding is done for the day, there are several beaches along the Jack’s Fork. Tubing down the river from the town of Eminence back to camp is a popular afternoon activity. We have a beach near our campsite. It is about a three city block walk. We used to go inner tubing but this year we decided to just hang out at the beach. Much less hassle than blowing up tubes then finding someone to ride with to Eminence so you can float down.

Sherrie and I came back with the best tans this year than ever. We took our beach chairs out to the middle of the river where there's a shallow place, sat in them and watched the tubers go by. The last day, some guy came up to us and said, "Haven't you two ladies been sitting here all week?" We surely had. It was so hot this year that we got up early to ride and were sitting in the cool river by one every afternoon. We have a little "red-neck" cooler I got for Sherrie this year. It's an insulated tin pail and lid stuck down in a small inner tube. We tie it to the chairs and with something cool to drink we sat there everyday till 4 or 5pm.


CCTR is a great place to vacation if you love horses and riding. The following posts are memorable moments from the August 2007 CCTR.

Casper the Friendly Spook

There is an old saying that the art of horseback riding is keeping a horse between you and the ground. Sherrie gets a gold medal for that!

This year Sherrie brought her beautiful black Quarter Horse Poncho and a sorrel and white Paint, named Red Cloud (who was the nemesis of Skipper and Dakota when he was growing up). When we went on the ride in 2005 she brought the same two horses. She road Poncho and I road Red Cloud. She asked me if I wanted to switch this year and I said no, I'd just ride Red Cloud again. I've known him since he was a baby and he still has that inquisitive personality that we all fell in love with. Boy, am I glad I made that decision!

Poncho (alias Casper) spooked at everything this year. He spooked at his reflection in pick-up trucks, he spooked at little pieces of paper on the ground, he spooked at the same yellow trailer everyday for a week! He got so spooky with his spooking that as we came to bends in the trail he would veer off to the side and crane his neck around the corner to peek down the trail ahead.

Poncho doesn't do "little spooks". He does have one good habit about the whole thing; he faces his fear rather than running away from it. The bad part though is he spooks after he has already passed the fearful object, meaning he does a 180 in order to get a better look at whatever set him off.

I rode most of the trip behind Poncho (for reasons I'll explain later) and I was overcome by pure awe, amazement and admiration whenever I watched Sherrie manage to stay on him. If he had spooked and jumped 8 feet with me, I would have been catapulted another 16 feet through the air.

If you are not familiar with spooking horses let me explain how it all works. A spook is an electrical charge that starts deep in the horses body and develops into a lightening bolt. Then it travels bi-directionally out of his body.... out of his mouth into the butt of the horse in front of him and out of his butt into the mouth of the horse behind him. You have a magnificent chain reaction as this bolt of electricity travels through the whole crowd.

Pity the poor horse in front of a spooker. He doesn't get any visual warning just a shock with a cattle prod from behind. And so Red Cloud and I decided it was best to stay behind Casper. At least we could see him in action before the lightening bolt shot out his butt. As with anything desensitization rules, Red Cloud finally ignored Poncho and came to the conclusion that the horse in front of him was just plum crazy. Red Cloud deflected most of the lightening bolts with a toss of his head.

Notice I said "most of". The last day of the trip we were riding down a trail towards a clearing that is sort of like a wagon wheel where 6 separate trails come to a head. The ever cautious Poncho peered out into the clearing before walking the last few feet. Unbeknownst to him another group of riders were coming down the trail opposite us.

Just like crossing a narrow bridge in the middle of Timbuktu an 18 wheeler always comes along and crosses at the same time. As Poncho walked into the clearing the other horses came off the trail on the opposite side. These were not little lightening bolts. It was an electrical storm that shot bolts from all directions as the horses across from us spooked at Poncho spooking. The clearing was such a mess of electricity that Red Cloud spun around and started to high tail it for home via any other route.

Within minutes all the riders had control of their horses. Everyone managed to keep a horse between them and the ground. We all passed each other in the clearing laughing and shaking our heads at the little electricity generators we were riding.


Poncho (Casper) looking at the Loch Ness Monster.



Opps! The Monster swam off to the right!



