2nd – 6th Jan 2022
A long, long time ago, back in the time when dragons were still common, a glorious, flaxen-haired girl-child was first born unto her parents, Jacqueline and Stuart. Fifty years later, by now significantly more glorious but also a bit more silver than flaxen in the hair department, the girl-woman was asked by her loyal consort what she might like as a gift to celebrate the milestone. She decided that she would like to go to a lovely guest ranch for four days and pretend that she was a cowgirl. Her wish was granted and thus the duo (for this was really quite a nice treat for the loyal consort too) found themselves driving to the very, very edge of the great slab of the land that is known as Amurca to a special, magical place called Rancho De La Osa.
If we had driven any further on our journey to the southern border of Arizona we would have arrived in Mexico. In fact the 600 acres of the’Ranch of the She-Bear’ ran all the way up to the recently intalled border wall which loomed on the near horizon like an oversized art installation. It is an old place, neat but dusty, its gum trees towering above the surrounding scrubland of the desert providing some rare shade. The ranch was originally the site of a village inhabited by the Tohono O’Odham native tribe. In 1722 Jesuit missionaries built a mission outpost as a place of worship, a trading post and an inn for travellers. This building still stands today despite having cannonballs fired at it in 1916 by Pancho Villa and his men when they tried to capture it in an unsuccessful raid. It is the oldest continually inhabited building in Arizona and now functions as the cantina for the ranch, inside which there was an unmanned bar operating a ‘serve-yourself’ honesty policy. The rooms were all decorated in a hacinenda Spanish style with open fireplaces and all meals were served at long communal tables with a big bell to summon us all to each sitting. There was no mask wearing and no social distancing. We crossed our fingers and just went with the flow.
The ranch offered two horse rides a day, 22-rifle target and 12-bore shotgun clay pigeon shooting, archery and ATV tours around the property and beyond. We planned to do it all. There was a heated pool, but it wasn’t quite warm enough to break out the swimsuits.
Big Dave and Tin Can had a perfect spot to park just outside our room and we even found an outside socket to be able to plug Tin Can into the A/C supply and run the fridge. It was also made packing and unpacking quite simple.
We had four nights here, arriving in time for lunch on the first day. Within 1 minute of sitting down at the table we had met Ed and Karee from Florida and a new friendship was born! They became our eating, drinking and activity buddies for the whole stay here and many an hour was whiled away at the cantina together. We were honest at the honesty bar, but supplemented our libations with BYO, which was entirely acceptable to the establishment, who just let us do our own thing.
We rode horses. Nick for the first time ever, and me for the first time in 20+ years. The Western-style saddles were a blessing and Nick was very brave. The ol’leggies didn’t scream with pain too badly after the event.
We shot guns. The Americans presumed that we had no idea which end of a gun was which, but we surprised them all with our skills. Nick was King of the Clay Pigeon Shooting.
We did archery. I was Queen of the Bow with a sublime ‘centre of the gremlin’s forehead’ shot with my very last arrow. It was sweet.
We took an ATV tour up to, and along, the border wall. This section was only completed about a year ago and has a gravel road running along it’s US side. It is not an inpenetrable object, however, with several gaps coinciding with dry riverbeds and because of the change of government-and thus policy wall building policy-at the last election, its build was suspended and the wall just stops. Our tour took us to this point.
This is patrolled at regular interavals by Border Patrol officers in trucks and there are lots of cameras too. We were told by our guide NOT, under any circumstances, to stray to the other side of the wall because to come back would be to illegally enter the USA. We would be seen and arrested, which would really kill the guest ranch experience buzz…..
Apparently the wall is not primarily to control the influx of people, more the trafficking of drugs. It has helped with both, but the patrolling of the border takes an incredible amount of money and manpower. On our last afternoon here a Border Patrol helicopter was flying low just beyond the horse corral on the ranch. It was circling round and around a specific area, so we all went to see what was happening. It played out like a TV documentary drama. The helicopter could obviously see some illegal immigrants in the bush and was trying to direct two Border Patrol officers, one on a quad bike, one on foot, to where they were hiding. More officers arrived in trucks with another quad bike but still they couldn’t find them. The helicopter was still circling. Finally another truck arrived, this one carrying a German Shepherd who got the job done within 5 minutes – four men finally being apprehended and driven away. It was very surreal.
My birthday fell in the middle of our stay here. It was a very low key but perfect day. In the evening at dinner the staff brought out a birthday cake which doubled as dessert for everyone. I ‘blew out’ my candle with a Covid-safe clap as another guest played Happy Birthday on his harmonica. Later that evening, by coincidence rather than design, our host and ranch manager- the Venerable Cowboy, Ross Knox – treated us to a reading of cowboy poetry which was actually very cool. It turns out that Ross is a two times world champion horse packer and had been inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Who knew such an esteemed establishment existed?
Our time here was magic and was a worthy place to celebrate a milestone birthday. The ranch was so relaxed. The sun shone. It was dry. We ate well. We did some very fun stuff and we made some great friends. Our good byes to the ranch were hard, but not so our goodbyes to Ed and Karee as we have invited ourselves to stay with them in Florida towards the end of our trip in April. They were powerless to refuse our demands…..
