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A Cowboy rides from Okla to Santa Fe just to get there...

 
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Henry



Joined: 03 Apr 2001
Posts: 2878
Location: NYC

PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 8:24 am    Post subject: A Cowboy rides from Okla to Santa Fe just to get there... Reply with quote

Every once in a while one of these fellows show up in Santa Fe. Some actually travel the west by wagon and others by horse. I've seen both. Amazing and true.




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News: Santa Fe / NM
Wayward Rangler: A lonesome cowboy hoofs it to Santa Fe
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Phil Moore , a cowboy from Arkansas, left home more than two months ago, riding to Santa Fe, New Mexico in hopes of finding a job as a trail guide. Moore applys healing ointment on an injury his horse, Newt, received, while crossing a cattle guard.

By CINDY BELLINGER | The New Mexican
April 22, 2006

Early Friday morning, Phil Moore tightened his bedroll, packed his belongings and saddled up his horse, Newt. The night before, he’d pitched his tent under some trees at Renate’s Restaurant in Glorieta. He was ready to head out now, and thankfully, the end of the journey was close.

“It’s been a long, rough ride,” Moore said, “especially with the change in plans.” He had never intended to come to Santa Fe. Jackson, Wyo., had been his goal, but “you never know where the wind will blow you,” he said.

A little over two months ago, Moore and Newt left the little town of Shirley, Okla. His plan was simple: join up with a sidekick who was guiding elk hunts in Wyoming. The man had told Moore to come on up. “But he got lonesome for his sweetie in Texas,” Moore said, “and I didn’t know that until I’d reached Tucumcari.”




Through word of mouth and some phoning, he landed a job instead wrangling horses at Bishop’s Lodge. “I’m pretty much hired,” Moore said. “I say ‘pretty much’ because they don’t have accommodations for wranglers. But if I can’t stay with my horse, I can’t stay there. My horse is my only transportation.”

So he’s come up with a Plan B, he said, after become intrigued to learn that a sequel to Lonesome Dove was being filmed in Santa Fe.

“It’s my favorite movie,” Moore said. “I heard they’re looking for people who can ride. I guess I’ll just ride up and apply for a job. I have no aspirations for being a movie star, but I love Lonesome Dove, and it would be fun to have a bit part.”

Moore even named his horse after one of the movie’s characters. “Just like in the movie, we don’t know who his father is,” he said. Though Moore has made “at least a dozen” long horseback trips through Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina — just for the adventure of it — this is Newt’s first road trip.

“He’s 7, and I got him a month before I started out,” Moore said. “Bought him from some people who couldn’t handle him. He’d rear up and wouldn’t let anyone fool with him. Well, after two days and a buggy whip, he got over that real fast,” said Moore, who’s been working with horses off and on all his life. Moore’s father rode with the cavalry during World War II, and his mother was a trick rider with Roy Rogers in the 1940s.

Moore said Newt is now “bulletproof” and doesn’t mind traffic or anything else that can spook a horse along a road. The main problem on the trip was lack of water and grass for Newt. “I had no idea how dry it would be,” he said. “We ran into several grass fires.” To escape one of them along the Texas-Oklahoma border, he had to head for a river.

“I watched coyotes, turkeys and deer cross the river, running ahead of the fire,” Moore said. One night while he was waiting out the fire, there were so many coyotes fighting and making a racket that he finally had to fire his pistol into the air. “That calmed them down,” he said.

When he was planning his route on a map, Moore said, “I chose towns that were about 20 or 30 miles apart, about a day’s ride. That was my big mistake. Most of those towns are only names now. They blew away in the Dust Bowl.” Though Moore carried enough food for himself and Newt for two days, he has no cell phone for emergencies.

His last long-distance ride was seven years ago. “I was seven years younger then,” he said. “It’s been a little rough waking up on the ground every morning.” But no matter how bad parts of the trip were, things happened along the way to make up for it.

“I’ve met some great people,” Moore said. “There are a lot of good folks out there.” While he was camping at Renate’s, people brought hay and water for Newt and food for him, he said. And he hopes to hook up with a woman he met in Tucumcari.
As the sun broke through the trees, Moore had his saddlebags packed, and his shiny, brown transportation was champing at the bit.

If his Santa Fe job doesn’t work out, will Moore ride back home? “No,” he said, “I’m calling my partner and telling him to come get me with a truck and horse trailer.”
Moore says he should have been born 150 years ago. He likes the fact that he’s traveling part of the Old Santa Fe Trail the old way. He just takes things as they come, part of his characteristic Western philosophy. Though some people in Santa Fe call that “trusting the process,” Moore puts it another way: “The good Lord provides and takes care of us wayward cowboys.”
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