FROM: Mary Cone, Trail Captain, Keith County, Nebraska
PST
The 2014 Re-Ride of the Pony Express will be a memory to long remember for the Keith County, Nebraska Re-Riders!! The name of the game was weather-the nasty kind!
You’ve read previously about the Colorado Riders coming through the tornado warning, rain, lightning, hail, wind………wow, I don’t know how they did it!! And in the dark, no less. Great job, Colorado!
As our group’s ride time approached, we were making phone calls, trying to figure out when to gather, waiting out the tornado warnings in a safe place. The storms were popping up everywhere by the minute, it seemed. The radar screen was a multi-colored panorama of weather terror!! Reds, yellows, greens, purples…….what to do, when and how to proceed?!
But, with true Pony Express grit and innovation, we made an alternate plan and got down to it. We administered the Pony Express Oath to the riders at the Big Springs starting point and everyone was apprised of our plan. With only a small delay, waiting for the last of our group to gather, we headed east from Big Springs as rain and wind squalls darted in and out of our ride path. “It was a dark and stormy night”, I believe is how Snoopy would have described it. As Adam reported earlier, we chose a path of travel to allow the rigs safe passage on oiled roads. The regular gravel roads would have seen our rigs into mud up to the axles or in a ditch.
Everyone willingly accepted and bought into the adventure, excitement and purpose of our mission and we just made it all happen. What a crew and what a game bunch of riders! A HUGE thanks to Adam, Howard, Angie, Kristy, Russell, Ron, Joan, Donna and Bill for their gutsiness in the face of this challenge! And we cannot forget our willing ponies who also took the challenge upon their backs, along with we riders and the mochila, and got us all safely through the night.
We actually made good time once we got started. The storms fussed a bit more until finally heading off into the night. We passed through Brule, Nebraska at 2:55am MDT and then through Ogallala at 4:02am MDT. I called the Report Line as we left Ogallala, but my phone must not have gotten the message through to XPTom. Shucks. We made it on through Roscoe— I didn’t get the time logged down—- but the good news is we arrived at the mochila exchange site south of Paxton to sunny, daylight skies and a fresh crew from the North Platte area at 6:19 am MDT. The new crew willingly accepted the well-traveled mochila and headed off to the east –on schedule–to meet the television crews at North Platte.
It’s amazing to think what all the mochila must “see” as it traverses the Pony Express Trail each year. Here we are all connected to this one piece of leather artistry, we Pony Express Re-Riders. And each year we throw it on and off our ponies hundreds of times reliving this unique part of American history. I’m honored to be a Pony Express Re-Rider from Nebraska.