The great success of the show, Yellowstone, tells us that millions of Americans still yearn for the great outdoors. For Kevin Costner it is the Dutton Ranch. For Ronald Reagan it was his Rancho del Cielo. It might be time for you to discover yours, because he beauty of the land and the mountains, the rivers and oceans, still resonates with our primal desire to be in touch with nature.
Rawhide! President Ronald Reagan loved working with his hands, and being outdoors. And, you can see from this photo, taken at Camp David in November of 1981, that he loved to ride horses.
Photo Courtesy of Ronald Reagan Library
“I’ve often said, there’s nothing better for the inside of a man, than the outside of a horse.”– Ronald Reagan on many occasions.
Rancho del Cielo
This picture of Reagan was taken 7 months after the 70-year old entered George Washington University Hospital to have a would-be-assassin’s bullet removed from his chest. Horseback riding at Camp David was therapeutic for Ronald Reagan. But, Rancho del Cielo was his true sanctuary.
He called it his “Cathedral in the Sky” (Rancho del Cielo is Spanish for Sky’s Ranch, or Heaven’s Ranch). It is where he could sort out problems while riding his favorite seventeen-hands-high
