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After talking to Cowboy yesterday, I wondered
how I could go about finding out more about the champion roper that lives next
door. Near the gate to the arena parking
lot there is a house tucked back behind some trees and shrubs. Gone past that house many times in the past
4 years…today was the first time I really paid attention to the faded and
peeling sign on the fence in front of the house. All the information was there all the time...name,
phone number and a short listing of what he offers. His name is George Aros and I googled him as
I walked down the road.
His business website, arosroping.com, has information
about lessons and training, competitions, horse boarding, etc. I was mainly interested in what it had to say
about him. (Picture and info are from
his website.)
After four
years on the road, George settled back down in Tucson and established a
training and lessons program. In 1995, he moved his operation to Picacho, AZ in
order to expand. From that central location, he now focuses on producing
ropings, and sharing his expertise through lessons and training.
Ropers
from novice to pro credit George for their success in the arena. Top ropers and
NFR qualifiers Cesar de la Cruz and Victor Aros learned how to win with George.
To date, he has made three horses at his Picacho facility that have gone on to
be NFR qualifiers.
George and his wife of 30
years, Tracy, welcome you to the Aros Ranch.
So apparently he's the guy to call if you want to take your roping skills to the next level. And here I've been thinking it's just an old broken down parking lot with a horse pasture nearby. Turns out there's some serious horse stuff going on over there. !
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Woke up to 46o , but the sun was
out and the air felt good. Only a slight
breeze today. I’ve learned that on days
like this it doesn’t take long for the sun to chase away the cool of the night.
It’s hard to figure out how to dress for my walk because what feels cool upon
stepping out of the trailer can quickly become hot when walking down an open
road with the sun beating down. Today I
opted for lightweight sweat pants and a long sleeved shirt…turned out to be the
perfect combination on a cool sunny morning.
Not too hot and not too cool. Sort of like Baby Bear's porridge in Goldilocks. 😏
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We walk 1 ½ miles south on Picacho Highway,
turn around and head back. Yesterday we
drove the length of it in the truck to see how far it goes. There are miles of cultivated fields with cotton
bolls scattered around the edges of each field.
It appears we were right in guessing that there’s cotton fields on down
the road from the campground. Picacho
Highway is 8 ½ miles long and comes to a T.
Turn to the right and it appears to be a driveway leading into fenced in
area. Turn left and it’s a paved road that eventually turns to gravel. So now I know.
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On the trip out to Arizona, Kim mentioned a
memory of stopping at an astronaut themed restaurant somewhere and realizing we’d
been there before…like maybe in South Dakota with Josh? That’s all he had. We’ve been a lot of places together in the
past 7 ½ years and his description was fairly vague…it wasn’t ringing any bells
for me, especially the South Dakota part.
It took a couple of days for me to remember the restaurant he was
talking about and then it was a matter of letting the memory simmer until the details surfaced. Eventually we were
able to come up with a reasonable narration of how it was that we stopped at a
restaurant a second time without realizing that we’d been there a first time
until we went inside and had that déjà vu moment. And it wasn’t in South Dakota, it was in
Arizona. Today we rode the bikes to Gila
Bend in search of the astronaut themed restaurant so we could either put this
to rest or keep racking our brains about it.
Had the radios on and both agreed that ‘Yes, this is it!’ when we saw
the sign of the Space Age Lodge. Stopped for lunch and before we left I bought a pair of sunglasses and took a selfie to help us
remember. 😎
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Decided to take the long way back to
Picacho. It was a nice day so why not
enjoy it on the bikes. We took SR 85
south to Why, AZ, where we turned onto SR 86 and headed toward the Gu-achi
Trading Post which is where we picked up IR 15.
In total it was a 248 mile loop.
We got back after dark and as the day wore on the sky clouded up and the
temperature dropped a few degrees…enough to make it a cool ride.
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Random Conversations of the
day:
#1…Kim was out making
breakfast today and a woman came by exclaiming, “I really like those little elf
versions of you out front here.” Kim
explained where we got them, etc. and she left saying, “Well, it looks just
like you!!” Kim came in the trailer
where I was and with a smile mentioned that he might have to get himself a
pointy black hat to complete the resemblance.
#2…We have the bikes parked
out front of our trailer. An older
couple came walking by and the gentleman sincerely wanted to know if Kim pulled
this big trailer with his bike. Kim pointed at the truck and said “No, we use
that truck back there for pulling this big trailer. But I do have a little trailer
that I pull behind my bike sometimes.”
#3…The campground bathrooms
are closed from 11 to noon for cleaning…a chain is strung between the two
bathrooms during that time. It was
almost noon and we walked up to use the bathroom before getting on the
bikes. Chain was still up so we sat down
to wait. Three little kids (2 boys, 1
girl) had also been waiting and we’d been talking with them. I called to the kids when the chain was
removed and all three headed to the women’s bathroom. There are 3 stalls in there and as I was
saying, “Well, now we have a problem
because there’s 4 of us and only 3 bathrooms”, each of them was heading
through a stall door. The oldest one
paused and said, “Well…you’re older…you
should be able to hold it... older
people have an easier time holding it than kids.” I
didn’t think it was my place to educate the kids about the possible problems of
an aging female bladder so I simply said “Yes,
I am older and I can hold it.” A
brief discussion about the subject ensued between the 4 of us.
As I was heading to the newly vacated stall,
the oldest boy asked me when my birthday was…March 31st. Then
he asked how old I was going to be…60. Then before they trooped out, each of
them wanted to tell me when their birthdays were and how old they would
be. I know that one boy will be 7 on
Sept. 18, the other will be 6 on April 7th and that the little girl will be 4
on April 13….but I do not know their names. 😎
#4…As we pulled into the camp
in the dark, we could see a motor home parked near Kim’s telescope. Shut off the engines and a figure
materializes out of the dark and says, “Hi, remember me? Ron? You bought me a can opener? We’re back…probably
just for tonight, though.” He filled
Kim in on all that they’d done since they left…on Wednesday. (No, we didn’t know his name was Ron and yes,
Kim did buy him a can opener because he and his wife didn’t have one and had
borrowed ours. Kim is thoughtful that way.
They were here for two nights before and we never saw his wife.)
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Today’s miles: 248
Total miles: 732
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