Cowgirl Laynee

 This week I had a pretty epic adventure. Beginning of the week started with work... but I won't bore you guys with that so lets skip to thursday! I headed to Emery County with Erin that evening. The next day we woke up, helped her mom pack the cars and helped her grandpa prep the horses. We caught the horses, brushed them, and saddled them. Lots of dang work, but pretty cool work. Me and Erin drove one of the truck and trailers with the horses up the mountain to the campground. 

Haha do we look like real cowgirls?!

At the campground all the family parked their trailers next to each other...we tied the horses up, dogs running around, razors, trucks, camp chairs around the fire and just good times. Friday we set up camp and were able to gather a few of the cows that were right off the road. Me and erin helped chase'em on foot and get them into the corral. That night for dinner we had a solid meal of steak, potatoes, beans and brownies - my kinda dinner. 

The fall leaves on the mountains are BEAUTIFUL

Razor ridin'

Mack- the horse I was gonna be riding the next day. 

That night we sat around the campfire and headed to bed fairly early because we had a long day ahead of us. I slept actually super well in the trailer. The next morning we wake up bright and early - or I guess dark and early because the sun hadnt come up yet. We put on our layers and layers of clothes, had breakfast and saddled our horses. You guys - Ive never ridden a horse. Like maybe as a kid and maybe for like five minutes on the back with erin - but never like I was about to that day. Honestly, I wasnt nervous at all. I think everyone else was more nervous for me haha. Luckily it was actually a super warm day. I think heavenly father knew I would be miserable if it was cold so he blessed us with really good weather. Erin says they are usually going up the mountain on slick ice this time of year.  Thank goodness that wasnt the case. The family made a plan as to who would start on which trail and where we would meet with the cows and then we went our ways. I got a quick low-down of how to drive a horse and then boom I was on and we were headed up the mountain. I was stoked. 

Lets just say it was a blast. I want a horse. Or at least I want to do this again tomorrow. 

We rode on a trail for the first little bit until we found some cows - Then started the bushwhacking. We guided these few cows on a trail towards the point of the mountain where everyone would meet. Not to toot my own horn - but we went over some decently rough terrain - at least I thought so. We were going on steep up and down hills, over fallen trees and tons of slick rock. There was actually one point where my horse full on jumped over a fallen tree - it caught me off guard, but was actually super fun. We held the cows for a little bit and met up with some others and their cows, then slowly made our way along the top of the mountain. 

Once we met up at the point of the mountain we held the horses and had some lunch while the real cowboys gathered up some strays in the roughs. We took off our layers, enjoyed some food and didnt realize we were getting sunburnt! Oh and my knees definitely enjoyed a little break. 

After lunch we headed back down the mountain with the cattle. Going down was fun because there were some sketchy, steep parts that were pretty scary. Made me feel pretty dang cool though to get through it. Erin's family was shocked it was my first time riding a horse - The best compliment was from good ole grandpa sherrill saying I looked like I knew what I was doing haha. It was seriously so much fun and now Im going to make Erin ride with me every time I visit her home town. After we got the cows in the corral we loaded'em up into the trucks and took them to the farm. I love doing stuff like this. Stuff that is so unfamiliar to me, but that I just end up having so much fun with. As you can imagine we slept good that night and Im surprisingly not THAT sore today. Maybe it'll hit tomorrow? My bum is sore to the touch, but Im walking around just fine... which is good because sunday = back to work. Even though it seems like all I do is work on my few days on... I am grateful to be able to do fun things like this weekend on my three to four days off. Sooo grandma and grandpa... what do you say we get a couple more horses? eh??