Kat and I made a lightning run from the Georgia mountains last week on our way to the southeast corner of South Dakota. We left the cat formerly known as Magic at a pet hostel and the Airstream remained parked at Top of Georgia Park. In a rented compact car we drove the 2,300 mile round trip in one week to renew our SD residency for license plates and insurance purposes. This is perfectly legal. You can do it too, but after a visit to The Badlands NP, and a couple of trips to Mount Rushmore you run out of reasons other than their DMV to visit SD. In other words, we felt a need for speed.

On the way back we stopped to enjoy our one hour walking tour of Warm Springs Ranch a few miles east of Boonville, MO off I-70, home of the breeding and training facility of the Budweiser Clydesdales, and their drivers, groomers, caregivers, trainers and Dalmatian dogs. You need reservations and you may not arrive more than 30 minutes early; stay in your car until the tour guides appear to take you to their first stop where you’ll notice glass-doored refrigerators full of 16 ounce long-necked aluminum cans of Bud (regular, not Light). It’s 9:30 a.m. and they hand a bottle to each tourist with the cheery admonition “It’s 5:00 somewhere!” I last enjoyed a 9:30 Bud about ten years ago when we crossed into Sonora, Mexico for dental cleaning and eyeglasses. Hey, I’d never been out of the USA and that called for some fortification. But the beer tasted good now, clean and fresh like it seems to at every brewery you visit, if typically in mid-afternoon. We heard about the first Bud Wagon, Team, and Drivers presented to Gussie Busch, Jr., CEO of Anheuser-Busch on April 7, 1933. Not coincidentally that was the effective date of the repeal of Prohibition. The first load was just two cases of glass long-necks delivered to the Governor of New York as a token of thanks for his role in repeal.

It is a beautiful 300 acre farm where all the Bud Clydesdales (and Dalmatians) are born, grow up, trained, and chosen for breeding. Bud only keeps mares and hires stallions from a few select Clydesdale breeders. The working boys are all gelded and most of them undergo team training. Bud has a size standard of minimum height at the shoulder of 17 hands and a maximum of 19. That’s a big horse – 5’8” to 6’0” to the top of the shoulder – all weighing around 2,000 pounds. And they do eat a lot: up to 50 pounds of special Timothy hay sourced from just a few farms, and around 20 quarts of age and size customized Purina grains. They drink up to 30 gallons of water a day.

The wagon masters undergo a lengthy training program as well. They start with harnesses hitched to teams of electric bicycles, then graduate to an experienced two horse hitch, later with one experienced horse and a youngster, then four, finally all eight. The collars and harnesses are custom made to fit each beast, as are their 5 pound (each) steel and rubber shoes. Those reins have to be heavy and between all that leather and the power of the horses the driver has to handle about 140 pounds of tack weight. That’s why there two drivers. They exchange the reins fairly often.

The three Clydesdales teams travel from bases in Missouri, New Hampshire, and Colorado. Three 50’ customized trailers transport each team to fairs, parades, and sporting events across the USA. Ten horses travel with each team to keep them fresh and rested. One trailer carries eight horses, another two horses and provisions, and a third hauls collars, harnesses, reins, wagons and spare parts, and horseshoes in all sizes. The trailers are well ventilated with outside air to acclimate the horses to the weather where they will perform. The trucks are air conditioned but the trailers are not. Warm Springs Ranch is worth a stop, but make your reservations weeks ahead; they almost always sell out.

The trip itself was mostly boredom broken up by the challenge of navigating passages through Nashville, St. Louis, and Kansas City. We saw Confederate flags in every state, a few Trump 2024 banners that he sold them, and a riding lawn mower graveyard. The Ocoee Scenic Highway is lovely and on Sunday we watched some white water rafting. And in southern Tennessee, almost on the Georgia border, I spotted a sign boosting McCary’s Drug & Gun Shop. Their motto: “Pills or Ammo – It’s Your Choice”.