The first thing I did that morning is watch a local dancing studio have their kids dance to Christmas songs behind the chapel. When I say "kids" I am talking really young. Mostly elementary school level kids. I put a few snippets of this later in the video, but no need for pictures here about that.
Next a mother and son that are Luiseno Indians gave some traditional stories that came from their tribe. I took some video of that, but cut it out of the main video since it would have made this video way bigger than it is. If I am ever in the mood somewhere down the road after the series is over I might find a way to make a video that.
In the following picture you will notice a few things they were doing on this side of the rancho. If you look closely on the left side you will see a tractor getting ready to pull some people around. They were giving people rides in my direction and then behind me. I wanted to do this near the end of the day, but I ended up leaving before that. In the background right by the adobe, they had things like free popcorn being made and art for kids. Just to the left you can see how they fenced off the area for the horse riding.
If I remember correctly this horse was in the process of being trained by this man.
He was trying to motivate him to bow and other tricks. He ended up walking the horse around and then doing it in a faster pace. The video shows parts of this.
This group of young ladies compete in competitions. They were riding back and forth by each other without touching.
One of the horses a little closer.
One of the other horses and rider close up.
So, the horsemanship was enjoyable. This is probably the closest I would get to having vaquero culture in this series. One thing not seen here, but seen in the video is some of the guys do some rope tricks. They had one act as if she were a bull, and they roped her up.I'll continue the festivities in the next blog going to the other side of the adobe to the carriage court where they had somethings going on over there. I'll also show a few more parts of the insides of the adobe from that side.
Ramona Epic #37: Rancho Christmas Festivities (Youtube Version)
Ramona Epic #37: Rancho Christmas Festivities (Vimeo Version)
