It's Official. I'm a cowgirl

Cowgirl U

I arrived late to the party. My driver had never been to San Antonio, quite a cowgirl herself if you ask me, volunteering to pick us up in a strange city. She got lost twice and still persevered. We arrived later than anticipated, they dropped me off at my B&B where there is supposed to be wireless internet access, (it's sporatic at best) and they forgot about me. They really did and I didn't think so but they confirmed it. They promised to suck up really a lot the whole weekend.
Seriously. But, if you think that bothered this cowgirl, you have another thing coming. Although I got anxious, I took it in stride and they all felt worse than me, promising to suck up unabashedly all weekend. And that they did.
This, the first cowgirl university was held on a private 5,000 acre ranch. The family is so interesting. They have little homes for each of their kids, they have hundreds of horses and an endangered exotic animal preserve.
But, best of all, there were women from all over the nation, including of course writers on assignment from Texas Monthly, El, one of Canada's major daily, More, and a couple other travel publications. They all wanted to find out what Cowgirl U was all about.
The workshops held daily were outdoor photography, specifically sunrise photography.
see you later Barbara VanCleve from Montana taught that. Shiela Viarian was the Arabian horse specialist, Pam Mimmik national roping queen. So we learned how the greats handle horses, how they record their lives, we rode every day, ate excellent meals and became intimately acquainted with Corona.

Their were women of all ages from Kentucky, New York, Toronto, California, Arizona, Illinois and Texas. Only 30 were allowed in the class. The woman attending were all eager to be there, to learn and to have a good time. First class food was served by a chef who trained in Paris. The setting was beautiful and the people were fantastic. We all laughed together and played hard. I bonded especially with Emily Neal, a woman from Texas. We plan to take another adventure trip together, if not go on to our masters at Cowgirl U in Montana next year.

http://www.bbhc.org/exhibitions/vanCleve.cfm

http://www.YankeeChick.com

http://www.varianarabians.com/

We had photography classes, roping lessons, trail rides, safari rides, hat shaping sessions, horseman ship lessons, driving lessons and gourmet meals with nature walks and free time.

What did I learn? That even while we grabbed onto a rope to throw ourselves in the river, we couldn't do it just for fun. We assigned great meaning to it: I am doing this for all the women over 30! I am representing all the women over 60! I am representing all the new mothers of the world! I am doing this for all the people wth bad hair!

Women were free to do. Learn. Grow. Be.

Cowgirls one and all.