Jenny and Cam

So much of our life together had involved the horses and donkeys. We would clear the paddocks, shovel the stalls, load the manure cart and head to the compost yard. Afterwards, we would swing by the ice cream shop in our dirty overalls, the sweet aroma of manure following us, and languish in the joy of a life connected to animals. Jenny had run a quarantine barn, where horses rescued for the kill buyers, would come for thirty days before moving onto their new owners. Most would arrive in the middle of the night, without warning, packed into the back of a semitrailer. For Jenny, it was like Christmas morning, never knowing surprises lay ahead. Some were starved, others sick with rain rot or diseases. In thirty days she was able to get most of them back to good health, giving many of them new names along the way

A few stayed longer than the thirty days, for various reasons, and for years we had Pippa, the exquisite thoroughbred, who lounged around the paddock like "the laziest girl in town." Her paddock mate was Monaco, who arriving as an adolescent, never outgrew his pesky younger brother demeanor, constantly tormenting Pippa.  She only feigned her feelings for him the day he drove away, wailing at his departure.

The last pair was Blossom, a feral donkey who gave birth several months later to Apple.  When they both were finally adopted the emptiness of the paddock began to wear on us. It's then that we began to think about visiting Jenny's old charges, and travelling out to the wild horse herds in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.

At first we thought about taking the horse trailer.  After all, no one was using it. We could throw a bed in there and maybe a few things and we'd be all set.  Plus, we surmised, being a horse trailer, we could park it anywhere without notice. Such was our naivety. The out of the blue, our friend decided to sell his Airstream, and suddenly we realized the luxury we could travel in, as well as the reality of such a journey.

This all happened in the first full year of the pandemic, and so the process of getting ourselves organized was slowed by the general inertia of the time.  In addition, we decided to upgrade Olive, our newly named Airstream, to be equipped with everything required to be off-road for what is known as "boondocking" or camping away from the official campgrounds. This, as it turned out took over a year, with countless viewings of videos to learn how to install solar panels, lithium batteries, lift kits, water filters, etc.  It was almost fun.

Inevitably a time came for departure.  We had rented the house, for a year, and as they say in the rodeo "you're never ready, it's just your turn."  It might have been smart if we had taken a maiden voyage or two, but somehow in our preparations we had never found the time. And so when the time came, we simply drove out the driveway and headed off on our voyage.