As always we were getting ready for our trailride that special day. Actually it was an orientation ride for a group of new guests and we were saddling and bridling up our horses. Brandon, our beloved headwrangler, decided to ride Ricky today, Shane's favorite horse. Jessi was leading the ride and as usual, C.O.D. and me were running drag. It was a nice ride through the woods when Brandon stopped a a certain place where he had found an old piece of rusty barbwire that he wanted to get. He told us to go on with the ride, he would catch up later anyway. So far so good! Jessica, our guests and I went on. Not two minutes later we hear Brandon's voice: "Hey guys, hold on!" Then the whinnying of a horse. I was wondering what was going on and suddenly here comes Ricky, approaching me without rider. I caught his reins and waited a second... and here comes Brandon. What happened was, he threw the reins around a tree and did not tie his horse up as he usual does. Then he got the barbwire. Meanwhile Ricky didn't like being away from the other horses very much and since we went on with our trail ride, he decided to pull back, free himself and catch up to us without Brandon. Well, runaway horses happen! But something like that does not happen to our HEAD-WRANGLER. He really cracked us up.

A few days later, everything seemed to be forgotten. At least Brandon thought so. He was away from the ranch that day but after all, the guys had done to us, Jessi and me had an idea. What about a sign in that place where Brandon had lost Ricky? GOOD ONE! We called it Runaway Point and Jeff gave me a piece of wood where I painted those particularly letters on. Now, we had 1/2 hour left before lunch time and our horses C.O.D. and Bubba were still saddled. The paint was not dry yet when we hopped on our horses and ran them down to Runaway Point in order to place the sign on a tree right next to the rest of the barbwire. Brandon didn't have any clue about what was going on there in the woods but Jessica and me laughed our heads off.

A couple of days later we lead another trailride to Runaway Point with Brandon ahead of the group. I was riding C.O.D again, he certainly was one of the fastest horses around, and that was a good thing because I could never know how Brandon would react on spotting the brand-new sign. Well, when that happened, he couldn't quite believe it, was shaking his head and I was pretty sure that he was kind of embarrassed too. Jessi and I started to laugh again and then took off with our horses. I knew he would kill me but before I died I had died laughing. From this moment on, Brandon was always reminded of his runaway horse Ricky.

Happy Trails