Western Folklife Center's National Cowboy Poetry Gathering Ultimate Western Experiences Auction

Your hosts are the Searle Family at Maggie Creek Ranch, one of Nevada’s great ranches. Here, you will get a first-hand chance to meet and photograph buckaroos as they work with cow dogs, rope, and care for horses and cattle.  After a tour of the ranch Friday afternoon, you will be hosted at the famous Basque Restaurant, the Star, where you will meet luminaries from the Basque community to talk about – and test! –Basque cuisine. The next morning you drive to the Keddy Ranch where Peter and Susan Church will be your hosts. Susan, a fine metal sculptor, will show you her salvage yard of found metal objects and then take you to her workshop where she will demonstrate the making of a triangle “call to dinner” gong. Each couple will leave with their own art gong. Peter, a former San Francisco chef, will serve you lunch before driving back to Elko where Meg Glaser, Artistic Director of the Western Folklife Center, will take you into the exhibit storage area for a cook’s tour of the Center’s contemporary cowboy gear collection.  After a brief rest back at the ranch, you will drive 40 minutes for dinner at Waddie Mitchell and Lisa Hackett’s extraordinary home near Twin Bridges. Afterwards, Waddie will regale you with stories and poetry.  Sunday morning offers a short tour and walk to a secret place up Lamoille Canyon in the Ruby Mountains before you depart with your dinner gong and a cooler of frozen beef from the Maggie Creek Ranch. Max four people. Best time to schedule: September- November