Yay!! I have figured out how to upload pictures!

Unfortunately, it takes forever for each picture.

Anyway, here is a picture of the ranch, as seen coming back from one of our trail rides. To the far left are the "lodge rooms", in the center is the gift shop with game room above it and the Whistlestop, or dining room. The lighter brown building to the far right is the "Hotel", which has the saloon on the bottom and our hotel rooms above.

In the front, the grass you see is one of the pastures where the horses live. There are at least 4: one is up on the hill behind the barn, one is in front of the ranch, the "close" pasture is across the drive from this one, and the "far" one is down the driveway from the ranch. A few horses live in the barn and are turned out into the corral each day; considering that we had to go get our horses ourselves and take them back after the ride/cool down, Michelle and I were quite happy to have horses from the barn!


Here is the view from the porch out front. Isn't it gorgeous!! We were in the Smoky Mountains, and the views everywhere were just beautiful.

You can see the front pasture and the driveway, then the far pasture. I felt bad for those with horses way back there, because after each ride, we had to get off and walk our horses around the drive once, and then return them to their pastures. If your horse lives out in the far one, that meant you essentially had to walk around the driveway once before and twice after each ride! The barn, on the other hand, was right behind the livery (where they keep saddles, bridles, etc.), where the hitching posts were set up. Hee hee!

Did I mention that the area was suffering a severe drought?

Here is a picture I took one night of a forest fire we could see from the ranch. I guess I'm not that good at taking nighttime pics, yet - I must have moved some - but you can see overall the effect - it looked like a volcano, the way the fire glowed at the top of the mountain. Don't worry, the fire was in the middle of national park land, so there were no homes in danger, and it was 3 ridges and a river away from us, so we weren't either. As forest fires go, I think it was a small one. We didn't see any efforts to put it out, so it must have been pretty well under control.

This is Jewel, my horse for the week. Isn't she pretty?

She looks a little sweaty, because this was taken at the top of the mountain, where we rode for the overnight. On the way up, we encountered a nest of yellow jackets, and she was petrified. I didn't get stung on this ride, although our wrangler at the end did. Jewel was so freaked out, she tried to bypass the trail and go straight up the mountain! I was able to get her under control, but she was still panting heavily when we got to the top.



Here are some more pics of the overnight. It was very rustic, and yet everything we needed was set up for us when we got there.

This picture shows how they had pens set up like stalls for the horses while we were camping. There was a small shelter with hay, and each horse had a bucket like the blue one in the picture for water. The horses seemed very comfortable there. Especially when we brought them carrots after dinner!

Here you can see the campsite:

There were 2 picnic tables, a campfire, the lean-to where we layed out our sleeping bags, and even a tire swing for the younger kids. Only 10 people were allowed to go, plus the 2 wranglers. There was a dad and his 2 young sons, a family of 4 from Sussex, England, Michelle and me, and an 18 yr old from France. His family was at the ranch, but there was space only for one more on the overnight, so he came by himself. He does speak English well, but he's pretty shy so he kept to himself most of the time. The food was soooo good. Foil pans with beef stew were prepared ahead and heated up over the campfire along with garlic bread, and we had pudgy pies and s'mores for desert. The Marriots (from England) had never had s'mores before, so I made them some. You haven't really camped in the US if you haven't had s'mores! After dinner, we tried playing cards for a while (we played a game called 31, which we learned from John and Evelyn (from FLA) and then taught everyone else), but it was hard with only flashlights. Tim (the 16 yr old from England) fashioned one out of a large flashlight set shining up with a styrofoam cup over the light to diffuse it. It did work out well, but we were all too tired to stay up too late anyway. For breakfast we had french toast (ahem, Yann told us this isn't really a "French" food!) and sausage. Once again, the Marriots were surprised to see us eating it with butter and syrup - they call it "egg bread"and eat it plain! We woke up around 7 and got going back down the mountain by 9:30.

Here's a shot of the absolutely gorgeous view from the top of the mountain.

This is the trail ride back down. Just in front of me is Tim, and in front of him is his sister Hannah, who is 19. Can you believe they had never ridden before this vacation? There were quite a few new riders, actually, but the Marriots were the only family where no one at all had any experience. They did great, though! I really had to admire their sense of adventure, picking out a vacation like this for the family.

Well, that is enough for now. My connection is so sluggardly, this post has literally taken me hours to prepare. I'll be back later with more pics : )