Sunday morning we got to visit a few long term holding facilities in Oklahoma! And for those of you who think this is a dry patch of dirt, your wrong. It is the exact opposite, luscious green grass for 1,000's of acres! Everything a horse could dream about!! If an opportunity comes up to go to one of these events, I highly recommend going because its an INCREDIBLE ONCE IN A LIFETIME EXPERIENCE! We arrived at the BLM headquarters at 8 am and set out on a 1 hour drive to the first ranch.We traveled in style as you will see in the video! hehe! I was amazed that these mustangs didn't run FAR away being as though this was the first time many of them had seen a bus! The first ranch we saw a few herds of mustangs but they were quite a ways from the road. We stayed out there for a bit and then headed to the barn and corrals. They gave us a tour of where they unloaded the horses and gave them vet checks. The vet check area was very safe. It was padded and had a cover over the top to keep horses from rearing and hurting themselves.
The second ranch we got to see 3 herds up close! This is the place to get the good pictures!! The 1st herd were geldings and they were only a few feet away from the road, but when people kept inching closer they took off across the road. I still got some good pictures. The 2nd herd was also geldings. Some were so close you could touch almost touch them! And the last herd was the mares and their babies! I really enjoyed them!! The last bit of our outing included lunch and our goody bags at the barn of that ranch. We got some cool NEW posters, a stuffed horse or burro and a hat or shirt!
Off Topic Of Mustangs: Later that night we went to the memorial downtown for the 4-19-95 bombing of the Murrah building. Let me tell you, I got so many eerie feelings being in the area where 168 people died... There were 2 gates, the 9:01 gate and the 9:03 gate. 9:01 represents the innocence before the bombing and 9:03 represents the chaos after the bombing. All the stuff in between represents 9:02- the time the bomb went off and the many lives that were lost. The reflecting pool (diagram below) running through the memorial represents the original street that was there before the bombing. On the left of the pool there is a field with all these chairs and each level represents the level floor the person was on when they were killed. The chairs are arranged where the most damage was done to the building. It really was amazing.
The final part of our trip involved us visiting a friend of ours, Mike! Plus his horsies!
Joplin...
We drove through Joplin on our way back home... Wow is all I can say.
It was a great trip and I and soooooooooooo much fun! I can't wait for my next horse adventure!