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A runaway team of ponies, a wagon tongue bent like a humpback whale and a Corgi named Thick. Sea G Rhydr, her pony team and Thick have had an adventurous first 200 miles of their covered wagon voyage across America. I caught up with Sea inside her yellow covered wagon, the Mustard Seed.
Six weeks in and nearly 200 miles logged, Sea has already dealt with a turning radius like a school bus with no reverse, a team pole bent like a humpback whale, two jackknifes, four near-deaths in a single day and a pony named Theodore who figured out that beating up his brother Franklin was the fastest way to earn a treat. None of it stopped her. Most of it made for a better story.
Sea is also doing something beyond the wagon journey. Her YouTube channel, Who Is My Neighbor, is a field recording project: twenty-five questions, all kinds of people, one conversation at a time, trying to find some common ground in a country that seems to have forgotten how to talk to itself. She needs hosts between Union City and Sheridan, Indiana. She needs drivers for her support van. And she needs people willing to sit for a remote interview, especially those outside the rural Midwest she has been traveling through.
Her new book, Free Range Rodeo: Horseback Through the Apocalypse, is out now on Amazon. Contact Sea at sea@freerangerodeo.com or text 518-336-5596.
Guest: Sea G Rhydr — long rider, wagon traveler and author crossing America by covered wagon with a miniature horse, a Shetland pony and a Corgi named Thick.
Links: freerangerodeo.com / Free Range Rodeo: Horseback Through the Apocalypse on Amazon / Who Is My Neighbor on YouTube
Guest: [Guest name] — [one line bio]
Links: [Guest website]
Hear the full conversation on Travel Grit: [URL to full episode on TravelGrit.com]
Chapters:
People:
For more stories of long riders, sailors, ramblers, adventurers, and dreamers finding their way, visit TravelGrit.com.
Creators and Guests
What is Gritty Bits by Travel Grit?
Gritty Bits is the companion show to Travel Grit — more from the world of legendary travelers who move by hoof, sail, and boot. Catch Q&A sessions with long riders, sailors, and adventurers. Check in on past guests with Where Are They Now. And pick up hard-won practical knowledge in Three Things You Need to Know — straight from the people who've lived it. For more stories of long riders, sailors, ramblers, adventurers, and dreamers finding their way, visit TravelGrit.com.
Autogenerated transcript. May contain errors. Refer to the audio or video for accuracy.
Index
The Mustard Seed: A Bright Yellow Wagon, Two Small Ponies, and a Country to Cross — (00:04)
"Like Driving a School Bus With No Reverse": The Turning Radius Problem — (01:33)
Day One Disaster: The Axle, the Amish, and Eight Days at a Stranger's House — (03:35)
Theodore's Scheme: How a Shetland Pony Figured Out That Violence Earns Treats — (12:00)
The Fence: One Rein, Two Runaway Ponies, a Bent Pole, and a Pair of Lost Sunglasses — (14:54)
Dickie Bill, a Five-Foot Level, and a Team Pole Out of True in Three Planes — (24:02)
Four Near-Deaths in One Day: Runaways, Jackknives, and the Man With the Pacifier — (27:18)
The Talk Tax: On Being a Trinket, a Mirror, and Finally Snapping — (38:32)
Terry Marker's Granddaughter and the Day the Trip Turned Around — (43:13)
What Sea Needs: Hosts, Drivers, Interviews, and a Little House on the Prairie — (49:54)
Sea G Rydr (00:04)
My name is CG Ryder. I am just over six weeks and just under two hundred miles into a journey across the United States with a small covered wagon. I'm sitting in the back of it right now, with a pair of little ponies named Franklin and Theodore. Franklin is 38 inches and Theodore is 40 inches, and a corgi named Thick. We are traveling across the country doing interviews with people for a YouTube channel called Who is My Neighbor, asking twenty-five questions of all sorts of people, trying to find some common ground and do our part to start knitting together the division that's rifting our country right now. I am on social media as Free Range Rodeo. My blog is Free Range Rodeo.
We left from Millersburg, Ohio, a Walmart parking lot of all places, to get onto the Holmes County Trail. And literally within the first hour, mile and a half, the trail was blocked. I had to do this giant detour up and down big gravel hills with the ponies. We were in no way prepared. By the time we finished a 14-mile day, I had realized that I needed to get a new front axle on my wagon because I didn't have the turning radius I needed to do this successfully.
