The DC Ride

                Let’s start off with the what: The Desert Caballeros Ride is 100 miles on horseback spread over 5 days in the middle of the mountains in Arizona. This ride is all men. No girls allowed. Me and 160 other guys sat our asses on horses and rode around. For five days (well, technically four. We’ll get to that). A lot of you easterners may sit there and think nothing else but “WTF.” However, it’s a lot of fun. Specifically, a lot of DRUNKEN fun. This ride leaves from Wickenburg, the town where my family’s guest ranch sits. My grandfather, Dallas Gant, started this ride along with a few other guys 65 years ago, shortly after he started his guest ranch. Since then, it has become a tradition both for the town of Wickenburg and my family. My Uncle Rusty went on 44 rides. My dad has been on 14, my brother 5. This was my second. One stipulation for the ride is that you have to be 21 years old (because of the booze part). The ride always goes out on a Monday and arrives back in town on a Friday. I leave the Friday before so I can spent a couple days riding beforehand (more on that later too).

                As I write this, more details about the ride will emerge. For this update, I’ll focus on the two days before, preparations, gear, and some of the odds and ends associated with this whole escapade.

                My first year on the ride, my dad signed himself, my brother and me up for riding the two days before the ride went out. They aren’t long rides, just around an hour or an hour and a half. I was extremely perplexed. I asked him why on earth you would want to do MORE riding than we already had to. His response was one of the funniest things I had ever heard: “To get your ass in shape.” The rationalization is that if you ride the two days before, your ass and knees hurt on Monday instead of on Tuesday. This is pretty crucial, as Tuesday is the really long day in the string of riding with anywhere from 7 to 9 hours in the saddle.

So, Saturday morning, my brother and I get up, eat breakfast, head to the corral, and get ready to mount up. We were riding with a group of other guys from our camp, including Eddie and Sam. You’re going to read their names a lot over the string of updates. They are the practical jokers of the camp, and are responsible for most of the pranks that get played on the new guys. My first year, they ducked taped me in bed, ducked taped a blow-up doll to me in bed, and had me arrested by the deputies that come along the ride with us. For that morning’s ride, they had put a pair of little girl’s panties around my saddle horn. Recognizing the use for this, I kept them for later (revenge is always funny). We ride around, and I realize that I got put on a horse that spooks. I would eventually learn over the next hour that I cannot do the following things around this horse:

1.       Take off my hat

2.       Have anything brush against my hat

3.       Make sudden noises

4.       Put on my saddle bags fast

5.       Have something strange enter his peripheral vision

My brother was put on a horse that kicks. I guess the wranglers didn’t want to make it easy on either of us this year. I get my horse calmed down after a string of spooking right when we left the corral, and I realized that it was going to be a long week of constant vigil to make sure I didn’t go careening off into the sunset on top of a horse that ran away from my hat like it had just see C’thulhu.

                The next part of Saturday and Sunday that the sentiment of “getting your ass in shape” for the ride applies to the drinking. A LOT of drinking happens on the ride and before, and getting your tolerance up for liquor is a must. If you don’t do this, you’re liable to have bad things happen to you , such as dehydration or being duct taped in bed. There are two main parties before the ride goes out: the Camp Party and the El Presidente Party.

                Let me elaborate on the camps a bit. The ride is divided up into various camps of guys, which are just groups of us. Some of us have batboys (people who drive the u-haul truck with most of our gear to each campsite...we’re not barbarians), some don’t, but there are differences between the camps. I’ll list them and some of their traits now:

Los Cab:

                Our camp. We are named for the Rancho de Los Caballeros (my family’s ranch). We have one batboy, Tommy. Tommy could sleep through a nuclear apocalypse standing up. He snores like a freight train (quite literally), and can be pretty useless at times. There are about 40 of us, and most of us are good natured. We do have our assholes though.

Californios:

                These guys mostly hail from California, and they’re all a bunch of pushy bastards. These guys, along with the Honkers, need to be RIGHT UP FRONT in the line of riders, and if you’re not going fast enough, they pass you (which can be really dangerous), or they start being pricks and tell you to spur your horse or make snide comments about how slow the ride is this year.

Honkers:

                Named because they have duck calls, and like to use them. Don’t ask why. Also pushy bastards. These guys are famous for their coffin. They have a real coffin, painted red, that has an inside lined with porn. They keep their booze in it (you really can’t make this shit up).

Remuda Ranch:

                Another guest ranch. These guys have a fleet of five batboys who wait on them hand and foot. They don’t even have to set up their own bunks. Because our guest ranch is a four-star resort, these guys like to claim that we’re the rich guys. Like hell. Batboys are expensive, and they pay lots for them. My brother put his response to them quite succinctly: “It’s not our fault we have a FUNCTIONING guest ranch.” (he doesn’t realize he’s not helping)

Poor Boys and the Cheapskates:

                I lump these guys together because they used to be one camp. Back in the day, there was a big camp argument with these guys about whether or not to get a batboy. It was pretty much split down the middle evenly. The argument was so heated, and the sides so unwilling to compromise, they agreed to split the camp in two. The Poor Boys were so named because they shilled out the money for a batboy. The Cheapskates are so named because they were too cheap to get one.

                So there’s your little bit of DC history regarding camps. Saturday night, one person in camp hosts the Camp Party, where we all gather, eat, drink cocktails, and get introduced to the Greenies. The Greenies are so named because it’s they’re first year on the ride, and this is noted by a strip of green tape on their badge. This is not supposed to come off until the ride ends on Friday. We had two Greenies this year, and one of them took off his stripe before the Camp Party. This pretty much means he was marked for every prank ever. This was noted by Eddie and Sam, and they were pissed. Retribution for these kinds of things is terrifying, righteous, and merciless. I am so glad the shit they did to me was tame in comparison. You’ll have to wait for the Tuesday update for that though.

                Before we get to Sunday, my brother and I found out something hilarious and scary at the same time: my brother had been chosen (without anyone informing him) that he would be carrying the American Flag out of town. Horses don’t usually like flags. Nathan’s kicked. This was going to need training. We all enjoy the rest of the cocktail hour, head back to the ranch for dinner, eat, go to the ranch’s bar, and drink until we pass out. Before passing out in our room, my brother and I got into a yelling fight about computer security (because apparently we’re all pompous pricks for telling people that what they do is wrong and able to be compromised. I was having NONE of that shit).

                Sunday, we ride to a breakfast cookout, ride back, and Nathan and his horse get some flag training. The rest of the day is pretty much dedicated to gear prep. Things we need include: bedroll with sleeping bag, chaps, saddlebags, bag packed with clothes and other things we need in camp, shotgun, cots (I don’t have one, my brother and dad do), hats, gloves, bandannas, tarp (we call it the wall-to-wall), nice water bottles, boots and spurs. You also pack lots of button up (western style) long sleeve shirts. Thorns are nasty.

                Then comes the El Presidente Party, where we get all doled up in our western finest, and go eat and drink more. There is also a silent auction that benefits the ride, where a whole bunch of stuff is sold. It can range from western jewelry and art to saddle blankets and new spurs. It’s all fun stuff. Once we have dinner, drink at the bar more, we then retire and get ready for Monday.

                Monday morning, all hell breaks loose. Organized hell, anyway.