Saturday Bill and I ventured out to the Empire Ranch Fall Roundup. I have always wanted to visit the Empire Ranch, mostly just to see what was beyond the hill where the sign is located. The Roundup seemed like a good excuse to go, so we did. I honestly didn’t think it was an event that we would enjoy or even stay long at, and I was right. But it was a glorious fall day and we both enjoyed just getting out and going somewhere, anywhere!
The ranch itself probably would be interesting to tour. It was located about five miles, off the highway, down a dusty dirt road. The views were spectacular. My comment to Bill was, “100 years ago, if you didn’t have it or couldn’t make it, you didn’t need it. This must have been truly the middle of nowhere back then!”
We walked around, watched a calf roping demonstration (totally different mentality than what you see with rodeos), listened to some live music, wandered through the exhibits and vendors, and decided we’d seen enough.
The plan was to go back the way we came and have lunch in Sonoita. As we left the ranch and came to the right turn that would take us back to the main highway, we saw this sign:
The direction we came in from the main road was behind me as I took this picture. We had just come from the left arrow when we left the ranch. Where on Highway 82 did the road come out? Was the road passable with our Neon? What would we see?
Guess which way we went?!
Me, I’d have gone right – hope the Neon made it 😉
I truly love the pictures. Thanks for sharing. Ooh, a cliffhanger. GULP, I hope it wasn’t really a cliffhanger. Looking forward to the next blog. 🙂
I’m lost. lol But you like scenery so maybe you went to “Oak Canyon?”
I’d have wanted to see calves demonstrate roping. Were they cute? And we must hear about their mentality in a future blog, before we leave this tour. (Never been to a rodeo.)
That sky sure is BLUE. But it doesn’t make up for the dust.
We didn’t even consider Oak Tree Canyon, possibly because it was in the opposite direction of where we needed to end up to get home. I will have to dig out a map and see how far down the road Oak Tree Canyon is from that sign. It might be an interesting trip to take now, while the weather is lovely and dry.
I will do something later this week about the calves/rodeo.