Hercules Fit and Well and Living in Tucson

So we are back at the Tanque Verde Ranch for a week of riding, a bit of fishing and lots of R&R.

This ranch is situated on the edge of the Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona and we had forgotten just how amazing this place is, from the location to the accommodation, the food and the overall feeling that this is a special place.

This is not to say that what I said before about Rainbow Trout Ranch has changed--for me that is my favourite ranch, and has a far greater emphasis on family and a deep involvement from the family which there is not the same here, but TV is very much a boutique type ranch where it does things like conferences and weddings, which RTR don't do.

Lynda was her usual self of busying around the place , getting organised with clothes and getting prepared for what we can put away for the remainder of the holiday after the end of this week. BTW, we bought another new suitcase yesterday, so that is now 4-- ok so the 2 we have bought here are not huge but even so  -- we think that maybe we bought too many clothes with us, many of which will definitely not get worn. If your reading this Jonathan, we now have the 2 of us plus 4 cases--I think a taxi is gonna be needed when we get back, a Minibus type taxi.

So here is a little taster of the accommodation---

 At 104 degrees this fire will not be getting lit this visit

The only thing in Arizona that you need to take care of being on the edge of the national park is that you keep the screen shut as there are plenty of critters that would come in the room for the cool of the place,

The Ranch itself has a whole lot of other features such as the following gives a brief look at---

Sorry about the fat boy getting in the way

 Hot tub area

This is the bar.

The wranglers accommodation

 This the Nature area, for the hikers and the mountain bikers

Down by the corral with the old chuck wagon

 Beautifully laid out but always got to watch the cactus--

Outside the bar.

Met up with a couple from Tyneside at dinner--well a bit North of that --who are here for 2 weeks and it is their 5th or 6th time as was the other American couple from Scottsdale who all know each other well. We have seen that at all the ranches that we have stayed at where people from all over, meet annually at the ranch for a week or two.

So it is going to be a steady day today with a Mosey around 10am and hopefully the weather will be kind to us this afternoon by the pool.

Tomorrow the plan is to go riding at 0715, breakfast at 0900 and we are planning on fishing in their lake at 10.00 - apparently they have carp and bass and catfish so we will see if we can add to the trout that we caught at RTR. then we only have the issue of where I can get to see the Match, well at least it is on at 12 noon here.

So that's it , all settled in here, and --oh yes, you wanna know about the title of this post-- well it's like this---when we first came here to TV, for the whole week I rode a horse called Hercules. When Lynda and I came back again about 4 years ago, Herc was injured and they were only gonna use him for carrying little children.
So it was a great surprise when we mentioned this to find out that he is good now and I can have him as my horse this week---

That's him, just taken one look at me and turned away in anguish knowing he has to carry me today, sorry mate.

So looking forward to a good day and will report out next time