Ponchs says, "Get me outta here!"

(Eminence, Cross Country Trail Ride, August 5-11, 2007)

Black Diamond Horse Trails

Cross Country Trail Ride sponsors daily organized rides of varying lengths (half day to full day) during the course of the week. The first couple of years we always went on the organized rides. As the years have gone by we've become more familiar with the miles of trails through the Ozark Mountains crisscrossing the Jack’s Fork and Current Rivers. Now we do a lot of riding on our own and pick out where we want to go each day.

A few years ago a friend of Sherrie’s took us on a ride up a mountainside to a summit that overlooks the horse camp and the rivers. We decided one day to try to find that trail again. We could vaguely remember the name of it and so with our trusty (but barely legible) trail maps we headed off.

We came to a new logging trail that was in the general vicinity of the one we had been on in the prior years. It went up the mountain and so did we. Every 100 yards or so there were metal signs posted to the trees with a picture of a “blue” horse on it. We were happy the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) had finally started marking the trails rather than having someone in the mess hall tell us “you go down the back camp road and at the second turn off turn right then take a left at the tall pine tree that marks the start of the trail head.” (I mean, come on, we’re in a forest there are pine trees everywhere.)

Within 10 minutes we were miserable. Not only was the trail straight up the hill but we disturbed a swarm of horse flies when we were well past the point of no return. They pestered us the rest the way up. It is not much fun to ride horses up a steep incline when they are shaking their heads, prancing, stomping, and kicking their back legs out at the flies.

The view at the top put the misery of the trip behind us. The camp was off to the left and in all other directions we got a beautiful view of the Mark Twain National Forest. Then it was decision time, there were four trails to choose between to get back down. The logging road we came up was not an option. Neither of us could imagine going back down it with all those horse flies. So we opted for the trail that seemed most likely to put us back near the camp.

It was a narrow dirt trail that gently sloped downhill through the trees. In single file Sherrie and Poncho started down in front of me and Red Cloud. We had not gone to far when I looked up and saw the familiar DNR trail sign; except the horse on it was black instead of blue.

“Sherrie, did you see that sign we just passed?” I asked.

“Yeah, the one with the black horse on it? The last trail had a blue horse.”

“Yeah, that one. Have you ever been snow skiing in Colorado?”

“Nope, I’ve never been skiing.”

“Well out there, they mark the difficulty of the ski slopes by the color of the signs, green is easy, blue is moderate and black is reserved for the most difficult slopes. I wonder if the DNR is following the same pattern.”

“Hmm…..it looks good so far,” she said.

“Yep, so far it does.” I had hardly got these words out of my mouth when we came to the rocks. The trail transformed from a dirt path to a dirt path with knobby rocks sticking up all over it. The gentle slope got steeper and the dirt completely disappeared. The trail was just plain rocky stair steps that descended more sharply downhill.

I just kept in mind that the trusty horse I was riding had four legs and he could get down this hill better than I could on two. We slipped and slid; Poncho and Red Cloud kept their noses to the ground picking their way through the sharp turns and rocks. When I looked out over Red Cloud’s shoulders all I could see was the air in front of me. Poncho skidded once over a flat sheet of rock and the friction of his metal shoes sent sparks from under his feet.

We stopped along the way a few times to give the horses a break and if you know me and Sherrie very well you wouldn’t be surprised that we were giggling about the predicament we were in. We have been through just about everything together during the course of our friendship. She is my ultimate moral supporter and even though the circumstances might be horrible it is always calming to hear her distinctive voice, “It’s looking okay, we’re doing okay, we’ll be out of here in no time at all, we’re never doing this again!”

Finally the trails intersection with the main road was visible ahead of us. It was only then that Sherrie said, “Oh my god”. The last 10 feet were straight down with two or more feet between each rocky step.

On the road we dismounted and stretched our spaghetti legs. She said, “We made it! You made it down that last part fine.”

“Yep, I leaned back as far as I could and gave Red Cloud as much rein as I possibly could and shut my eyes.”

“You shut your eyes!”

“Yep, I knew Red Cloud was better off without any interference from me!”

Then we burst into laughter until we were crying!

