American Gam

“Courage is being scared to death…and saddling up anyway.” ~ John Wayne

Up here in the Dakotas, the Black Hills, the open prairie, basically any town in America that doesn’t have a street light or a McDonald’s nearby they have a name for people like us, ya’ know, us coastal folks; they call us “Citydiots.” If you’ve ever seen the movie “City Slickers”,well, that’s us. Just a couple of greenhorns who come up here to Palmer’s Gulch to ride a horse or maybe eat from a chuckwagon, perhaps step in some horse manure, and then think we’re a couple of real cowpokes.

Well, recently we tried to play that role by saddling up for an Old West experience. Here at the KOA at Palmer Gulch they have a chuckwagon dinner show every evening that takes guests for a horse drawn wagon ride out into the woods for an old-fashioned steak dinner where the food is brown, hot, and plenty of it.

Some of our fellow work-campers made reservations so we decided to join them only to find out that all of the wagons were full up for the evening. But, before the tears started falling, we found that we could still join our friends at the chuckwagon dinner show, we would just have to go there on…horseback!

Well, hell, we liked that option a whole lot better! So there we were, just a couple of “citydiots”, ready to saddle up on very powerful, half-ton animals and just mosey on down the dusty trail.

Treva was assigned a horse called Duramax and my trusty mount was named Ace. We got to see them in their stable. They were magnificent beasts!

And then…Patrick, the owner of the stables came out and announced to all of us riders that because of a looming storm they were not going to let the horses take the outing. We would have to go to the chuck wagon dinner by tractor-pulled wagon. One little girl broke down sobbing with disappointment. I cried on the inside.

A short time later Patrick arrived with our evening’s transport, a John Deere tractor pulling a covered wagon. So we climbed aboard for a jaunt down into the valley.

Twenty minutes later and we arrived at the chuckwagon outpost.

The old-timey country folk music was provided by these two balladeers who told lame jokes in between. Most of the songs they sang seemed to be about cowboys and coyotes and, as you would expect, the Roy Rogers-type melodies blended well with the whole chuckwagon vibe.

About ten minutes before dinner was served and true to Patrick’s prediction, a hail storm rolled in and had all of the diners running for cover like their britches were on fire while the poor, helpless horses were pelted with dime-sized ice pellets. It only lasted five minutes.

The steaks were cooked on this giant wood-burning cauldron while the Cowboy au gratin potatoes, the bourbon baked beans, and the peach cobbler were all cooked in Dutch ovens…and all were delicious!

After dinner we had a visit from a deer…

…and then a ride home by a Deere.

Aside from the hailstorm, the screaming kids, and the no horses to ride, the evening was a pleasant experience shared with our workcamping friends.

I hope we still get an opportunity to ride horseback before we leave.

The gam continues…