Bernie Harberts (01:33)
Introduce the mustard seed, as you call it, your wagon.
Sea G Rydr (01:53)
It's a bright, bright yellow. I stole that from you, Bernie, because it was the way to be the most visible possible. I'm sitting in the back and I have a bed in the back. During the day I pile my gear in the back and at night when I need to sleep, I put it in the front where I would be driving. I've got storage under the seat and in what I call my hip pocket boxes on the outside between the wheels. The wagon is six foot three inches tall. When we take off the team pole, like if we're gonna transport it, it is eleven feet long.
Because the ponies and I are all a little green, and because the turning radius continues to be challenging, I feel like I'm driving a school bus that doesn't have reverse. It is real easy to get ourselves stuck in a situation I can't get out of. So I try not to leave in the morning until I know where we're headed that night. For six weeks I've managed that. But I have tomorrow night sorted and then after that I have no idea for the next five nights.
Bernie Harberts (03:00)
Let's get back to that first day. You've got Franklin and Theodore.
Sea G Rydr (03:12)
Theodore's a Shetland pony and Franklin is a miniature horse. Franklin is a buckskin, and Theodore is what they call a silver dapple. He's a gray with a white blonde mane and tail. We've got a white mane and a black mane flying in the wind.
Bernie Harberts (03:35)
Before you get to the flying in the wind, you're standing in the Walmart parking lot.
Sea G Rydr (03:40)
We're standing in the Walmart parking lot. Kristen from Twilight Farms sold me the ponies. We get them hooked up and already, just getting onto the trail from the parking lot, we've got this turning radius problem. The wheels are so close to the wagon that literally a twenty-degree turn is too much.
Bernie Harberts (04:13)
What happens when you turn? What does it sound like when that wheel hits the side of the wagon?
Sea G Rydr (04:23)
It's a little roller and it makes this whirring grinding sound that the ponies don't like at all, which makes them want to go faster, which makes the whole situation worse. And I have jackknifed this thing twice now.
Bernie Harberts (04:38)
That's dangerous. You can flip a wagon.
Sea G Rydr (04:41)
Jump out fast on the uphill side and grab the ponies. Terrifying. So we get going, there's a reporter there and he goes, this looks like something out of an NPR documentary. And I'm thinking, yeah, I wish. But it's just me going down the road. I get to the first stop and I realize I need a new axle. I went around to a couple of Amish shops and they were basically like, who made this for you? It's his problem. Make him fix it. They wouldn't touch it.
Bernie Harberts (05:20)
That's not helpful at all.
Sea G Rydr (05:23)
So I had to send an email to Mel at Peckway Carriage Company, and he expressed me out an axle which was five feet long, now six inches wider on each side. Laura McCartney had welcomed me in and wound up letting me stay for eight days. Her husband was a machinist, and their best friends down the road, he was a carpenter, a woodworker. So when the axle got there, I had someone right there to put it on and to shorten my hip pocket boxes so the wheel would hit the rollers, not the box. I had that extra foot of turning radius. Still not a whole lot in real life.
Bernie Harberts (06:08)
So if you're gonna make a circle, how big would it be?
Sea G Rydr (06:21)
Literally the size of a school bus. My Toyota Sienna van has a better turning radius than this wagon. I cannot do a ninety-degree turn in this wagon.
Bernie Harberts (06:36)
That makes it really tough to navigate, especially in the east and the midwest around traffic.
Sea G Rydr (06:45)
We are entering the Great Plains now, which is flat and straight. I chose this area to start because flat is easier for the ponies and the open expanse makes it easier for people to see me. Part of the reason we have that turning radius is the combined weight of the ponies is 800 pounds. The combined weight of the wagon and me and Thick and all my gear and water and food has to be under 800 pounds, or we don't go up hills. That's just physics. To add suspension and height was gonna add weight. Being very naive to all this, I chose to keep the wagon low. I am questioning the wisdom of that decision now. But I designed this wagon from scratch with Mel. No blame on anybody but me.
Bernie Harberts (08:05)
What was the biggest thing you prepared for that didn't happen?
Sea G Rydr (08:15)
Very little.
Bernie Harberts (08:22)
Everything happened.
