Home on the range

In honor of my 26th birthday I drove down to Lakeview, Oregon to visit my college roommate, Sheena. Anybody know where Lakeview is? It's in central Oregon just a few miles above the Oregon-California border. It's about a 9 hour drive down there from Auburn, but luckily I enjoy road trips. No pictures from the drive though because a) I just wanted to get there and b) I was into my audiobooks.

Lakeview is an entirely different world from suburban Auburn. Saturday we went to town for sandwiches, where Sheena filled me in on the background of each and every person who walked through the door--including the guys wearing spurs.

Then the true test...time to ride a horse. Some background: Last year when I visited I rode Sonny, who, to quote Sheena, "lawn darted my ass" to the ground. I haven't ridden a horse since that little episode last summer so I was pretty nervous. Sheena helped me out by loaning me her Very Fancy barrel racing saddle, with the philosophy that it would be harder to fall out of. Then I had to stay in on or I'd look real dumb.

This time I was riding Orphan and "helping" to drive cattle from one field to another. By "helping" I mean trying not to freak out or get in the way of the real work.

There's the view from Orphan's back when the cattle are out of the field but not on the road yet:

Sheena's husband Lee, chasing cattle in a field. You can see how gorgeous the area is.


Yey! I made it back in one piece! Unfortunately, my knees will never work again. This is Sheena's horse, Latigo, looking down at me while he gets his hooves worked on and I sit on the in the doorway of the barn trying to recuperate.

I was fascinated with the interior of the barn. When I could finally stand up again I took a few pictures. The lighting was great, but I didn't frame this shot very well.

The tack room had great lighting too:


I wisely chose not to go on the much longer drive on Sunday morning. Sheena and I spent a lot of time recreating our college years by beaching ourselves on the couch, watching crap TV and making inappropriate comments about the shows.

Lee says I can come back and visit any time because I can give it to Sheena as well as she does to other people. Sheena says I can stay because she's trying to recruit people to move to her corner of the earth. No such luck. Maybe next year...