Greenhorn Creek Guest Ranch
April 20, 08 by admin
It’s a rare and delightful thing. Take a journey, and discover that you have reached not just a physical destination… you’ve arrived at a different place and time. And perhaps of more importance, you’ve arrived at a different state of mind.
Such was my recent visit to the Greenhorn Creek Guest Ranch, just outside of Quincy California. In just a little over an hour’s drive from Reno, I found myself in a truly remarkable place.
The Greenhorn Creek Ranch has plenty of modern amenities… wifi, and a pool for example. But the Ranch’s real power of psychic healing lies in transporting guests to a different, and simpler, time. And no, it’s not so far back as the days of the pioneers with the attendant hardships and challenges.
It’s more like the days of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, in 1950’s America. Plenty of beautiful horses to ride, a fully stocked trout pond, a fun saloon with poker tables and dancing if you are so inclined, and a first rate chuck house with great meals. All with running water and electricity! No “roughing it” required!
The Greenhorn Creek Ranch offers so many activities, and so many different ways to enjoy them, that a complete list would be a challenge, but some of my favorites include:
- Corporate retreats – Get your staff away from their computers for a wonderful weekend of team building.
- Cowgirl boot camp – A fantastic “girl friends get-away weekend” for friends who want to get in touch with their inner cowgirl.
- Wild West Singles Week – what can spark a romance better than a moonlit horseback ride?
- Equine Assisted Learning – A very special program focused on human development.
All this is overseen by a couple as remarkable as the Ranch itself. Dr. Lisa Kelly is a refugee from the halls of academe, having served as a Professor at Perdue, and Director of a private business college in Reno. Her husband Mike left a career as a corporate executive to take over Ranch operations, while Lisa manages the hospitality side of the business. (An aside: I first met Mike when he was fully engaged in the corporate “rat race.” I almost didn’t recognize him… he looks ten years younger and twenty pounds lighter!)
Spend just a few minutes with Lisa, and her intelligence, education and enthusiasm are immediately apparent. “So,” I ask, “how does a PhD from Purdue University wind up running a Guest Ranch?” “Well,” Lisa reflects, “it’s kind of a long story….. but here goes!”
“It was in the 70’s that I started on my diatribe about wanting my own pony…it was a nagging voice in my head that said: “GET A HORSE!” So, my parents being the wonderful parents they are, got my brother & I a horse - Rusty. In LA at that time, you had few choices about boarding - Malibu where the rent was high or the Valley where the air was dry, but the price was right! So we commuted from Santa Monica to Encino almost every weekend to ride our wonderful steed.
In the meantime, my Dad, in search of the perfect family vacation found the Greenhorn Ranch in Sunset Magazine; horseback riding, REAL cowboys, singing around a bonfire, log rolling in the pond, wild western dances, and the first PONG game in the West! YIPPEE! Where else could you go and eat in a chuck house with up to 80 people (friends by then!), dance in a real saloon and watch your parents be completely silly.
We begged our parents to take us to the Greenhorn Ranch at every opportunity, it was better than Hawaii, better than Aspen (these, among our choices).My family loved the owners of the Ranch, the Wilburns’, (they’re still here today). My parents bought 7 parcels of land around the Ranch and built a log cabin (still here today).
Times change and we with time…I went off to college, graduate school, more graduate school and ended up as Dr. Kelly, director of a private business college in Reno. I married a coupla times and had children. We seldom took vacations, hardly had meals together. We were tethered by technology, bound to the telephone, glued to our monitors in work and in play.
In 2006, my brother called me and said: “Guess where I am?”
I said, “where? Hawaii? Aspen???”
“No, I am at Greenhorn.”
WOW, it’s still there?”
“Yeah, it was always here, they never went away, we did.”
I took my family for a visit, a horseback ride, cookout, an overnighter. We put money down on 6 amazing acres adjacent to the Greenhorn and we bought a trailer. I was back home and it felt good.
I believe in the power of dreams and the ability to manifest your own destiny. So, by Spring of 2007, my husband and I had left our corporate jobs (pretty good ones too:), hitched the team to the buckboard and made our way west…northwest that is.
We returned to the Greenhorn Ranch as their management team, my husband, the brawn and me, the …sales and marketing gal! We work for Ralph and Trish Wilburns, the salt of the earth and the passion behind Greenhorn Ranch. The kids are thriving and the dogs are in hog heaven. We have a lovely home (even managed to sell our home in Reno when it wasn’t a popular thing to do). The community has been welcoming and we love the lifestyle.
This is the story of big city girl gone dude ranch and it’s nothing short of a “slice!”
You should come for a visit. It may be the best thing you could ever do for yourself and your family.”
As I took my leave of Lisa, Mike and the Ranch, I had an hour or so to reflect as I drove back to Reno. I noticed first, that I was feeling somewhat regretful that I couldn’t just stay there, and second, a sense of deep relaxation and inner peace that I hadn’t felt in a while.
The Greenhorn Creek Guest Ranch can provide it’s guests with the rip-roaring fun of a rodeo event (that guests participate in!) or a deeply decompressing relaxation in a place of incredible beauty – or both!
Greenhorn Creek Guest Ranch
2116 Greenhorn Ranch Road, Quincy, CA.
1-800-33-HOWDY
www.greenhornranch.com
Local faux artist one of only 12 artists from across the U.S. invited to participate on Bella Toscana tour in Florence, Italy.