Sea G Rydr (08:24)
Yeah. The last two weeks have been insane. Yesterday a big dog bit Thick and put a hole in his ear. I'm spraying vetericyn on that. He's sleeping under the wagon right now and he wouldn't eat for twenty-four hours. I couldn't protect my dog.
Bernie Harberts (08:52)
Does Thick ride inside the wagon?
Sea G Rydr (08:58)
He's on the front seat next to me. He's being really good about staying in the wagon. But there are times when he's gotten excited enough. I've got a little solar refrigerator in front of the dashboard, that's part of how I'm keeping myself fed. One day he jumped out onto the solar cooler to try and tell the ponies to go faster. I've got a harness on him and I grabbed him and yanked him back. It takes two hands to drive the ponies. They are still green that way.
In the first couple weeks we were staying with people, going, stopping, having people be super lovely. Anytime it was raining and windy we would get in, because this is a whole lot of canvas to have up in even a thirty-five mile an hour wind. We've been having a really blowy, wet spring in Ohio. Thirty-five mile an hour wind with this big canvas and the tiny ponies, that's not safe on the road.
Bernie Harberts (10:34)
What happens? Does it blow the wagon back and forth?
Sea G Rydr (10:37)
Yeah. And it makes it hard for them to pull. I have driven large rigs in high winds and I know how quick you can be in another lane. The wind has literally started to blow the wagon across somebody's yard. So when it is windy, we do our very best to get in under shelter. The canvas is totally waterproof. But the wind is an issue I hadn't really anticipated. It's like driving a sailboat up a road.
There were more things that just didn't occur to me that have happened. There was one day we did 12 miles in two hours, the ponies were just flying. Super good day.
Sea G Rydr (12:00)
We had one night we had a choice of putting them out on the tether or in a ten-by-ten stall together. Those were the only two options. It was a super windy day. They were out on the tether and they were really spooky. Theodore was running around and around a post until he jammed his face up against it and couldn't move. And he was out at the end of his tether trying to rip his leg off.
I bring him into the stall, and within two hours Theodore is trying to kick the tar out of Franklin. So I go over with a treat and a lead rope, bring the treat up, Theodore grabs the treat and I grab his halter and tie him into the corner. He just stopped. After two hours, everything's calm. I untie him. Four hours, everything's calm. All of a sudden he's kicking Franklin again. I give him another treat, tie him up, two hours, four hours, kicking again.
The fourth time it happens, I am out of a dead sleep. I go running, I don't have the treat. He meets me in the corner, I clip him up, and there he is licking his lips and looking at me soft-eyed, like where is it. He had figured out how to beat the tar out of his brother to earn a treat. Ponies are just so smart.
Sea G Rydr (13:57)
We left there and wound up staying at a place called Engetty Ridge Zoo. When they invited us, they asked, are your ponies gonna be okay with emus and camels and kangaroos? I said, we'll find out. We get there and the ponies are like, yeah, camels, emus, kangaroos, that's cool. They're making friends with the kangaroos through the fence. There are a couple of zebras. I get to pet camels. It was like peaceable kingdom.
I get going and there are two women following me in their cars with their flashers on. The ponies aren't quite right that day. Something wasn't right. So I pulled over into a parking lot and tried to adjust the harness. The vet who owned the zoo showed up and said the reins were crossed. I knew enough to know that wasn't the right answer. He'd only ever driven a camel before. But the useful thing he said was, about a mile and a half up on the left, there's a hoop barn and that's a harness maker. Pull in there and he can probably help you figure this out.
I suggested to the women that two of them behind me wasn't a good idea. Instead of telling them both to get in one car, which would have been the clever thing, I told one woman, why don't you get out in front of me.
Sea G Rydr (16:38)
So the left-hand turn into that driveway is right over the crest of a hill. She's in front, turning really slowly, making sure I see the entrance. To get in, I'm gonna have to get the ponies moving a little quicker. I wait till she's about a wagon's length out of the way, give the ponies a little bit of juice and they take a left. We're good.
All of a sudden I realize the right rein has gotten caught in one of the rings on the back of Theodore's harness. I only have one rein, it is the left rein, and I can't stop. There is a car in front of us. They dive between two pine trees, the team pole hits a fence post. Franklin's got his head and his left leg through a fence. The team pole is bent, buckled. The single tree in the back is shattered. We are full stop.
