There and Back Again. A Hog Hunter's Tale

Don't get me wrong, I love my truck, but man, 42 hours in it over the course of four days is a lot. We left for Trent, TX and Dos Plumas Hunting Ranch at 6:00 on the dot on Wednesday night. Dad took the wheel and drove us past Chicago and just south of Joliet where we topped off the tank and Devon and I took the wheel. We drove for about five hours into mid-Missouri, past St. Louis and the arch and through a majority of the Ozark foothills. At about 3:00 am, Randy took over and drove us to Tulsa. Dad went again and took the two hours to Oklahoma City where we stopped for a bite of breakfast at McDonalds. Devon and I then drove the final seven hours to the ranch. It would've only been six except for the one-hour stop at the Texas Wal-mart to purchase our licenses. A little slow is all I'll say. The other interesting thing was that there was snow ALL THE WAY to Texas. The thermometer never got over thirty degrees until the Oklahoma City area and didn't cross 40 until we were almost to the ranch. As we drove off the highway and into the mesquite trees, the anticipation built. It took about ten-fifteen minutes to drive in on the rocky/dirt roads that led back to Dos Plumas but we were all glued to the surroundings and the environment and taking it all in.

When we arrived, we met Roger the guide and ranch hand and a couple from Utah who filled our minds with visions of pigs upon pigs. (They had seen over 200 in just one sitting the night before.) We unloaded into the bunkhouse and met Al Williams, ranch owner extraordinaire. Al was just about to head out for some chores on the property and we offered to help out. I think he was a tad surprised but I don't think we let him down at all. Devon drove the Dodge Ram megacab as we tossed off hay for a two-mile stretch of dirt road. As we did that, we passed huge buffalo, axis deer and some beautiful Orix. In addition we saw several hundred hogs throughout the ranch. We moved ten huge round bales and got atleast a rough feeling for where things were at. We kicked up some HUGE hogs and Dad saw a large red one that he thought would be fun to find again with gun in hand. After chores we went back and crashed, literally. Rob arrived about an hour after we got back. Most of us had only slept about an hour in the past 36 hours so we hit the sack for the 5:30 am wakeup call and hunt.

You'll have to check the next post for how the hunt went itself but the ride home went pretty good. The weather was perfect and we had 40-60 degree temps all the way to Wisconsin. We made a couple of "questionable directional decisions" on the way home but nothing that had a dramatic effect on time or distance. We had left at 7:00 Saturday night and got home at 4:00 Sunday afternoon, the second half of our 42 hour drive for 15 hours of hunting, five hours of gutting/cleaning and memories that will last a life time.