BoomerGirl Diary

After my trip to Tanque Verde Ranch, it's going to be hard to look a real cowboy in the eye. Real cowboys, after all, sleep on the ground with only a 10-gallon Stetson for a pillow. They're derned grateful if they get so much as beans for dinner.

After you're done giddyupping at Tanque Verde, a 150-year-old guest ranch just outside Tucson, you pass your reins to one of the wranglers and head to the lodge for pan-seared salmon, mushrooms sautéed in cabernet and a dessert bar that stretches clean into the dining room.

At night, you sleep in a real bed with a fireplace, a tiled bathroom, high ceilings, Indian rugs, a private patio and luxury that John Wayne couldn't have conceived in his wildest dreams.

My only problem was convincing the wranglers I deserved to lope. Loping — which is a step up from your normal, garden-variety trail ride — is as close to galloping as you can get while crossing dusty river washouts in the beautiful Sonoran desert. It's what those cowboys in the movies got to do when they were chasing the bad guys.

Believe me, I tried everything. I brought up the fact that I grew up only 30 minutes from Buffalo Bill's 101 Ranch. I hooted "Yippee ti-yi-ya" every time they got within earshot. I even resorted to shameless flirting, batting my eyes and saying "thanks y'all" when they finished the two 30-minute loping lessons each day.

But Sky, Joe, Charlie, John and the rest of the wranglers knew better than to give me a thumbs up. And until I could get that much-coveted stamp of approval, I had to settle for the walking rides.

When the lopers charged off to the Old Homestead for the outdoor cowboy breakfast of blueberry pancakes fried by owner Bob Cote himself, A.J., my trusty steed, and I had to walk. When the lopers set out on the all-day picnic up the Rincon Mountains, A.J. and I, watching their flicking tails from the backside, had to slowly march behind.

Not that I'm complaining. The thrice-daily trail rides, whether you walk, lope or carry your horse, are spectacular. The horsemanship lessons which include daily instruction in western-style walking, trotting, loping and cantering are superb.

Even if you're traveling with someone whose inner buckaroo shows no signs of emerging, there are plenty of other activities. Tanque Verde has five tennis courts, a couple of swimming pools, a spa, a fitness center, a mountain biking program and a nature center with a complete program.

I met several guests who wouldn't don a pair of cowboy boots if the Lone Ranger himself asked them to. They came instead to sit at the heels of Jerry Brewer, a herpetologist who serves as the director of the ranch's nature program. His exuberant enthusiasm is contagious. He picks up scorpions, offers edible berries, points out beetles that the British redcoats used to dye their jackets and notices every owl, snake and insect that passes his way. As he concedes, "I'm a 7-year-old kid in a 54-year-old's body."

Tanque Verde also offers a wonderful children's program. Kids divided by age into buckaroos and wranglers learn to ride — first in an arena — and then on the many trails that crisscross the ranch. They even take on an obstacle courses that involves riding up hills, opening and shutting mailboxes and dodging mesquite trees that unruly horses love to munch on. Arts and crafts activities, swimming and nature hikes complement the daily trail rides.

One of the nicest things about Tanque Verde is everything is included. You don't have to worry about maps or train schedules or whether or not you remembered the tickets to the Louvre. Once you hear that first "Howdy" from the Tanque Verde staff, your biggest dilemma is choosing between fishing and sitting near the outdoor pool's waterfall.

Although the venerable ranch has changed names and hands a few times, it has been around for a long time. Before there was John Wayne or Roy Rogers or even the state of Arizona for that matter, Tanque Verde was a fully-working cattle ranch. If you have kids and you have the Nickelodeon channel, you've probably seen the ranch. Only in "Hey Dude," the cheesy kids western that was shot there between 1989 and 1991, it was called the Bar None. But don't be fooled. All 65 episodes, which were still being shown in re-runs until 1999, were filmed right there on the 640-acre ranch.

Maybe Emilio Carillo, the first owner of the ranch who rode up from Mexico in 1868 to stake his claim, should have tried a different name. He called it La Cebadilla, which means wild barley. Now I don't know about you, but the name Wild Barley Ranch does not inspire me to tremble in my boots. Nor did it stop Apache raiders and tequila-drinking bandits whom Carillo had to deal with on a near-weekly basis. Finally in 1904, after refusing to turn over his moola, bandits strung him up and hung him from a beam in what's known today as the card room.

Although Emilio miraculously lived through that ordeal and, in fact, survived for another four years, the ranch was eventually bought by Jim Converse, a rough and tumble cowboy, who heard rumors about tenderfoot Easterners who were willing to fork over hard cash to play cowpoke for a week. He changed the ranch's name to Tanque Verde (it means green tank in Español) and invited wannabes in for a stay.

That lasted until 1945 when Jim, after imbibing in a few too many drinks, accidentally shot a cowboy at a friend's house. The trial was controversial and he only served a two-year prison sentence, but when he got out, he had lost interest in the ranch. He auctioned it off, selling the cattle operation a few years later. In 1957, Brownie Cote, a Minnesota lawyer who gave up his law career to help kids, bought the ranch as the winter complement to his children's summer camps in Minnesota. His son, Bob, now runs Tanque Verde, showing up nearly day to interact with guests.

As I think back now on my trip to Tanque Verde, I start to wonder why I was so deadset on loping. The scenery — the Saguaro National Park on one side and the Coronado National Forest on the other — begs full notice. Had I been loping, trying to stay put on a 1,200-pound animal, I might not have been able to drink in the blooming Saguaros with their daisy-like blooms, the bull snake wrapped around the ocotillo or the mesquite trees that smell like heaven after a rare rain.

Call it sour grapes, but I think those lopers might have missed out.