(Eminence, Cross Country Trail Ride, August 5-11, 2007)

They Say if You've Never Fallen Off a Horse, then You Don't Ride Much!

I said Sherrie earned the gold medal for keeping a horse between herself and the ground this year. I didn’t. We were crossing the river back to camp one morning and Red Cloud started acting up in the middle of the river. He never acts like this in the water and I had no idea what was wrong. Sherrie was behind me and said it looked like he was kicking his back legs out. All I knew was he was lunging for the bank and humping his back up at the same time. He is a huge muscular horse and I knew once he got out of the water odds were I was coming off.

At the river’s edge Red Cloud got his head down and was doing this weird bucking, kicking jig. I tried with all my strength to pull his head back up, but it was a losing battle and the energy underneath me was getting stronger.

I could hear Sherrie in the background offering her moral support, “Get his head up, you’re doing great, hang in there,” as she positioned herself to go after Red Cloud when he got rid of me.

Finally I decided it was better if I had some control of the dismount rather than giving all the control to Red Cloud. I got my right foot out of the stirrup and was trying to swing off when Red Cloud bucked again. My left foot stuck in the other stirrup and I did the splits in the air and landed on my rear end at the water’s edge; left foot still stuck in the stirrup and Red Cloud dancing around. I managed to get unstuck and hold on to the reins at the same time. Needless to say this was in front of about twenty other people getting ready to cross the river. Some old man rode up and said, “Are you hurt or just your pride?” I managed to laugh and say, “I don’t worry about pride anymore.”

We did discover afterwards that Red Cloud was bleeding and had a cut about four inches long on his back leg. Something must have got him in the river, glass, a rock, wire perhaps. It must have stung like the devil. After my legs quit shaking I got back on and we headed back to camp. It was a nice day for the river, soaking my sore rear end and aching legs.

(Eminence, Cross Country Trail Ride, August 5-11, 2007)

Memphis to Kansas City (August 2, 2007)

The clerk at the Hertz counter said, "It's like a car but it's really a truck."

"So it's some sort of SUV thing?"

"Not really."

I didn't recognize the name of the vehicle that was available for pick-up in Memphis and drop off in Kansas City. Hertz didn't have a photo of it in their picture book at the desk.

I headed out in the parking lot as the sun was getting low in the sky. The humidity dripped off the trees along the walk way. I found spot A-37 and there was my... "car that was really a truck". If she had said it looked like Brink's truck with windows all the way around I could have picked it out without any help. I threw my carry-on in the back compartment and climbed up in the front seat thinking "I wonder what people rent this sort of thing?"

I couldn't see past the windshield wipers and had to crawl out and look under the seats to figure out how to scoot them up. I was able to budge it a little and decided to drive the thing around the parking lot for a minute. It was like driving a mini u-haul and if I leaned forward enough I could see the front hood.

I stopped back at the rental desk and asked if they had anything else. The clerk tapped away at her computer, no cars but there was an SUV. With directions to I-55 I headed out of Memphis.

The setting sun cast an golden glow over the Mississippi River. From the height of the bridge her lazy meandering and muddy swirls looked nonthreatening yet yesterday she claimed 13 lives when the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed. I thought about those people and wondered why them, why that bridge and why not the one I'm driving over right now. Questions no one on earth can ever answer. With tears blurring my eyes and a silent prayer for the families a radio station commemorating the 30th anniversary of Elvis's passing played his rendition of "How Great Thou Art" as I drove off the bridge into Arkansas.

The landscape from Memphis to St. Joseph is defined by beautiful rolling hills, pastures of Angus cattle, swaying corn fields, the golden arches in St. Louis and the dramatic rock walls that border I-70 at the Missouri River bluffs in Columbia. But, the culture of each small region can just as easily be defined by the radio stations. After listening to mostly Elvis tributes, "Heartbreak Hotel", "Love Me Tender" and "Kentucky Rain", the music was mostly blues through Arkansas. At the boot heel of Missouri it changed to country western with a few Christian stations thrown in.

