A day with cowboys, open skies, running antelope, beers and best friends.
Living for about four years in what some consider, "one of the most beautiful places" or as we know it Jackson, Wyoming you begin realizing that although beautiful this heavenly slice of the West will never be something that we can call our own. Most of us begin the inevitable departure from our beloved town, to bigger cities with more jobs like Chicago, Philadelphia and New York in hopes of gaining real-life career experience, replacing the care-free days of ski bumming and aimless adventures for stability and the small possibility of making enough money to someday return to our oasis of the West.
This year, however, my friends and I spent the time and energy to organize a reunion-- gathering in a small area outside the skirts of our World Famous Jackson Hole, to an area off the grid and not known. We met for an annual western horse riding event called a poker ride. Given horses, beers, and a BBQ we rode for a full day with no strings, careers, or cell phone service holding us down and distracting us. It's a classic event with true cowboys and cowgirls and, although most of us are inexperienced, this cowboy culture surprisingly embraced our slack reigns, crooked hats, and uncontrolled horses. It's a day worthy of making a tradition and one we wake up to the next day sore, tired, and dusty thinking, "I can't wait for next year in Bondurant...whoot honk."
