Turkey Creek Ranch - Newcastle, Nebraska

 Comet Shower

While staying at Union Grove, we took a side trip into Sioux City, Iowa. We visited the Art Center where we saw this very cool installation. Click on the link above to see the Comet Shower.

Turkey Creek Ranch boasts an obstacle course.  If you click on the link, you can watch Ari ride Mercutio through the obstacle course. I rode him through the obstacle course as well to try and build his confidence on the trail a bit and settle him down.

Turkey Creek Ranch has a small office where guests can check in as well as shop for souvenirs.

There are a lot of corrals available. They are all uncovered, 10' x 10'. Lots of shade from the trees.

There is a nice picnic pavilion available as well.

Campsites were close together and the place was crowded with equestrians travelling through from Minnesota and Wisconsin on the way to their winter stops.

By Sunday, we were one of three campers left.

Ari getting ready to ride. There are loads of trails, all well maintained and well marked. I did a short ride as I would rather have a short, successful ride where my horse stays calm, then push my luck.

Ari went out on a solo ride and also rode with one of the other camping couples.

We enjoyed our stay here quite a bit. We had electric and water hook-up. No RV dump or sewer hook-up. We stopped at Little Sioux Park on our way to the next campground to empty our tanks.

Our Winegard worked fine here.

It is a couple of miles of dirt road getting into the campground and I wouldn't recommend trying it when it is too wet or muddy.

Lots of flies at this campground which were driving both of us nuts. 

Plum Creek Canyon Ranch - Newcastle, Wyoming

 

Darryl and Bonnie TenBroek ran a horse camp outside of Ten Sleep, Wyoming that was legendary among equestrians. They were known for their hospitality. They sold it three years ago and bought property outside of New Castle, Wyoming. They didn't want to get entirely out of the hospitality business, so they installed two RV hook-up pads for guests. A significant downsizing from the number of guests they needed to deal with in Ten Sleep.

We have water and electric hook-up, no sewer. We were able to connect to their WIFI using our Winegard, and the connection is solid enough we can stream television shows and Ari can play his video games.

I only booked us for a couple of nights because it is still pretty hot - easily in the 90s.

We asked Darryl and Bonnie to take us out for a ride. They are both on quarter horses.

Bonnie's horse is Spark. Darryl's horse is Ned. Darryl told me he bought his horse from a neighbor and the horse was named Nibbles, because the horse likes to give little kisses to people. Darryl said, he was not going to ride a horse named Nibbles, so he gave him a new name.

Ari spotted a rattlesnake on the trail. So Darryl dismounted to kill it. Ari dismounted to watch. Bonnie is holding onto to Ned, Darryl's horse.  I uploaded video of the kill on my Instagram account.

Darryl cut off the head and tail of the rattlesnakes for trophies. I took the tail to give to our grandson, Zane. If you shake it, it makes a rattling sound like a gourd.

The rattlesnake tail has ten segments. A rattlesnake adds a segment every two to three years, so you can use the number of segments to estimate the age of the snake.

Darryl killed the snake, basically with his bare hands, using only the lead rope from his horse.

Darryl's great-grandfather drove the wagon that collected the dead after The Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. The bodies of the officers were picked up and transported for burial in Arlington. The enlisted men were buried in mass graves.

This was not an easy trail ride - lots of climbing up and down - and the trails are not well marked. We would not have been able to figure out where we were going without a guide. Both Lennox and Mercy behaved really well.

Back at the barn, the horses were rewarded with grain for a job well done.

They are in large pens with cover. They are pretty darn happy.

Tomorrow we head to Sundance Horse Camp, near Sundance, Wyoming.