FREDERICKTOWN — Sea G. Rhydr set out from Fresno three weeks ago seeking to reconnect with real people in America.
Traveling with her dog Thick in a tiny wagon pulled by two tiny ponies, her journey is rooted in the “mustard seed” belief that faith can create big change.
Rhydr reached Knox County on April 23.
“The mustard seed thing is if you have the faith of the mustard seed, you can move mountains. I have these tiny little ponies pulling this wagon, and it’s all carefully calibrated,” Ryder explained.
“The wagon, me, Thick and all this gear have to weigh under 800 pounds. Technically these ponies can pull three times their weight. Well, that’s on a flat, smooth road. That is not going up the hill by the fairgrounds on the slippy black tar.”
Mel Biler of Pequea Carriage Shop in Narbonne, Pennsylvania, built Ryder’s wagon after months of detailed planning.
Called The Mustard Seed, the wagon’s exterior storage boxes hold tools, duct tape, brushes, pony meds, tent poles, and more.
Rear shelving holds feed and water buckets and provides extra storage.
A wagon side panel becomes a privacy wall, and a bucket doubles as a chamber pot. Tent poles stabilize the panel in wind.
Rhydr must remove and reassemble everything each day to convert the wagon from travel mode to living space.
The second part of the faith aspect is the faith that “what I’m doing is actually going to have an effect on the national dialogue.”
“Because there’s so much division in this country, and it’s just heartbreaking,” she said.
Why the need to reconnect?
From 2011 to 2013, Rhydr did a 25-month solo ride with a riding horse and a pack horse. Starting in northern California, she went down to Texas and up to Maine.
“We went 5,000 miles, and it was amazing. I met the most incredible people all the way across the country,” she said.
“People took me in. They were generous. They were friendly. It was just so heartening, and it restored my faith in people and in God and in myself.”
When Rhydr finished the ride, she got on social media.
“People I’d gone to church with, people I’d stayed with, posting these truly horrible things on Facebook, and it was like, have they changed that much? Do they have alter egos that do their Facebook?” she said.
“It freaked me out. And so I went dark.”
Rhydr lived on Lopez Island in Puget Sound, Washington, for nine years and wrote a memoir about her horseback ride.
“It was like the island of Misfit Toys. We were just a bunch of misfits there together, and I hid,” she said.
“It was private and peaceful, and then I literally got so allergic to that island, the mold in the winter, I was going to die if I stayed there.”
Rhydr’s doctor said she had to relocate. At the same time, the government started talking about eliminating Medicaid, SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), and disability. These were program upon which Rhydr relied.
“I remembered that other long ride, and I started getting curious if I was going to be able to do another. What kind of people? What’s going to happen?” Rhydr said.
Who’s your neighbor?
Rhydr seeks to find common ground by asking people about their lives, hopes, and struggles.
She takes inspiration from Dorothea Lange, a portrait photographer who went into the fields with migrant workers and gathered their stories and images.
Rhydr developed a list of 25 questions; questions that don’t pigeonhole people by demographics. She posts the interviews on the YouTube channel Who Is My Neighbor.
Rhydr had completed 27 interviews after six days on the road. Her favorite question now is what would you like your taxes to go for? The common-ground answer: education, infrastructure, healthcare.
“If this takes off, and enough people start to watch the YouTube channel, listen to the interviews, maybe eventually the politicians might start noticing that people on both sides of the divide are saying remarkably similar things,” she said.
A pony-powered pilgramage
Rhydr bought Theodore, a “solid rock” dun pony (similar to the pit ponies originating in Ireland) from Kristen Mulhall in Fresno — after Mulhall advertised him on the internet.
Rhydr fell in love and called Mulhall.
“I’m expecting her to hang up the phone on me because I’m obviously a crazy person,” she said. “Instead, she said that sounds great.
“Let me think about a second pony.”
Franklin is a miniature horse who “wants to pull the world.” Rhydr named the ponies after her favorite presidents, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt.
“Franklin has objections to graffiti. In Danville, there’s some football rivalry, and there’s graffiti all over the road. Franklin was having heart attacks all day,” she said.
“Things can come at him at 60 miles an hour and he is brave, but boy, if it’s on the ground, he’s on the ground having issues.”
