June 2-4, 2001. Almost to St. Joe! Pony Express & XP Ride History

I’m posting this in advance of an announcement for the XP2011.  Truly an opportunity of a lifetime.  Imagine getting the chance to ride across 2/3 of the United States of America by horseback on the historic Oregon/California and Pony Express trail!  It will be the adventure of a lifetime.  Trust me. 

Enjoy the memories of my trip from the ’01 XP…..if you would like to read more about the ’01 XP, click here.  My entire diary is there along with photos and more.  Karen

By the time anybody reads this, we will probably already be there. Right now we area cruising along on I-80 in Nebraska. We’re near Kearney. Kearney, NE is the geographical center of the United States. The scary part is in realizing that we’ve been traveling for days and still have 300 miles left to go — and then will turn around and ride our horses back 2000 miles and take two months to do it! We have lots to do to keep entertained though — I have a book on gravesites so we can look those up as we ride by, along with all the Pony Express stations. There are a lot of historical landmarks along the way and other things to look at and see too. We’re going to be so busy just taking care of things, it’s going to be a blast! We are all so lucky to be on this great adventure!!

Getting to the ride itself has been quite an experience. For us, just getting out of the driveway was the real challenge. Since then we’ve had a whole variety of experiences, but have been having a great time. We’ve all been testing out our cell phones and everybody is staying connected to each other that way. There is a group of several of us and we are all going at our own pace, splitting up but then meeting up again at night or else at our final destination in St. Joe. We’re all going to make a great team and get thru this together. :+))

The start of the XP in St. Joe - vetting in under the freeway! Note the 1861 flag on my trailer. Weaver and Rocky are wearing their rain gear. Oh yeah, it rained on us!

The weather has been gorgeous. We’ve had a few sprinkles last night where we stayed at the rodeo grounds in Sidney, Nebraska. We’ve been stopping every 3 to 3 1/2 hours to let the horses out. They are hauling extremely well, better than I thought. There is an abundance of fresh green grass for them to graze on during our rest stop breaks. We stayed over in Kamas, Utah for three days to also give them a break. The horses really benefited from getting turned out into a lush green pasture for a few hours each day. They thought they had died and gone to heaven. There I got to meet and ride my other XP horse, Cheyanne.

Cheyanne was supposed to go to the start actually, but as it turned out he ran around in his corral and slipped and fell on his side and came up with a sore hind leg. That was on Monday. By Wednesday he was sound again, so I rode him around the pasture and he felt great but I didn’t want to haul him two more long days and risk hurting him. So he gets to stay in this beautiful pasture until I need him. It was a tough decision, but as I say (what is becoming our XP motto)….”nothing you can do about it now”. So we just go with the flow and let things happen. Guess there are worse things then trying to choose which two out of three sound horses to take.

We’ve got enough hay with us to last two weeks, and enough other feed to go two or three weeks. We have only one 5 gallon container of water with us. We’ll fill up when we get to St. Joe. No use hauling all that weight since we are pushing the upper limits already. 140 gallons is a lot of weight.

I’ve been electrolyting the horses regularly, this morning I did it while they were laying down on the grass. It certainly isn’t hurting since they are both peeing rivers every time we stop. They are trying to show each other up with who can eat/drink/pee the most. We have to force them out of the trailer because that requires that they stop eating! lol My biggest surprise is that they are actually eating beet pulp!

Trying to type on the laptop while bouncing down I-80 isn’t much fun. And I thought it was bumpy going over I-80 to California! The dog can’t understand while she is shunned to the back seat when I have the computer out. She’ll get two months to ride in the front seat, by the time we’re done with this ride I’ll be the one in the back seat .

I’ve got lots to do today even though we’re just driving 495 miles…..Louise gave me a book on the 1979 Pony Express Race, with news clippings to read. I’ve also gotta re-read my instructions on my Suunto to make sure I remember how to work it right. The first days start is going to be plenty interesting without trying to figure out which buttons to push! I’m already figuring out which buttons *not* to push in regards to my crew .

I’ve gotten a few photos ready to put up, and will get more in St. Joe and hope to upload them before the ride starts next Tuesday. After that, I should be able to get photos up from the ride each weekend. The first five weeks of the ride we will have Sundays and Mondays off. The cell phone works great for email but it’s not fast enough for photos.

Everybody we’ve met along the way has been really nice. Almost too nice, you can’t get away from them!!! Dave says they are all from the conversation generation. Not like us techno nerds, eh? ha ha

Hooking the GPS up to the laptop thru the map software is really nice. It’s been really helpful for us in figuring out where we want to stop and get diesel, and let the horses out. Plus, we know exactly where we are going and how long it’s going to take — which lets us figure out when to stop for the horses. It’s been really helpful, and it’s all new so may lose it’s appeal after awhile.

Okay, enough for now. See you in St. Joe!

Happy XP Trails,

Karen & crew…..