I reached Perryville, MO about 11 pm and it was beginning to feel reminiscent of the Eagles "On a dark desert high way…” except for a few 18 wheelers, “My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim. I had to stop for the night.” I got a room at a Best Western. It wasn't "Hotel California" and I was on the road again at 5am. The music was still a mix of gospel and country western. The small town disc jockeys broadcast the latest obituaries, including name, date of death, time of funeral service and, “Wilma Mae was a teacher at Lee Grade School for 35 years.”

In St. Louis I was finally able to tune in a few rock stations then at Arrowhead Stadium I hit Missouri's home of rock–n-roll, Kansas City. Max and Tanna are still doing the morning show on KY102 (Kansas City's original rock station) and Moffit and Frankie are still there on 101 The Fox (radio home of the Chiefs). I thought these people were old twenty years ago.

Flipping between the two stations I was sure I had been driving backwards in time since renting the car in Memphis. It felt like the summer of 1977. If I had looked over to the passenger seat my old high school friend Susan Davis would have been sitting there with her freckled nose and pretty smile dressed in button fly Levi's and Nike tennis shoes (the ones with the light blue swoosh) as we listened to "Turn the Page" (Bob Seger), then "Dream On" (Areosmith), and "Sultans of Swing" (Dire Straits), followed by more of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pink Floyd, and the Eagles. Finally I was home!

The Ninth Circle of Hell

Yesterday our local newspaper printed a piece (author not identified) summarizing two new bills designed at protecting the rights of commercial airline passengers. It said, "both bills wisely avoid imposing financial penalties on the airline industry, which would be the legislative equivalent of pushing a drowning man underwater." I laughed so hard that Sadie came running to the couch thinking her momma was having some sort of attack. I yelled to Jeff, "Hey you gotta read this one honey. It says that a trip to the airport is like going to the ninth circle of hell!"

I haven't read much classical literature lately, but I know the reference is to Dante's Inferno. In his poem Dante described various circles of hell. The ninth circle being the last and final
circle; the place where the worst punishments are found. I have new information for the writer of the editorial; Hell has recently completed construction of the new and improved tenth circle for airline passengers and Satan personally invited me to attend the grand opening on my recent trip back home to Missouri.

I will take full responsibility for the one sin I committed in booking my trip to Missouri. I booked a flight that left Charlotte at 5 pm. Any seasoned traveler will tell you to book the earliest flights in the day. You are less apt to be caught in the downward spiral of delays that leave the late afternoon flights teetering on the brink of cancellation.

My flight was delayed 20 minutes out of Charlotte then when we landed in Memphis air traffic control held us outside the gate because another plane had parked in our spot. The flight attendant politely asked that all passengers remain seated and allow those with tight connections to disembark first. I felt like the first leg in a relay race. My seated team mates cheered me on as I sprinted off the plane, "Run fast, you can make it."

As I approached the gate I heard someone yell, "The plane's still here, hurry, hurry!" A jolt of adrenaline shot me past the runner that I had been jockeying with for position since I started the race. The gate area was crammed with 25 red-faced, hypoxic passengers. One brave soul stood at the ticket counter. His chest heaved and his shoulders slumped under the weight of a heavy carry-on. We crowded behind him apprehensively waiting our fate, heaven or hell.

"I'm sorry but the door is closed," said the gate agent nodding her head in the direction of the jet way door.

"No, no! The plane's still here," screamed the condemned, "Open the door, just open the door". If I remembered right all you have to do on earth is turn the doorknob and push, but we had started our descent into Hell and physics are different there. “It’s no wonder they’re all going bankrupt,” I muttered as I joined the other 25 members of the chain gang heading for the ticket desk to be re-booked.

“The 8 am non-stop flight to Kansas City is sold out,” said the ticket clerk.

“When is the next one?” I asked.

“There’s a non-stop flight that leaves around 2 pm.”

“That’s too late, I have someone meeting me in St. Joseph at 4 pm.”

“There’s a 6 am flight, but you have to connect in Detroit, gets in KC around 13:10.”

I calculated the time it would take me to get to St. Joseph, stop at Wal-Mart to pick up a few things I needed, unpack my saddle and re-pack my clothes in Rubbermaid tote boxes before Sherrie picked me up at 4 pm. It would be a close call. If there was one single flight delay I was sunk, but it was possible, “Can you get me a hotel room for tonight?”