And luckily someone had turned off that electric fence ten minutes before. So Theodore is through a dead electric fence, not a live one. The harness maker and his wife and their four homeschool kids show up, the two women are there, we get the ponies unhitched and the wagon disentangled. I did not break a single bow. Ponies are fine. They stayed on the wagon until I gave them permission to get off. The only real casualty was the team pole and my prescription sunglasses, which went flying off my face, never to be seen again.
Bernie Harberts (18:27)
Describe the team pole for people.
Sea G Rydr (18:31)
Between the ponies there's a metal pole they're both hitched to. In the front of it there's like a T. At the back of it is one swivel long piece of wood. At the ends are two shorter pieces of wood that also swivel. The traces come back along the side of each pony and down to those shorter pieces of wood. It swivels so they can stay even, and the bigger piece balances that out. If you're picturing a mobile hanging from the ceiling, it's that sort of balancing thing so that no matter how the ponies are pulling, the wagon stays straight. Franklin pulls a lot harder and faster than Theodore most of the time. His side is usually forward when we're going down the road, and it evens it out.
The long one that went behind both of them split in the middle. There are splinters and shards all over the place. Bent like the back of a whale.
Bernie Harberts (19:49)
A humpback.
Sea G Rydr (19:51)
A humpback. So we get the ponies unhitched, get the wagon disentangled, make sure everybody's okay. And pretty much instantly the harness maker is offering us a ride in his trailer to anywhere we want to go that is not his yard. We are not his problem. He is very clear that we are not his problem. I had a rest stop set up two stops ahead. So we got in the trailer and he drove us thirty miles.
One advantage of this size wagon is it actually fits in a horse trailer. The whole wagon is six foot three but it is five foot one wide. I cannot take the canvas off the bows without a screwdriver and it would be very hard to put back on in one piece. But it fits.
Bernie Harberts (21:24)
That's fantastic. I've never owned a wagon narrow and low enough to fit into a horse trailer.
Sea G Rydr (21:41)
There are pros and cons. We got the wagon in, ratcheted it forward with straps. We put the ponies in crosswise because they're very short, tied to one wall parallel to the back door. We got to where we were going, unhooked everything, and Dan Shanahan, the harness man, disappeared.
That place had a garage for the wagon and an electric fence pasture for the ponies. The woman who lived there in an old farmhouse had MS. Low energy. And honestly, that was one of the best things: someone who understood that when I said I need a rest, it doesn't mean give me twenty minutes. It means I can function for a couple of hours and then I need the rest of the day. She and I were on the same page.
Two retired women brought my van to catch up with me. I have a 2000 Toyota Sienna with an extra wagon hoop in it, some supplements and grain for the ponies, off-season clothes and bedding, extra stuff I don't have room for in the wagon. People bring it along behind me.
We found an Amish man willing to fix the pole and reweld it, and his son had the woodworking skills. By the end of a week we bolt it back onto the wagon, hook up the ponies, go down the driveway. This is a Sunday, low traffic day, but the ponies are not okay. Not pulling straight, not happy, not behaving. They've had a week off, so I'm expecting them to be a little spicy. But they're not okay. I'm stopping them, getting out, trying to adjust the harness, getting back in, and I'm alone.
Bernie Harberts (23:59)
You're alone.
Sea G Rydr (24:02)
One of the times I'm stopped, standing by the ponies, two guys in a white pickup truck stop and say, are you okay? I say, not really, having some harness issues. I'm getting ready to ask them to hold the ponies. They rev the engine and then laugh and say, looks like that scared your ponies. Rev the engine again and take off. The ponies spook and bolt down the road. I get knocked down and I am getting dragged down the pavement, hanging by one half-inch-wide biothane rein.
I managed to get them stopped. Now I have bruises and scrapes. I have a phone number for a farrier who's 74 years old and lives in his van half the year. His name is Dickie Bill. I call him and say, are you willing to make a roadside call? Something's going on and I need help figuring it out. He shows up with his son and his grandson.
Sea G Rydr (25:03)
They hop out, and we realize the team pole is not straight. Nothing I was doing with the harness was gonna make any difference. The team pole I just spent a hundred dollars to have replaced is crooked.
Bernie Harberts (25:22)
What does that do?
