We’re back! It was our dream trip that became a reality. Beene, Thunder, Vanessa, and I returned from our great adventure to the Grand Tetons on July 18, 2005. We were blessed with perfect weather and with the exception of a computer crash, the vacation was virtually trouble-free.

All winter and into the spring we planned for the trip, and shared our travel plans and strategies with our friends who read The Trail Rider. Literally dozens of e-mails from all over the country found their way to our inbox. We only wish we would’ve had the time to accept every invitation we received. A month would’ve been too little time to see everyone who invited us to ride with them.

Advice is cheap, and we received a lot of it. TTR readers wanted us to learn from their experiences before we traveled with the horses Out West. Their input was informative and greatly appreciated.

Happy Travelers
The well-being of our steeds was on readers’ minds. Readers were concerned how our horses — 19-year-old endurance veteran Thunder and 16-year-old ringbone survivor Beene — would fair trailering long distances in the Midwest summer heat.

Well, they did great. We decided to keep moving in the heat of the day, stopping only briefly to see if they needed anything. Both geldings ate and drank well on the road. Even in the 100-degree heat we encountered while traveling on I-90, the boys drank and kept themselves fed, hydrated, and relaxed.

For safety reasons, we never travel on the road with the feed doors open. Instead, all available ventilation points were opened for maximum airflow. This strategy was effective. The constant draft kept our horses comfortable in the heat as they watched America go by.

In May, I received an e-mail from a reader in Skaneateles, New York, who warned of the hazards of riding in high elevations on horses whose metabolisms weren’t used to thin air. We researched the matter promptly.

Fortunately, an online posting site, Ride Camp, had a thread on this exact subject. Endurance riders from humid environments found that horses that traveled to higher elevations for weekend events seem to perform well in competitions. The theory is that humid air in the home environment prepares equine lungs to adapt to higher elevations. These riders rested their mounts in base camp a day before and usually a day after the event.

However, if the horses were situated in high elevations (above 8,500 feet, for example) for more than a weekend, performance problems sometimes occurred. The rule of thumb seems to be that if you want to stay in high elevations more than a weekend, plan on staying an entire month. It’s best to reach your highest elevation in steps, gradually acclimating your horse to less oxygen. It’ll condition you and your steeds for the change.

Forage Concerns
The need for Certified Weed Free hay came to our attention early in our research. Vanessa logged hours of computer time and stressed the cell phone bill investigating this important feed issue.

A little background: To protect land from unwanted vegetation, only CWF hay may be carried into Bureau of Land Management lands, national parks, and certain counties Out West. Noncertified hay can be confiscated by the authorities and fines levied. Wanting no part of this, we learned we’d have to look for the special forage when we got into Nebraska.

After calculating our needs and future hay-purchase options, we put just seven bales of regular hay onto our rig when we departed from New York. Being Horsemen of Conscience, we carefully placed our fine New York hay in construction-size plastic bags and sealed them with duct-tape.

Unfortunately, the hay crop wasn’t in yet when we arrived at the Flying Bee Ranch, our hosts in Scottsbluff. So we left Nebraska and drove west into Wyoming on a prayer that we wouldn’t be cited and that we’d find CWF hay farther west. If we were unsuccessful in our CWF hay quest, then we’d gradually switch the boys to a diet of Vintage Senior and water-soaked alfalfa pellets until the legal hay was found.

We finally found the elusive forage bearing the special blue-and-orange string at the Puzzleface Ranch in Jackson, Wyoming. A 50-pound bale cost $8. The grass hay was nothing like Beene and Thunder had ever seen in their extensive travels. They nibbled at it begrudgingly and seemed to say, “What’s this? I thought we were on vacation here, Ben.”

The hay’s quality couldn’t keep them fully nourished, so their calorie requirements were met by including the preplanned blend of soaked extruded feed. We did keep our one bale of New York hay in a zippered, waterproof bale bag and used it only in hay bags on travel days. Carefully rationed, our two bales of CWF hay actually lasted until we got home.

The western United States we visited was awe inspiring. South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska are beautiful states but under their beauty we recognized fragile ecosystems. This was an awakening for both Vanessa and me.

On our rides in the Wildcat Hills in Nebraska’s Panhandle; the Hobeck area near Jackson Hole, Wyoming; and the Black Elk Wilderness Area near Custer, South Dakota, we witnessed beauty beyond imagination. I now know why protection of these areas from noxious weeds is considered in the public interest. The Certified Weed Free Hay Program needs public and private support to ensure protection of these lands.

A Dream is Born
Of all the e-mails I received about our journey, the one that stuck in my mind the most was from a 51-year-old woman who lives with her husband of 26 years and their three children on a farm in the Loess Hills of western Iowa. (See “Wyoming Trip Inspiring,” Letters to the Editor, September/October ’05.) She’s a lifelong horse lover who enjoys riding in the hilly trails on her farm. She said that she was envious of our vacation and dreamed of one day trail riding in Wyoming.

This farm wife from our heartland confessed that she has a difficult time finding friends her age to ride with her. She said our trip inspired her to make some horse traveling goals in her life. When I read this, I realized that the friendship that Vanessa and I enjoy is priceless, and we’re fortunate to have horses as the focus of our life, grateful for the opportunity to make our trip Out West.

I wrote our friend from western Iowa, and told her to make her plans and go for it. This is how dreams are born. And without dreams, you can’t make them come true.

A message printed on the inside bottom of a coffee cup we purchased at the Crazy Horse Memorial in Custer, South Dakota, put it best: “Never forget your dreams.”

In subsequent issues of The Trail Rider, I’ll share more about the individual locations we rode on our travels out west this summer. For a travel log of our trip, visit www.bentheyre.com. My e-mail is bentheyre@juno.com. As always, I’ll answer every e-mail personally.