Cowboy Camp

Well, I guess it's about time that I update my blog again.
After Christmas I found myself relocating to Arizona. Not a bad time to do so. I am off track this semester and needed to complete an internship so I figured Arizona would be a good place to do that. I looked online and after running into about a million dead ends, I found Arivaca Boys Ranch in southern Arizona. (www.arivacaboysranch.com)
I applied and then upon further investigation on the website, I learned that the owner and a lot of the staff are LDS. Score score score.
So anyway, I moved to Scottsdale with my parents and the next day drove 3 more hours south to Arivaca.

The ranch is about 10 miles north of the Mexican border. My parents loved that. :)
I worked Thursday through Thursday every other week. Although my first week I worked 10 days...that was a lot.
The basic schedule was :
6:45 Staff meeting
7:00 Wake up the boys
7-8 The boys feed the horses/prepare for the day
8:00 Breakfast
8:45 Round up (ranch meeting/morning announcements)
From here, the boys would rotate through 3 different schedules each week, mostly consisting of 3 hour blocks of school, work project, and equine. It depended on which schedule they were on what time of day they did each thing. They also had the option of not participating, in which case they could sit in the bunk and do nothing. If they chose that, one wrangler (which is what my position was called) would sit in the bunk with them. And sit there. And do nothing as well. Yeehaw.
At 5 that stuff is over and the boys feed their horses again and just hang out basically until dinner around 6. After dinner was rec time, where the boys can basically do whatever they want. There is a little weight room where they can work out, there is a rec room with a pool and ping pong table, and usually in one of the bunks would be an extracurricular activity, such as karaoke, poker, or a showing of old cowboy movies. Rec time ended at 8 and after that we would have "Trail Time" which is where you talk to each boy individually about their day and any problems that they are having and everything. The days usually ended around 10 or 10:30.
So basically what I did was follow the boys around, make sure no one died, and encourage them to participate in the activity they were supposed to be doing. Sometimes it got a little boring, but overall it was a good experience.
There were a few bumps along the way, the experience wasn't always peaches and cream (I wish cuz that's some good stuff)... but I learned a TON from my time at the ranch. I learned a lot about how to relate to the boys and to not judge people at the first appearance. I learned that how we react (or don't react) to situations in life molds us into the type of people we are today, whether that be for the better or worse. I learned the importance of letting people make mistakes and learn from them. I also learned how important parents and authority figures are in our lives, and the responsibility that parents have to nurture and teach their children what is right and what is wrong, and I saw the results of parents' failure to uphold that responsibility. All in all, I am grateful for the opportunity I had to work at Arivaca, for the boys that I was able to influence, and most importantly, the influence that they were in my life.


One of the horses. I think his name is Sawyer. A lot of the boys could name every horse. And there were probably about 50 or more, so that's pretty impressive.


The terrain was so awesome down there. I saw probably some of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen at the ranch.


One day we were doing work project, filling in a hole they had dug in the lower field to install a water system. I was sitting in the cab of the truck (I never helped. Jk. I helped so much I got blisters. :) ) and I look up, and one of the horses is about a foot from my face. We became friends.






Ok I lied to y'all. Really I worked at Camp Greenlake. haha.








More awesome sunsets. The camera on my phone didn't even do them justice.


So on the right half of this picture, there is a peak that is a little more pointy that the rest. In real life it was a lot more noticeable. On my first day of work I was looking at it and I was like, "Man, that peak reminds me of God's Thumb. What movie is that in again?" And then 3 seconds later when I realized what movie it was, it made me so happy. That proved I was actually working at the Holes camp.


These are what the bunks look like on the outside. There are 4...2 buildings with 2 bunks each. These are West and East bunk, they have a middle room that connects them but is locked. Then there are North and South bunk, which look exactly the same. North bunk is where the girl wranglers live when on shift.


Another awesome view of the ranch.