Last Saturday, Team Tumbleweed reassembled for an early Saturday morning horseback ride down at the Russell Crossroads in my hometown of Alexander City, Alabama on Lake Martin. Jessica orchestrated the whole ride and recruited myself, John, Alana, and her brother, Justin, for the adventure.
I had a horse growing up and Alana has had horses most of her life, so we were confident in our trail riding ability. Here we are below, displaying mad skills.
Everyone else had ridden before and were fine with the idea of straddling about 1000 pounds of wild, raw animal for a hour. Jessica may not have been "fine," but was definitely coming to terms with it. We get a snack AND a bandanna she told us with gusto!
Before leaving my house that morning, I found Dad in the kitchen. "I realize this is weird, and I can't believe I am even asking you this, but would you happen to have a fanny pack I can wear so I can properly tote my camera while riding?"
You can imagine his response: "Nylon or leather?"
Needless to say, all he found was the leather one, but that worked well with the western motif I was going with. Needless to say, you know you are showing your age when you are looking for fanny packs before 8am...
We traveled down a dirt road off of 63 to the "trail head." Our E.D. (Equestrian Director, as Jessica dubbed him) and his wife were incredibly nice and matched us up with our horses accordingly after inquiring about our skill level. I had Rocky, who was Alexis's barrel racing horse (E.D.'s granddaughter) and John had Peacock. Peacock was not a masculine enough name for John, so he took to calling poor Peacock "Marlboro."
John and Peacock, with Rocky and I:
It was a beautiful scene, riding alongside the lake, and it was nice and shady on the trail. The trail itself was rather narrow and you had to be careful to pay attention and not let you foot get caught by a tree.
Our only mishap was the steep hill the horses had to trek down before crossing over a creek and then climbing the other side. E.D. instructed everyone to lean back, support yourself with one arm on the back of your saddle, and give the horses their head. Horses are the most sure footed animals in the world, but as a human riding--the slide down feels awkward and you would think your horse is going to fall right out from under you. At this point, Jessica got a little overwhelmed and never really came back from it. Bless her heart, she was brave until the last two minutes of the ride, and knew when to cut her losses. She walked it in on foot, head held high. She apologized to Gray, and he told her it was fine about 100 times.
We ended near the trailer, and Rocky and I decided to break way from the group for a solid trot.
After dismantling, John deemed it necessary to harass Rocky, who is a Colts fan.
Here is John, getting some horsey sugar:
Why the long face, Mr. Horse?
We left after all the pictures with John got so weird...til next time little ponies!
1 comment:
Oh la la! What funnnn! Xoxo-BLC
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