Sea G Rydr (25:26)
The ponies were running into it. Running into each other. The thing was not pulling straight. Everything was just wrong and they could feel it and they couldn't compensate for it. The faster we went, the worse it got. I went four miles at a walk to Dickie Bill's son's house. They had a splitter, a blowtorch, a generator, and a five-foot-long level. We unhitched the ponies, unbolted the team pole, and they played with it for over an hour. It was out of true in three dimensions, in three planes.
Now I have a straight team pole. We get the ponies harnessed up, I go out of the driveway, and we're going down at a trot in a straight line. Problem solved. And the next thing I know the trot has turned into a gallop.
I'm pulling back on the reins saying walk, ho. And I realize that Theodore's bit is not in his mouth. One of those guys put the bridle on my pony and I wasn't paying enough attention. I was just trusting, because who would put a bridle on a pony without putting the bit in the mouth? His bit is under his neck.
Bernie Harberts (27:09)
They're galloping up the road.
Sea G Rydr (27:18)
As fast as they could go. And Theodore, who has no bit, outweighs Franklin by a hundred pounds, so he can drag him when he wants to. My big pony is out of control dragging down the road. No traffic, no intersections. It is over a mile before I can get those ponies brought back into hand, get them stopped, get out, put the bridle back on Theodore with the bit in his mouth, get back on the seat, drive them two more miles. We're in heavy traffic now. One of those big blatty trucks comes way too close behind us, jams in front of us, and Theodore loses his mind and takes off again.
Poor Franklin. Franklin's not asking for any of this.
Sea G Rydr (28:26)
I've cut a day short. We're going to stay with Dickie Bill's relative, Clayton. There's a pasture with a twenty-year-old leopard Appaloosa that's good with other horses. It's rush hour on 129, a really fast state road. Dickie Bill is behind me in his van with his flashers on. All of a sudden he's honking and yelling: this is the turn right here, this is the house. It's not the address I have in my phone. So I turn in. Too late, too tight. The ponies goose. The wagon jackknifes. The right wheel is jammed into the roller and we can't get it out. I jump out the uphill side. Second time we've jackknifed.
Fourth near-death in one day. I have had it. I unhitch the ponies, walk them up the driveway toward the pasture, walk away from the wagon, and figure: the men can handle this. It took three of them lifting that wagon up and jamming on the tire to get it off. Somehow the wagon is still in one piece.
Bernie Harberts (30:13)
All okay.
Sea G Rydr (30:14)
All okay. Ponies out in the pasture. My nephew showed up and put the Strava app on my phone. Then Dickie Bill offers to take me to the fairgrounds for a shower. I leave the wagon, go to the fairgrounds. I come out of the shower. Dickie Bill's girlfriend is there because she wants to meet me. We sit there for half an hour, forty-five minutes. They want to take me out for dinner. I don't have an immune system, so I can't go inside. Finally we settle on a Mexican restaurant with outdoor seating.
We come back. I've been going since 6:30 this morning. They finally leave about nine o'clock. I get the wagon organized. Long day.
Sea G Rydr (31:45)
The next day I'm going four and a half miles to the fairgrounds. There's huge construction. They're putting in a new guardrail with all these big machines. It's a Hispanic road crew. Before I get the ponies hooked to the wagon, I go down and explain that the ponies are spooky, their equipment is loud, and blessings on them as I go down the driveway. They turn off every machine. It is dead silent.
Bernie Harberts (32:13)
Good you, and good them.
Sea G Rydr (32:15)
We're on the busy road. Dickie Bill's behind us with the flashers on. I turn onto a quiet road, but every time we go faster than a walk the ponies are trying to bolt. Still rattled from the day before. I miss a turn and a four-and-a-half-mile day turns into an eight-and-a-half-mile day at a walk. Ponies walk at two, two-and-a-half miles an hour. It's early afternoon before we get to the fairgrounds. I get them in a pen, get them water, get them hay, get the wagon under a roof. I go take a shower. I come back out. My dog is barking his head off and disappears. There's a leash law at the fairgrounds. He saw two ladies walking their dogs. I have to go pick him up and bring him back.
By the time I get back, there's an old man there waiting for me. He's looking for Dickie Bill. Having a conversation with him is like fishing in a pond with no fish. This goes on for an hour. Then Dickie Bill shows up at five o'clock with his girlfriend, and he lets me know a bunch more friends really want to meet me and they're on their way.
