The birthday ride

We celebrated Joy's 14th birthday by horseback riding!

And I learned the hard way that it is better not to eat a big breakfast and a cup of hot chocolate right beforehand. ; )

Blah!!!!

Somehow I got yelled at twice by the trail guide. Speaking of which, doesn't 'trail guide' imply that they lead you down the trail? Because ours didn't. She followed us from behind. Which was all good until my horse, who had issues about turning to the right, was in the lead....

Trail guide: "Hey you in the plaid! Your saddle is slipping to the left!"

And just maybe this was why:

I had Kodak moments to catch!

To remedy my slipping saddle, the trail guide had me stand up in my right stir up only, then lean to the right while yanking on the saddle horn. It was so hard! It was like a crazy balancing act. I had to do it 4 times before I finally moved my saddle a satisfactory amount to the right. Then I spent the rest of the hour and even part of my drive home feeling the need to lean to the right. lol

Then I decided to take pictures over my shoulder lest I mess up my saddle again....

which didn't work out too well. ; )

When my horse stopped and I couldn't get him moving, I got yelled at some more. "Kick your horse hard! I kick harder than you do and I have stir ups on!!!" Alrighty then!
I tried to kick harder and said "Ye haw" and "Giddy up" and other things that meant nothing to Cash, my horse. Apparently he only responds to yelling that sounds German, a whole lot of hissing and kicking with spurs. Who knew?

For the most part the horses stuck to the trail.

That was about the time that I was thinking, if I ever come here again, perhaps on a date with my hubby, maybe we can do without the grumpy trial guide. He is from Colorado and knows a thing or two about trails and horses. And just at THAT time is when my horse was in the lead and didn't want to go to the right. Then all our horses came to a stand still and then headed to the section of the park that was off limits and under construction and had all these warning signs about power lines.

(more than a little freaky)

And then there was more yelling from behind about kicking our horses and turning right which us humans were all for, but the horses weren't. Go figure!

Then the trail guide said she thought we could go that way, meaning the way that was off limits,

"if no one sees us."

Whoa! Trying not to panic and think about being toasted by power lines and never seeing my hubby again, I really got after Cash about turning to the right. We ended up getting all our horses back on the trail after that. Thank the Lord. Cash turned out to be a much better follower than he was a leader.

Eventually we got back to the stables where we thanked and tipped our trail guide. How much are you suppose to tip trail guides anyway? I'm clueless but I gave her what iI thought was a good tip because I knew we/the horses had stressed out that poor girl more than usual. Maybe the yelling was my clue. lol Anyway, she said she hoped that "in spite of it all that we had fun." My BFF smiled and then whispered to me and said that she wasn't exactly sure she would really go so far as to call it "fun." ; )

Definitely memorable!

And I'm glad that the birthday girl had a great horse without any issues!

~Becky