Is that a horse or a mule? “We have a lot of customers who have never even touched a horse before,” Diemel said. In fact, many 10- and even 15-year-old kids have never seen one except on TV, he said. As for the mules, “some people don’t even know that the mule exists,” he said. “A lot of folks, if you had a mule and a horse sitting next to each other, they probably wouldn’t know the differ- ence.” An easy way to tell? Mules have longer ears, Diemel said.
Can you hear me now? Nope! Good! One thing about being in Diemel’s neck of the woods: “No cellphone service,” he said. “No contact. Zero.” In fact, he said, “There’s lots of destinations that we can take people that you’re going to be going for a week … and you won’t see another person the entire trip.” That actually seems to be a selling point for frazzled cubicle jockeys: “They’re stuck in an office constantly,” Diemel said. “Their phone never stops ringing. I think it’s pretty nice they can go for a week and—heck, you can’t get ahold of ’em even if you wanted to.”
Those were the days Diemel’s operation is a rare breed. “There used to be a ton of pack sta- tions all over California,” he said. “Every customer that came up knew how to ride or they had livestock experience.” Folks who were young in the 1960s or 1970s likely had parents familiar with equine transportation, he added. “It was only a generation removed for most people, and they still had horses or cattle, or a dairy cow outside.”
Introducing the next generation One of Diemel’s favorite things is introducing young people to horses. “Putting a 7- or 8-year-old kid on a horse for the first time in their life, it’s pretty magical,” he said. “We probably take a hundred-plus 7-, 8-, 9-year-old kids a week on an hour ride. That’s pretty cool.”
Kevin Hecteman khecteman@californiabountiful.com
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