After Fatty and I spent the better part of Wednesday getting acquinted with a few of the ranch's horses, on Thursday we were ready to ride. Here's me on the walk down...
Grant and the Fatty on theirs. Now, one thing to keep in mind - the horses we were riding weren't wimpy petting zoo horses that have been ridden by hundreds of people. These horses were broken, but don't get ridden all that often - and when they do get ridden, they're ridden by real cowboys who know how to handle them. So in the beginning, we each had to spend quite a bit of time with our horses pretending like we knew how to act like we were in charge.
I call this photo "Shadowrider." (But when you say it's title, please say it in a hushed whisper or you won't get the full-effect of its truly amazing 8th-grade Art-ness.)
Oh, and the best part? The ranch dog loves being around the horses so he tagged along with us for our entire ninety minute ride. Check him out all happily trotting along. So cute.
So remember how I said these weren't no pussy horses? As soon as we got them on the open trail, they all started galloping. That's right: not a trot, not a canter, a full-on fucking gallop. Holy shit, I almost did something in my pants that would've put Dashiell to shame. Here's a pic Grant managed to take of me right as we all finally managed to slow them down.
This was amazing! Grant leaned over to pose with the ranch's old, ornery, one-eyed buffalo, and while Grant was leaning over, the buffalo got all angry and rammed the cage right next to Grant's head - scaring the living shit out of both of us. (See how the photos all blurry? It's because I was jumping and yelling when the shutter clicked. Hahah).
One of the ranch hands was kind enough to give our saddle-sore cityslicker asses a lift back from the stable to the house (saving us the embarrasment of a bowlegged walk of pain home).
NOw that we were officially cowboys (er, or at least had ridden horses) we headed back to the Buckhorn, the local watering hole, so Grant could interview some cowboys for his "Sex Advice From Cowboys" article.
Here's Grant nursing a couple of beers as he got up the courage to ask some of the burly men for their best tips on how to get women to have anal sex, etc.
Grant shows off the free drink token we got at the Buckhorn for leaving a tip that was 20%. When we were leaving, the bartender actually followed us outside (at first we thought "Yep, here comes that asskicking that we thought we were going to get!") to tell us that we'd left too much money on the bar. When told him we'd left that much on purpose and that it was a tip, he insisted we take a few free drink tokens. Boy, I tell you - those cowboys may have tough exteriors, but once you open 'em up and getting talking about anal, they're alright by me.
The wasabi got us all fiesty because the next thing you know, we'd driven 25 mintues to nearby Coarse Gold, CA in search of the legendary Friday night karaoke party we'd heard about from the locals. Yep, you heard me right. KARAOKE!
...and refugee groupies from the 80s! Awwww, yeah! (This lady was awesome - she was totally all over Fatty. Fatty was laughing, but at the same time he was all nervous because she was there with a bunch of scary looking dudes. Check out how Fatty's all got his arms up in the air like "I'm not touching her, see? She is the one touching me!")
But we went up to them afterwards and were talking to them and they turned out to be the nicest people in the world. (And although you can't really tell from this pic, this lady was actually pretty hot. Fatty kept nudging me and nodding over at her being like "Dude, she's so hot....and TRAAAAASHY." Yep, Fatty loves him some trashy women.)
For some reason this is the only pic I have of Grant singing...see him there in the background? Look carefully, I know it's hard to see him behind the group of people who actually got up out of their seats and started doing a FUCKING KICKLINE to the end of his incredible rendition of Frank's "New York, New York." (People from California got up and kicklined to "New York, New York" sung by a Brit. Think about that.)
Fatty, seen here double fisting, was getting pretty drunk at this point in the night. I remember him turning to me, nudging me yet again and pointing out his favorite, older blonde lady and saying "Dude, I think I realized why she's so hot. She totally looks like Stifler's Mom!"
Just when I was about to tell him he was crazy, I looked over at her and saw the resemblance myself (check it out. crazy, right?). I was like "Whoa! You're right, she IS hot!" (Which is also when I realized it would probably be best if Grant drove home).
Right when we'd gotten to the bar, there were a few girls that came over to us because they could tell that we "weren't from around there." We chatted them up for awhile until we noticed that it was causing all of the guys in the room to give us the stinkeye. As the night pressed on and some of those guys started getting drunker and giving us the stink eye again, we decided it would probably be best to quit while we were ahead and call it a night. We snuck out right in the middle of a slow jam. Farewell, Coarse Gold!
