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It was the summer, and my dad wanted to treat me to a
vacation like never before. He decided to take me on a trip to the wild, wild west.
We took a plane to Albuquerque, a big city in the state
of New Mexico. We reached Albuquerque in the late afternoon. Uncle Paul, my
dad's friend, picked us up from the airport and drove us up to his ranch in Pecos.
His wife Tina cooked us a delicious dinner and we got
to know his sons Ryan and Kyle. My dad and I spent the night in the guestroom
listening to the crickets, owls, and coyotes. Very early in the morning, uncle Paul
woke us up to have breakfast. "The day starts at dawn on my ranch" he
said. After breakfast, I went to help aunt Tina feed the chickens, while my dad went
with uncle Paul to take the sheep out to graze. I was impressed to see my dad and
uncle Paul riding horses, they looked really cool.
In the afternoon, I asked uncle Paul if I could take a
horse ride, and he said yes, as long as my dad went with me. I wasn't going to take
a horse ride by myself anyway. So, my dad and I put on our new cowboy hats, got on
our horses, and headed slowly towards the mountains. "Don't be late for
supper" uncle Paul cried "and keep to the trail so that you don't get
lost". "OK" my dad cried back. After a while we could hardly
see uncle Paul and his farm house. It was so peaceful and quiet and the colors of
the brown rocks, the deep green pine trees, and the late afternoon sun blended to create a
majestic scene. It looked like a beautiful woven blanket spread out upon the ground
just for us.
Suddenly a little coyote jumped out in front of my
horse and startled him. He was so startled, he took off running faster than I imagined he
could. I was holding on as hard as I could and my dad was trying to keep up with
me. My horse got off the trail and kept running, and only stopped once it reached
the river. It seems the water must have calmed him down a bit. It was a
beautiful spot and as frightened as I was just a few minutes earlier, I was happy that I
got a chance to see such a place.
My dad thought it was gorgeous too, but he said that we
had to leave because the sun was setting and he did not want us to get lost. We had
left the trail and we did not have a compass. The last thing we wanted was to try to find
our way home in the dark. We turned around to start back but the trail was nowhere
in sight. The frightened horse had run so fast and so far that we had no idea where
we were.
By now the sun had almost dipped behind the horizon and we had to think fast, so
we...
...went back to the river, because my dad said
that it was likely the same river that went by uncle Paul's ranch house. We let the horses
wind their way down stream as the sky glowed a color of red I had never seen. Then we
started smelling smoke and the horses started moving faster. I was worried about a being
caught in a forest fire. We heard uncle Paul calling my dad's name and the horses brought
us into the opening in the forest where the ranch house was. I was happy to be found, but
still worried about the fire. Uncle Paul just laughed and said the color in the sky
was how sunsets look in the southwest and the smoke was from the fire he had started to
cook us a real cowboy dinner.
NEXT ENDING
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