I get a text from Chris, the facilities manager, saying there's a really bad storm coming in. I text back: if it's going to be that bad, I don't want my wagon to blow away. Is there any way I can get it into proper shelter? He opens a big pole barn. We get the wagon in there. I make six or seven loads to get all my stuff in. Meanwhile, Dickie Bill is setting up chairs and a table, he's brought these friends over, and it starts bucketing rain.
I am trapped in a pole barn with a bunch of seventy and eighty-year-old men. One of them wrote a book in 1985. He's giving me a copy and he wants to deliver the motivational speech he used to give back in 1985. Hanging around his neck on a string is a giant pacifier with a bulb the size of my fist.
Bernie Harberts (35:35)
That's heavy.
Sea G Rydr (35:41)
He cannot stop talking. He has plagiarized every self-help book I've already read to make his book. The front half is pictures plagiarizing Dr. Seuss. It's the Grinch who stole the bottom line. And I have not asked for his advice. I have not asked for his help. I did not ask him to show up.
This went on for two and a half hours while the other guys went on a beer run and I can't drink beer. He's had me pinned to my chair, a captive audience. It's bucketing rain. I've had nothing to eat. And finally I lost it. I completely snapped.
I tried to explain about the food thing and he starts explaining to everybody else that I needed to feed myself. I said, I can speak for myself. He's desperate to be in my blog, telling me I need to write about meeting this famous author. And I finally said, I don't want you telling me what to write. It is my blog. I write what I want. I don't need you speaking for me. He says, I'm being empathetic. I said, no, you're being a control freak. And frankly, I've spent the entire night wanting to grab that pacifier and jam it into your mouth so you would shut up. And I am screaming. And everybody gathers up their beer in mortification and leaves.
Bernie Harberts (37:51)
Success. You broke up the party. You can go home now.
Sea G Rydr (37:54)
I hated myself for that. I had been dropping conversational hints for two and a half hours that he was ignoring. I had exceeded every limit I had. Between Sunday's four near-deaths and Monday's non-consensual anything, I was done. Dickie Bill was very helpful and wanted to show me off to his friends because I was the new trinket. It just did not feel good.
Bernie Harberts (38:32)
Why do you think people are so drawn to that?
Sea G Rydr (38:37)
I think we're in a world where people just desperately want to be seen and heard. There's a difference between sharing myself and being taken from. And there's a line there I'm not really understanding how to navigate yet.
I also think it's men of a certain age who somehow believe that women owe them attention. The only time they really seem to feel alive is when someone is paying them undivided attention. And when they get that drug they're so desperate for, they're mainlining and they're not going to voluntarily cut themselves off.
I am not a person in a body in those situations. I am just a mirror reflecting their greatness back at them.
Bernie Harberts (40:32)
Please, folks, if you meet CG Ryder, who's fabulous and doing an amazing thing, please ask her one question, tell her one thing, and then the conversation will be half yours and half theirs. Ten minutes.
Sea G Rydr (40:56)
The two-hour limit. I can be cheerful and happy about socializing for two hours. Tolerant for four. Then I am a hundred percent done and I need to go crawl in my cave.
Bernie Harberts (41:27)
So where do you head next?
Sea G Rydr (41:57)
Right now the ponies are in Indiana and I'm in Ohio. We walked the ponies across State Line Road to a four-acre pasture. They made it to Indiana a day ahead of me, which is fair. They lead everything. Today was a rain day. If it's icky weather and I've got a possibility of not driving, I'm not driving.
They have not been in a pasture since before the fairgrounds. This is the first chance they've had to stretch, to roll, to eat real grass. They are really happy right now. That's a priority.
Bernie Harberts (43:09)
How's their weight and condition?
Sea G Rydr (43:13)
Theodore's losing a little weight, which he could stand. Franklin's gaining a little muscle and looking a little chonkier. Their hooves are looking great, barefoot almost every day.
After the whole thing with the fence, we had not had a good day driving until two days ago. I landed with a couple named Terry and Pam Marker. He drives a six-horse Percheron hitch. He's been driving since he was ten. He's seventy. He went over that harness one piece at a time. He drove them the first four miles. His wife drove me along behind in the car. When I got the reins again, it was like I had a completely different team. They were straight, everything was organized, the lines were working. The ponies were pulling the way they were supposed to.
