My name is David Lynn Rider. I was born in Camp Zama, Japan, on August 3rd, 1961. Both my parents were American born citizens. My dad was in the Navy, stationed in Japan, when I was born. My mother and siblings followed my dad wherever he was stationed. So, both me and my older sister Carlene, were born abroad.
Being in the service required a lot of moving, normally every year or 2. It wasn’t until he was stationed in San Diego, that we started to get a more traditional life. Though we lived there from my 1st grade year till the first quarter of my eighth grade year, we still moved 3 times around the city and surrounding areas.
8th grade was a difficult year, as we moved from a neighborhood, in Santee, CA., that our whole family had pretty much considered “home”, to an extremely small town in southern NV, called Beatty. It was a short 6 months and we moved again to Henderson, NV. I attended 3 different schools that year. There were lots of lost friends, a few problems being “the new kid”, and plenty of culture shock.
I was fortunate enough to get to go to same High School in Henderson, all 4 years, your basic High School experience. I graduated with the class of 1979. To this day, some of the best memories originated from that group of peers. However, after my second year in school at Basic, my parents decided to move away from Henderson. Though dad kept his job, he did not like the area we were living in. At that time, Pittman was considered the “ghetto” of Henderson, and probably rightly so.
Dad and mom made the decision to move to Sandy Valley. Sandy Valley is about 50 miles outside of Henderson and Las Vegas. They went in on a 5 acre place with my dad’s mom and stepdad. There were a lot of pros and cons. We started a small farm and had about every animal except a horse. I chose a motorcycle instead. That proved to be a bad mistake during my senior year. I had a 2 hour bus ride in the morning to school. Yes, Basic High, and 2 hours on the way home. I bought a VW Bug a little more than halfway through my Jr year. It’d only take 1 hour if I’d drive.
After I graduated, I moved to Tonopah NV. It was a great experience and I hired on at the phone company, Nevada Telephone and Telegraph. I learned a lot. I started to mature and grow up, became independent. I left Tonopah in May of 1981. Had a very short stint in Klamath Falls, OR. No fault of my own. I came back to Las Vegas, hired on at the cable tv company for a couple years. Tried to make it work in OR again. That lasted about 6 months. So I came back to the cable tv company. I met my 1st wife there. We bought a townhouse, on the west side of Vegas. I had my first son born in 1984, David Jr. We ended up giving the home back to the owner as I saw our marriage going through good, bad, and horrible times. In 1986, we bought a photo business with my parents. It was based, in all places “Sandy Valley”. I swore I’d never go back there. My life with corporate America was over. While we were living in Sandy Valley, my youngest son, Parker Albert was born in 1987. Those were the best 2 days of my life, up until my grandchildren were born.
In 1991, we bought a house in North Las Vegas. Only a year later, my wife and I divorced. It didn’t take long before I had a live-in girlfriend, we married in 1994. We bought a beautiful home with 2 acres on the NW side of Vegas. By this time, I had already gotten more than knee deep into horses. Unlike my childhood, my boys grew up in 2 different homes over their school years. They were very fortunate to live in and have a neighborhood full of friends. They were there to open a new High School, Centennial HS, and graduate from it.
In 2006, we moved to Stephenville, TX. We still had the property in Vegas, as the housing boom was still going strong. We were lucky enough to sell the property in 2007, just before the “Bubble Burst”. We only had an idea of what our future would be like in Texas. We bought a 20 acre piece, with a nice house, 6 stall barn, and building by the highway. The property had 2 “tanks” or ponds as we would call them. It had about 12 acres in pasture, for our ridiculous amount of horses.
Hoof Prints Ranch RV Park and Horse Motel, was officially launched around August of 2006. It took about 3 months to build. Another 2 months of wondering if I’d made the biggest mistake in my life. And finally, about 6-9 months before we saw and realized, it was a great and successful idea.
Ah, but all good stories have to come to an end. In 2011, wife number 2 decided to venture out into the park, looking for love in all the wrong places. To this day, business is business, and friends are friends. Don’t mix them. It was an extremely difficult and rough 4 months. But as they say, time heals. Or, as I say, “forgive but don’t forget”.
Dating after 50 is has it’s advantages and disadvantages. But not realizing what you have was probably my biggest mistake. Losing an additional 8 years of life, just because you don’t want to be alone, is ridiculous and in my case costly. Wife number 3 taught me that lesson.
Through all the years in Texas, I kicked one bad habit, only to pick up another. However, one was a lot less costly than the previous one. I said good bye to my addiction to horses. I immediately saw my bank account show the benefits to that decision. But, the competitor in me found bowling to be my new vise. I’ve been going at it for about 17 years now.
In 2016, I took my real first trip abroad. A trip to Europe. That started a chain reaction that I can’t stop. Both boys were there. Jr was playing pro baseball in Germany, and Parker accompanied me to watch him pitch. It was our first attempt to connect with my mother’s side of the family, that lived in Italy. None of us, not even my mother, had ever met any of them. We struck out.
But, in 2019, Dave Jr married Paige. It was an amazing trip to Italy and Greece. So many memories. And success! We finally got in touch with our ancestors and family. We had a wonderful 4-5 hour visit and dinner. Unforgettable to say the least.
In November of 2020, what every parent wants was given to me, my first and only grandson. Both my mom and dad had the opportunity to meet their great grandson. I was blessed that mom was able to appreciate her precious little great grandson. Dad was fortunate enough to visit with him another time, on a trip to Reno. I am so grateful for that trip.
But through all the pain, suffering, mistakes and loss, nothing hurt worse than losing both my dad in 2021 and my mom in 2022. Though, dementia took mom quite a few years earlier. Sometimes we really question “if life is fair?”
In September of 2022, before my mom passed away, I was blessed again with my first and only granddaughter. Unfortunately, my dad never had the opportunity to see Aurora. Mom’s dementia had taken quite the toll on her life. Parker, the father, married Anabel in October. Only Dave Jr, his wife, Kelly, and myself were able to go to the ceremony.
Wait, Did I say “Kelly”? Yes! My wife!! We met in January of 2019, just before the coronavirus pandemic started. Luckily, we had a few months of dating before the worse hit. We dated a few months, and eventually moved in together, after about 10 months.
Enter…. Lovelock.
We moved there permanently around October/November of 2019 as Kelly had taken a position as principal of Pershing County Elementary. This would be the start of a 2 1/2 year venture. In 2023, Kelly and I got married in Waikiki, HI. It wasn’t too long after that, she announced her retirement and we sold our property in August of 2023. We were in Florence, Italy at the time, celebrating her retirement and came back to the USA with no place to call home. It was pretty much at some point, while we were in Italy, that we decided that we really didn’t need our own house. We loved to travel too much. We didn’t have kids living with us anymore, no pets, no obligations, and certainly no reason to not travel.
So welcome to my Blog!
The adventures and misadventures of David L Rider Sr. The places I and we have been to. Places we are going to. Some of our secrets that we’ve found out to make a trip or vacation better. Maybe some stories of past experiences, jobs, marriages. I might put it all out there, we will just have to wait and see….