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Left Florence fairly early and started our journey to White Stallion Ranch. Sat Nav was playing up and there were a lot of road works on our nice quiet route with no road signs!! Eventually got sat nav working and we found the Ranch - Yipee! We were quite overwhelmed at first as the Ranch is so beautiful and it seemed full of a lot of rich posh people. Anyway we checked in and our rooms were ready so after having a coffee we took our bags to our lodges which are really nice all nicely furnished in western fashion. Alan had phoned the night before and booked us in for a horse riding lesson and a wine and cheese ride in the afternoon. It was time for the lesson so we set off for the paddock. I felt a bit nervous again but once on my horse a white stallion called Wyatt I calmed down and was soon learning to trot. We had a few minutes to get a drink and organise ourselves then it was time to set off on the wine and cheese ride. It is really nice on this ranch because you get to have the same horse for all of your riding (at Tanque Verdi you were lucky if you got the same one twice) It was a lovely slow ride in beautiful sunshine and fun when we arrived at the destination. Sitting at picnic tables drinking wine and eating delicious cheeses with bread and biscuits, the surroundings were beautiful mountains, desert,cacti and flowers beginning to come out. We got to chat to a few of the other guests from different countries and from all over America and one or two English people. We rode back to the Ranch and sorted our bags out, changed for dinner and went up to the dining room. Before dinner there is a happy hour so the boys had beers and Claire and I had margaritas. When the weather is good they sit outside to eat on a beautiful patio. After dinner a cowboy did a display of rope lassoeing and gun tricks on the patio he was amazing.
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David Tester Hi Marion & Nick, I expect you’ll be home by the time you get this blog, but life’s been a bit hectic with decorating so I’ve only just got round to doing it. I’ve been looking at the derivation of American place names on Wikipedia and thought I might share them with you. KAYENTA; named after a woman called Kay who entered a bar in the town at a time when only men were allowed in, she insisted on staying and due to her stubborn insistence they renamed the town Kayenta. TUCSON; a town built virtually single handed by a cowboy who had a son that he cared for a great deal, although food was scarce he was always asking his boy “would you like some tuck son” so the town was named Tucson in his honor. SEDONA; So called after the local population donated all their left over seeds at the end of the planting season, the seeds were taken to a warehouse and put into small packets for distribution throughout the country, this seed donation resulted in the area being called Sedona. HOPI; so called after the famous cowboy Hopalong Cassidy, as a school boy he would win the sack race every year at the school sports day, he went on to win a gold medal for America in the 1926 Olympic sack race, he was the best hopper ever seen and was given the nickname hopalong, his mother Mrs Cassidy was so proud of him as was the whole town which was renamed Hopi in his memory. It's amazing what you can find out on Wikipedia.