Yikes!!!, Was not my initial plans.

It was 7:30am, Friday Aug. 1, 2008 when I had to get up due a full day of bookings for horseback rides out at Sundown. Well, those plans didn't go as planned. I'll explain. As the saying goes, If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

Tana took off for work at around 7am and I had gotten home from my real job at Bresnan at about 1:30am so needless to say, I was kind of tired. However, I knew we had a full day of horseback rides and so I was running kind of late to take the kids to drop off at Grandma Niven's.

Right before we left, my cell phone rang. It was a lady that I had talked to earlier about Pappy's Cowboy Cookout and she wanted to book right there for 60 people. Well, how can you turn that down, so I got the information, date, and the details on this specific group coming. We'll it wasn't a one minute call to say the least but thier coming in a month.

So I dropped off the kids at Moms and hurried off to our first group of horseback rides. I got thier late. (which isn't a good first impression) We had two kids but they had a blast riding. After the first ride, Dad and I went home to get some lunch and while at home, the second group of people called and wanted to go riding early and said they were there already. So Dad and I left after lunch to get the second group saddled up. Well, Dad saw some smoke out towards Far and Away where we have other wagons and sent me to go find out if it's our stuff. Well, I got to Arrow Creek Road off the interstate 90 and saw it was a house and barn. I called 911 quickly because I didn't see anyone there.

I drove to the ranch house and Clint Hammond and a neighbor were trying to pull moter homes away from the barn while his dad was trying to keep water on the fuel tanks and keep the fire away. Well in a matter of a minute or so, I became the driver of one of the water trucks. Clint took me down to get one of the trucks at the other ranch. Well, I wasn't sure how to drive the old truck, and Clint just said, "Drive it to the fire, If you don't get there safely, the water won't be any good to us." Well, it did have about 1000 gallons in it so I quickly learned how to drive it.

Well, to make the rest of the day, Dad ended up riding with the 2nd group and them took the 3rd group of 4 riding. (His butt was sore for the next couple days), Well, after the fire was mostly contained, I had to go directly into work. Well, needless to say, I smelt like fire but made it through the day. I'm glad every day is not like this, just every other day! Enjoy one of the pics I took.

Well, the scary part about this picture is the fuel tanks that were right next to the barn that was burning. I was one of the water truck drivers. (I'm still wondering how that happened) Anyhow, we were able to save the tanks by putting water on them and keeping the fire away until the other fire fighters got there.