Cavallo Boots sponsored boots for the ponies. As a former volunteer with the Safe Community Coalition, Rhydr appreciates the fluorescent tape on the boots.
Rhydr has a Toyota Sienna van that has extra supplies that she tries to keep within 100 miles of The Mustard Seed. A group of retired women drive the van as a road trip.
‘Going where I’m invited’
Rhydr left Fresno mid-April. Using Fresno’s rails-to-trails, she headed to Killbuck and Millersburg Walmart, and then caught the Holmes County Trail.
Rhydr rolled into Knox County on April 23, staying overnight at the Bridge of Dreams in Brinkhaven. Fighting weather and exhaustion, she spent five days with a host on O’Brien Road.
“I’ve gotten over the hurry,” she said, adding that she’s dealing with kidney disease, chronic fatigue, and digestion. “I’m the weak link in this group, and I’m realizing I’m going to have to go slow.”
She overnighted two days on Upper Fredericktown Road; last Sunday’s journey took her to Tower Hill Farm in Fredericktown.
From there, Rhydr made her way to Cardington and is now headed to Kenton and Rosewood. Her general destination in Ohio is Fort Recovery in Mercer County.
“I am going where I’m invited. There’s a woman in Sheridan, Indiana, who said, ‘I would love it if you would come here,’” Rhydr said. “I got another invitation to Buffalo Prairie, Illinois.”
Rhydr has hosts lined up in Kenton, Indian Lake, and Rosewood and would appreciate help locating additional camp sites.
Campsites can include a field, pasture, barn, church, or a fairgrounds. She tethers the ponies to graze when there is no fencing.
Rhydr’s journey thus far is not without mishaps. On Day 2 she had an axle problem that required eight days to fix. Three days later the ponies turned too tight and jackknifed the wagon.
Although it did not flip, it took help from her host, an Ohio State Highway Patrol officer Rhydr flagged down, and a farmer who happened by to lift the wagon and release the jammed tire.
A modern-day pioneer
Rhydr’s desire to be on the trail started with an obsession with Little House on the Prairie.
“The Christmas I was 7, the only thing I wanted for Christmas was the complete box set of the Laura Ingall Wilder’s books,” Rhydr said. “My dad was a preacher. We were not flush at that moment. That was a huge expenditure at the time, and that’s what I got for Christmas.”
She read all nine volumes multiple times. Her mom made her a hoop skirt and sunbonnet, and the family had a little John Deere covered wagon.
“I had a scandalously under-trained pony, and I would dress up like Laura Ingalls Wilder, and we would drive the back roads of Texas to church on Sunday, me and my little sister,” Rhydr said.
Points along her journey that she would like to hit include the Little House on the Prairie Museum in Independence, Kansas.
Visiting the Ingalls-Wilder homes in Mansfield, Missouri, Pepin, Wisconsin, and DeSmet, South Dakota, is not out of the question.
Then there’s a woman with Horse Girl Me in Virgin, Illinois, an online group of women who were horse crazy as kids. Now empty nesters, they’re getting into horses again.
“She invited me down, and I got an invite to East Texas. I just have no idea,” Rhydr said.
Westward ho!
Rhydr is also eyeing a Great Plains gravel bike route that goes from Mexico to Canada.
However, the trail heads straight west in Nebraska, and Rhydr fell in love with the rolling hills she saw on YouTube.
“It’s the grass; it’s beautiful. Again, my heart goes yes. I really want to do part of that through Nebraska because it just looks so beautiful,” she said.
Rhydr acknowledged that by the time she reaches Nebraska she likely will be “up to here with peopling” and will need a rest.
“I think some of my inner circle people are going to come out and spend some time when I’m out there,” she said. “There’s a national grasslands; I’ve done a lot of national forests, but I’ve never been to a national grassland, so that sounds amazing.”
Looking ahead to winter, Rhydr said she could take her Who’s Your Neighbor journey to Florida or hole up somewhere and write her three-book trilogy.
She does not care which one happens.
Connecting with Rhyder
You can follow Rhydr’s journey and read her blog on her website, http://www.freerangerodeo.com. Anyone interested in hosting Rhyder can text 1-518-336-5596 or email sea@freerangerodeo.
Anyone who would like to help sponsor her journey can do so using PayPal, Velle and the Venmo information listed under her contact info.
