Raven Travels: MULE DAYS 2015

FRIDAY –

Today was another cool one with rain clouds surrounding the area.

LOOKING TOWARD THE PALISADES

GRINDING ROCK AND PALISADES

PEEKING THROUGH THE CLOUDS

Dawn Marie had a western pleasure class with her donkey in the morning.

DAWNMARIE ON HOPE

YOUNG RIDER WITH PRETTY DONKEY

In the evening we attended the show in the arena, and it was fun as usual. There were a couple of driving classes, a great show of horsemanship by the gent who drove the Priefert Percheron horses Roman Style. (He stood on the bare backs of the back two horses and drove them all.) It is quite a show. I will try to video it tomorrow. The final event was the individual pack scramble. This is always fun as the packer must strip his mule and horse, then they are let loose in the arena and a blank or two is fired. Pandemonium occurs. The packer has to then get his stock back, pack everything onto it securely and run the string around the quarter mile track without loosing anything!

SATURDAY –

This morning was the Parade. There are no motorized vehicles in the parade. Every wagon is pulled by horses or mules. All other entries are either on horse/mule back or the band is walking. It is always a lot of fun. George had never seen the parade so this year we went. (Usually we escape to the Eastern Sierras for a day of fly fishing or just hiking. As you can see we had a lovely day with the sun shining by the time the parade started at 1000.

LITTLE DRUMMER, BIG DRUM

BACKCOUNTRY AMULANCE SERVICE

BORAX 20 MULE TEAM

After lunch at the tack stall we headed for the afternoon program in the main arena.

BORAX 20 MULE TEAM

The Preifert Team was showing their wagon driving techniques which I captured on video. Regrettably I can not get this to show properly. (A new learning curve to deal with. :-))

Then one of the clowns did a tap dance while standing atop a mule. Also a video that does not seem to work properly. :-)

While all of this was going on, the weather was building with visible rain showers both to the East and West of Bishop.

The program finished just before it started to rain at the fairgrounds. It proceeded to rain for the next four plus hours!! We stayed dry by hanging out near the tack stall. Dinner was under cover at the fairgrounds and I once again enjoyed an Indian Frybread Taco. We opted not to watch the evening show in the rain while sitting in open bleachers so we bid farewell to family and friends and returned to the Big Pine Motel.

This trip has been the coolest of the 20 that I have attended. Usually the temps are in the high 80’s to even 100˚F. We were dressed for it as we have experienced some dramatic changes in the weather over a week here every year.

SUNDAY –

We left Big Pine for our drive home about 0600. and had nice weather along the way. We did make a stop in the Lone Pine area to try and photograph Mt. Whitney. We were not rewarded as the clouds were still low over the Sierras, but here is a panorama to urge you to go and visit this area.