And it gets better. His granddaughter had just graduated from high school the day before. She'd been in a vet tech program for two years, learning animal science and body work. She did stretching, therapy, and massage on Franklin, figured out what was bothering him. He had a pinched nerve in his neck. She stretched it and popped it out in both directions, figured out how to loosen up his hips. She taught me exercises I can do for him every day now that are going to make him more comfortable going down the road.
After she did that work on him, he was happy, comfortable, just great. That one family turned the trip around.
Bernie Harberts (45:47)
Good for you for opening up to that.
Sea G Rydr (46:07)
The guy where I am now has a PEMF machine. He did a treatment on both ponies before they went out to pasture. You could tell with Franklin that something in his neck was connected to his left back leg. That was his neck and his left back leg that went through the fence. He's been fighting a physical thing since that happened that we're finally getting a handle on.
I am ninety miles from my next long stop in Sheridan, Indiana, where I'm going to stay for a week. And I have gotten my book published.
Bernie Harberts (46:59)
Congratulations.
Sea G Rydr (47:01)
Thank you. It's called Free Range Rodeo: Horseback Through the Apocalypse. It's about the first thousand miles of my long ride when I was traveling with Griff and Jesse James and Finehorn and a variety of mares. It was put out by Barker Books out of Mexico City. They did a fabulous job. It's on Amazon now in paperback and hardcover.
I've ordered fifty copies to be sent ahead to Sheridan, Indiana. I'll sell those out of the wagon on a sliding scale as a way to fund this. If people want an autographed copy, they can send me an email with their address and payment through Venmo or PayPal. Details are on my blog. When I get to Sheridan, I'll open that box of books and start signing them and putting them in the mail.
Bernie Harberts (48:06)
I've ordered my copy. Hardcover. I'd urge anyone interested to buy it now.
Sea G Rydr (48:21)
Amazon will get it to you in a few days. Paperback is fast. Hardcover is taking a little longer. The Kindle version should be up in a week, though my publisher has been in the hospital for the past two days, so that's delayed.
Bernie Harberts (49:39)
What do you need? Gear, finances, how can people help?
Sea G Rydr (49:54)
This is very grassroots. I had been living on disability and food stamps and had to give that up because you can't travel with that. Same with Medicaid. I am way out here on a string and the only way this happens is with donations and book sales. If you go to my blog, the contact page has Venmo and PayPal and Zelle. My Venmo is Free Range Rodeo.
The other thing that is super helpful: go watch the interviews I'm doing on Who is My Neighbor, the Neighbor Archives. If I can get a thousand subscribers and four thousand hours watched, I can start getting paid by YouTube. That's the heart of what I'm doing. I love doing the interviews, I love editing them, I love every single part of that process. It feeds my soul and makes me feel like what I'm doing out here matters.
I also need drivers for my support van. I can't drive the van and the ponies at the same time. If you're willing to do a mini road trip and bring the van ahead to where I am, or give me a ride back to the van, that is super useful.
I can only carry about twenty pounds of grain with me at a time. If you draw a line on a map between Union City, Indiana and Sheridan, Indiana, I am trying to make fifteen miles a day along that line. Anything within five miles of that walking route, I would love invitations. Between Sheridan, Indiana and Buffalo Prairie, Illinois is about three hundred miles. Same thing along that route. Invitations are super helpful.
If anybody can get a hold of a reporter who wants to talk to me before I get to their town, that is far more useful than after I'm gone. People will see the article and it helps me find places to stay.
Bernie Harberts (54:35)
How many doors have you had to knock on?
Sea G Rydr (54:45)
I can't get out of the wagon and leave the ponies standing for thirty seconds to go knock on a door. I have not risked that yet. Every night so far I have known where I'm headed. That's the big sweat. With a riding horse and a pack horse, it was easy. Big difference.
I've tried contacting churches and they do not get back to me at all. I think the thing is to find businesses with land nearby. In Albany, Indiana, there's a farm supply store, used farm equipment, John Deere and stuff. If I don't have anything for Saturday night, I'm going to contact them and ask if I can camp in the yard.
I need someone to hold the ponies every morning while I'm hitching them to the wagon. I can unhitch them alone, but I can't hitch up in the morning and get going without somebody. That's a little embarrassing. But it's just where we are right now.
