The Rainbow Connection...

Hoofprints of riding horses at the Alabama Wagon Train

It might be easy to think that everyday is magic around here, and that would be correct--but only in the fact that I choose to grab hold of those reigns tightly in a world that can prove as disappointing as anything else. If you are clever and lucky, then grab onto as many rainbows in between those ordinary and sad moments, I say. Make your own luck and jump on whatever bandwagons strike your fancy. With enough planning and praying, they can happen anytime.

I'd just left a world full of boxes, packing up my life in the city; moving from an apartment I called home for ten years was a heartbreaking, sentimental journey...and I'd all of that, plus a  non-move to a dream farm and the wedding tied up with it, that never happened.

But before bleakness blemished this, there were opportunities--the rainbow connection-- as there always are, if one would only polish the grimy parts away from the true,beautiful things.  Up ahead: a fellow Mischief Maker, and one I proudly called friend Kira, who sneakily lured me (because I am so NOT a pushover for horses and adventure, I tell you!) back down South with the idea of participating in a historic wagon train. What was not to love?

Wending and winding roads later, we found ourselves right outside the campsite of The Alabama Wagon train, stopped outside of a massive cotton field. The cotton had clearly been harvested, but the vastness of the fields and the beauty of the day had forced us to stop, bursting through our automobile, to record the day.

Photo: Kira Burdeshaw

Then, after we found the sign pointing us to the Wagon Train camp, we mosied over to the farm that hosted what looked like something between a gypsy horse sale, a surreal Wild West movie, and a beautiful mosaic of equines and the people who love them.

The sprawling green land-scape hosted countless numbers of horse-trailers of all sizes and shapes, with some still rolling in, carrying any number of equines. Outside of several parked trailers, horses and mules uniformly seemed to be tied to some part of the machinery. They were stunning, all of them, and of every size, color and ilk. Several of them were already being ridden by their owners, while others were being led to a stunning pond on the property, to either drink or bathe, it would seem.

Kate and Hank, Mr. Jim's mules that would eventually pull us in their wagon

 Watering horses at the pond....

One of a team of white mules...

Two handsome black horses. I think they were Percheron crosses...

 

Close up of the older of the two black horses...

Two paint ponies...

This fellow liked whinnying at anyone passing by....

A study in colors: blue truck, red vintage trailer, and the green field surrounding it..

 

Horses waiting at their trailers...

Meanwhile, families and friends seemed to be setting up their wagons (many of them mostly hand made), visiting, and talking with one another. Children gamboled out on the huge field, even dogs were allowed to this big party.  An air of kinsmanship abound on this day. Clearly, I was the strange haired-odd girl out, but no one seemed to pay it any mind. It helped that Kira seemed friendly and set up many opportunities to talk with participants in this historic gathering

I bravely went and spoke with various folks, especially the neon-yellow jacketed trail boss and other officers and scouts. Turned out I needn't have felt intimidated; people loved talking about the Wagon Train, with a deep affection for it's history and concern for it's outcome. We mingled with the people and awed at the horses. There were several old codgers, and folks with bitty babes who were already better on a horse than I would be for years!

In the midst of it all, the weather, though holding up, did eventually give in to a small shower. Within minutes, the drizzle downpour had fizzed out and while Kira and I were busy whirring our cameras, I zoomed out for a long shot, then quickly pulled my eye away from the lens, happily astonished.

THIS is what I got:

Yes indeed--if you look closely you will see the rainbow.... sometimes the Rainbow Connection happens more often then not.  And here, we were only on day one of the adventure!

Tomorrow: Into life a little (or BIG!) rain must fall!