{"id":2087,"date":"2016-08-13T05:08:36","date_gmt":"2016-08-13T12:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/?p=2087"},"modified":"2016-08-13T05:35:27","modified_gmt":"2016-08-13T12:35:27","slug":"missing-four-legged-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=2087","title":{"rendered":"Missing Four-legged Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x150113.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x150113.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x1501\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2088\" \/><\/a>Hiking the canyon road at Hidden Falls Ranch today, I thought of old friends. Not the two-legged kind.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been a program director and executive director at my favorite camp, but my best job there was the first one\u2014wrangler.<\/p>\n<p>HFR doesn\u2019t allow trail rides in the Palo Duro anymore. Hasn&#8217;t for years. There\u2019s a reason. On the way to the old tabernacle and Aunt Betty\u2019s fortress, we would lead mounted campers past Surfer Boy\u2019s slide and Simba\u2019s roll (for the record, horses and riders came out OK).<\/p>\n<p>Today, I thought of Surfer Boy (named for his bleach-blond mane)\u2014and King.<\/p>\n<p>Zan\u2019s King McCue, this palomino Quarter Horse was my graduation gift from Dad in 1967 and my best friend until supplanted by a cute, two-legged one whom I married in 1968.<\/p>\n<p>Also, thought of Smokey today. A shaggy, albino gelding, Smokey was the best canyon horse I\u2019ve known, meaning he was as agile on rugged, steep trails as the nimble Mule Deer and sure-footed Aoudad Sheep that frequent the area.<\/p>\n<p>In search of some runaways, I once rode Smokey up the Goodnight Cabin trail on a moonless night. I turned off the flashlight when I realized we both didn\u2019t need it\u2014Smokey because he could see fine in the dark and me because what it showed only scared me more.<\/p>\n<p>I miss Smokey and Surfer Boy and King.<\/p>\n<p>C.S. Lewis thought that our pets join us in Heaven. If so, I\u2019m looking forward to some amazing rides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hiking the canyon road at Hidden Falls Ranch today, I thought of old friends. Not the two-legged kind. I\u2019ve been a program director and executive director at my favorite camp, but my best job there was the first one\u2014wrangler. HFR doesn\u2019t allow trail rides in the Palo Duro anymore. Hasn&#8217;t for years. There\u2019s a reason. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2087"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2091,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2087\/revisions\/2091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}