“Sorry it’s Elvis Week and all the hotels are booked. I'll give you 125 dollars if you can find a hotel,” she said while tapping away on her keyboard.

I had no desire to find a hotel located on the outskirts of Memphis or to sleep in an airport chair…all on the off chance that a 6 am flight might get to Kansas City on time. I called Jeff back for the third time. He is always thinking ahead and said, “I reserved a car for you at Hertz. It’s an 8 hour drive to Kansas City. If you leave now and stop along the way to get some sleep you can still be home by 10 am.”

The ticket agent handed me a form as I asked for directions to the car rental area, “Fill this out, you might get a refund for the non-used portion of your ticket. Don’t expect to hear anything for at least 6 weeks.”

And so I began my journey out of airport Hell. The drive from Memphis was wonderful and the next post will be dedicated to that trip, but now for the rest of the story. I reached Kansas City International airport at 10 am to pick up my bags. The Memphis ticket agent had assured me they would be on the "sold out" 8 am flight. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw them propped up against a wall in the baggage claim office. Out of curiosity I asked the clerk when my bags arrived. He smiled and said, “They got here last night”

I shook my head as I walked out of the office. I guess in Hell they can open an airplane door for bags, just not people. I dropped the car off at Hertz, stood outside in the sweltering heat and waited for mom to pick me up.

Now you would think that is the end of my experience into the tenth circle of Hell. But since I escaped once, the devil knew he had one last shot: my trip home. I didn’t commit any sins on this one. I booked the earliest flight out of Kansas City. Here's the abbreviated details:

08:20 landed in Memphis;
09:15 boarded plane for Charlotte;
09:40 pushed back from the gate;
09:50 returned to the gate;
10:05 pilot told us to disembark, mechanical delay;
11:00 got a 10 $ coupon for lunch, courtesy of airline (the equivalent of buying a Diet Coke in an airport);
13:00 finished reading all the magazines in my carry-on;
13:30 called Carla (she and Frank left Kansas City International an hour after I did this morning for a trip to Mexico). They’ll be in Puerto Vallarta before I get to Charlotte;
14:00 got back on the repaired plane. Called Jeff, “They said they were going to get us out of here ASAP, flight time is about 1.5 hours. Gotta turn off the phone.”;
14:15 sitting on the tarmac;
14:30 sitting on the tarmac;
14:45 plane took off. I reset my watch. Its 15:45 Charlotte time;
17:15 arrived in Charlotte;
17:45 picked my bags up.

At the passenger pick up area I was met by an impatient black doggie and a slightly frazzled husband who said, “I hate to tell you but I looked on the internet, if you had rented a car when you got to Memphis you would have been home by now!”

Sidebar: In 1995 there were 443 flights that were delayed over 3 hours; in June of 2007 alone 462 flights were delayed. In March 2007 I sat for five hours in Charlotte waiting on a plane bound for Portland ME. In December 2006 Jeff and I were scheduled for a flight with an arrival time in Kansas City around 5:30 pm, we got in at 10 pm and missed getting to eat dinner at our favorite KC restaurant, Garazzo’s. We got our lost luggage the day before we went back home.

Frank flew to Pennsylvania this week for a work meeting. He called Carla Friday night to let her know the flight crew had gone missing in Atlanta and the flight was delayed for at least an hour. This year I turned down a job at the premier Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. The glitch, they wanted someone on-site every week. If you have the audacity to ask me why I turned down the job, go ahead I dare you! :)

Lance

Wow, I look at these pictures and my mind goes back to a little boy who begged me to read "The Hobbit" out loud to him one summer, learning how to make Ramon noodles so they are perfect and a kid who teased me sometimes till I wanted to shake him! Then growing up with all the teenage bittersweet moments and him living with us, cooking crazy stuff, renting movies, road trips to visit relatives, his messy bedroom, putting highlights in his hair one rainy Saturday night and him helping me shop for stuff to send to soldiers in Iraq.

He'll be leaving to go to Japan in a few months. I forgot to tell him the bittersweet stuff goes on for a lifetime...