Bernie Harberts (56:31)
From Northern Illinois, where do you plan to head?
Sea G Rydr (56:37)
Lincoln, Nebraska. All the way across Iowa. I've got to figure out how to get across the Mississippi River. I'll either need a horse trailer or an escort from a sheriff or police. Those big bridges just aren't safe.
From Lincoln I'm going to loop around Nebraska because I want to see the national grasslands. I've never really spent time in them. Then I'm planning on going down to Independence, Kansas, because that's where the Little House on the Prairie Museum is. This wagon is sixty-year-old me living out the dreams of six-year-old me. And six-year-old me wants to go to that museum. So we're going.
I also have an invitation in Vergennes, Illinois, down in the very tip of the state. That's a woman with a site called Horse Girl, inspirational content about women wanting to get back into horses. She wants to do some interviews. We'll do them both ways.
For winter, I'm looking for someplace with a cabin and a pasture where the ponies and I can have a reasonable amount of solitude and safety and an internet connection. I would love three or four months to finish the next book and keep doing the Who is My Neighbor interviews remotely.
Going across the Midwest, I am finding an extreme lack of diversity. Pretty much everybody I've been interviewing is a middle-aged or older white Republican. That's a function of who lives here. We're in the Bible Belt, staying with farmers every night. These have been really amazing people. Generous, kind, enthusiastic. Zero complaints. But I would love to be able to do some remote interviews. You don't take ponies into cities. I would love to get a lot more diversity into these interviews.
If people are willing to volunteer for a remote interview on Riverside, it's not hard to set up. I've got the app. When I'm in Sheridan, Indiana, I should have good Wi-Fi and a week off. I would love to be doing these interviews with people who don't live in the Midwest. Especially if you're Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, or something other than Christian.
Bernie Harberts (1:00:41)
What's the best way to contact you?
Sea G Rydr (1:00:44)
Email is best. That's sea, S-E-A, at freerangerodeo.com. Or contact me via the blog or social media. You can also text me at 518-336-5596. Texting lets me get back to people later. If the phone rings when I'm going down the road, that's a traffic hazard. But sea at freerangerodeo.com is the very best way to find me.
Bernie Harberts (1:01:34)
I've really enjoyed the Who is My Neighbor project. When you're traveling with a mule, a wagon, horses, for the most part you avoid cities. Rural areas have a very specific demographic. It'd be great to get a wider range of voices.
Sea G Rydr (1:02:30)
And I want the people here to hear coastal voices. I want them to hear your interview, Bernie. You're living in a cabin. There's so much they can relate to, but you're in a completely other part of the country and you think differently. I am really trying to tie that together.
I've done probably forty or fifty interviews now, and I'm getting more interested, not bored. And then to have people put answers in the comments. The people being interviewed are asking real questions and hoping real people will respond. My dad loves these so much. This is his favorite way to keep up with me. Shout out to Chuck and Sally Joe.
Bernie Harberts (1:05:47)
To close, what would be one parting thought you'd like to leave people?
Sea G Rydr (1:06:04)
I wish I could encourage more people to trust their neighbors. Get out of your comfort zone. Get out from behind your screens and get out into the world. Just get out there and talk to people. If you're on the bus, talk to people. If you're in the checkout line, talk to people. People are so hungry for actual connection. We've gotten so scared. The only way we're going to get past that is if we just start reaching out and trusting that that person we're reaching toward might just reach back.
Bernie Harberts (1:06:46)
Thanks again, C, for making time straight from the mustard seed wagon. If you enjoyed this interview and would like to be a guest on C's Who is My Neighbor channel, drop her a line at sea at freerangerodeo.com. To keep up with C's wagon journey, check out freerangerodeo.com and her Facebook page. If you'd like to make a gift toward the trip, go to the contact page on freerangerodeo.com. Before C took off on this wagon voyage, she took a five-thousand-mile saddle journey through America. You can hear her talk about that on travelgrit.com. Her new book, Free Range Rodeo: Horseback Through the Apocalypse, is out now on Amazon. And before C set off on her current trip, she and I caught up on the Travel Grit companion show Gritty Bits, where we discussed preparations for this journey. Thanks for joining me today. Until next time, stay gritty.
For more stories of long riders, sailors, ramblers, adventurers, and dreamers finding their way, visit TravelGrit.com.