If you’re a western history buff, 2010 marks not only the one hundredth anniversary of the Pendleton Round-Up but one hundred and fifty years since mail was first delivered by the Pony Express. I’m Susan Allen stay tuned for Open Range I’ll be back with a few ways the National Pony Express Association (yes there really is one) is celebrating their sesquicentennial. It has been 150 years since the first pony Express rider climbed about his mount in St. Joseph Missouri and headed west. The horse, small by today’s standards, typically fourteen hands or under carried 125 pounds of rider, twenty pounds of mail and typically twenty pounds of tack including the mochila, a leather pack with padlocked mail pouches .Compared to the dollar an unskilled laborer could expect for twelve hours of work, the twenty five a young man made as an express rider each week was a fortune! As I speak riders are re-enacting rips throughout the west. In fact, one “pony boy”  left San Francisco June sixth heading to Sacramento through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, and Kansas and is expected  back in St. Joe sometime tomorrow. There’s a Christmas card ride scheduled to take place December 11 that will leave Folsom and travel to Old Sacramento with hopes of ending up at Fort Laramie in Wyoming. Several of the rides actually allow you to send a letter along. For a five dollar fee your letter receives a special stamp showing it was carried by the Pony Express. Here is the link if you are interested. http://www.xphomestation.com/npea.html