Hemingway Adventure
Marion, Montana

I think of this as I find myself in the saddle - never a comfortable place for me - on a Palomino stallion called Pal, heading slowly out across long, green grass to which the morning mist still clings, behind Randy, the sort of cowboy Marlboro’ would die for. He’s lean, which pretty much goes with the job - cowboys seem to be conspicuously thinner than the rest of America - laconic and laid-back. Randy’s introductory remarks in the paddock featured good sense rather than dire warning, and formal horsemanship was emphasised less than doing what comes naturally.
I’ve always had a mild aversion to being lifted off the ground (maybe my father dropped me when young) and I would unhesitatingly nominate the camel as my least favourite method of transport, but today, less than an hour after swinging on to the broad back of this distinctive pale tan horse, I’m not only trotting along like Roy Rogers, but I’m about to do a real cowboy’s job.
The Hargrave Ranch is a working farm with 320 head of cattle. Some of them are loose and we’re on our way to round them up. We’ve been told how to make the horse turn left or right, and stop, but it seems a bit of a leap from this to rounding-up. We enter a wooded area full of young pine and as Pal concentrates on picking his way through a web of fallen trees, I concentrate on keeping my hat on and my eyeballs in as the branches flick viciously at my face.
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PALIN'S GUIDES
- Series: Hemingway Adventure
- Chapter: Marion, Montana
- Country/sea: USA
- Place: Marion, Montana
- Book page no: 245
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RELATED LINKS
- USA
- Day 63
- Around the World in 80 Days
- Introduction
- Full Circle
- Day 64
- Around the World in 80 Days
- Horse
- Day 104: Gantey
- Himalaya
- Day Thirty-one: The Rila Mountains
- New Europe
- Day 72: The Pantanal
- Brazil