Monday, April 19, 2010

other side of the rainbow

Chris and I decided to venture out with our horses to a new location in RI for our first organized ride of the season. chris could have gone with Shawn to a motorcycle thing, but I was very grateful she decided to ride with me. the weather forecast was bad all week, rain, maybe snow. but I REALLY wanted to go! need to get our horses in shape for vermont in June and need to expose sereele to new places and other horses on the trail. she has been doing great, minimal tripping, no falling and a great attitude. So we met at 6:30 am to some patchy blue sky and decided to go for it. Socks was a nervous wreck in the barn, he knew something was up and had himself frazzled. but he loaded without much trouble at all. sereele stood quietly while I washed some of her manure stains off and then hopped right in the trailer. the best girl. the ride was about 1 1/2 hours away and the longer we drove, the worse the weather. first sprinkles, then showers, then outright rain. and cold. ug. chris called to see if the ride was still on but no answer. the route there was confusing and my GPS was dead so we went by mapquest directions. which were apparently wrong. we turned off 95S and ended up on a multilane highway in a busy area, no signs to tell us where to go. pulled into wendy's to ask for directions but it was closed. turned the trailer around in a RV lot because chris had seen a horse trailer going the opposite way. so we went that way and eventually found the place! very nice area and the sun came out! we were so lucky, it ended up being a really beautiful day. socks had been banging on the way down, a lovely new habit he has developed and was a little sweaty. we checked in with the unorganized ride manager and asked what markers we would be following. oh, no markers, just go out and ride around. huh? why are we paying then? for the cupcake? we started tacking up, sereele of course standing nicely. I held socks while chris put on his saddle, well tried to hold him, he was all pent up and charging around. then she went to put his bridle on and POOF he was gone. he ran away a little and the ride managers group became like a scene from "dawn of the dead" walking slowly toward him in a semicircle making clucking noises. it was SO bizzare. they were like a group of deranged zombies and socks was outta there! he let me catch him with sereele, chris got the bridle on and eventualy mounted and we were off! the trails were beautiful, great terrain, wide enough for 2, and we rode along a huge river. there were seagulls and big boats. and huge hotels across the water. and lobster boats. what? this was the ocean! so cool! we even found a spot to go down to the water and stepped our horses on the beach, very exciting:) both horses were being awesome. we trotted and trotted, around and around and around and around the same trails. very annoying that we didn't have any markers to follow. socks started getting pretty pissed off that we kept going past the trails that led us back to the trailer and had a couple of hissy fits. threatening to rear and backing up 50 feet in defiance. sereele watched his antics with interest. she knew the way back to and asked to go that way, when I said no this way, it was like she said, OK! lets go this way! she did some spooks and hipchucked socks who was actually very tolerant of her silliness. we knew there was more to this ride and chris not being blind like me (yet, haha, just wait till 45) saw a sign that said equestrian trails so off we went. trotted some more, got lost. let the horses take us back out the right way, they are too smart. Sereele got to go past horses for the first time and did very well. she passed baby strollers, 100 different dogs, a junkyard, heard a train and handled it all perfectly. we let them canter up one hill, nice. we rode about 2 hours mostly at the trot and walked back in for about 10 minutes. then she saw it. was almost past it and caught it out of the corner of her eye - the TREE WITH BOOBS. she jumped in the air with all 4 feet and maybe even kicked out at it. I was so happy with her, she seems to really trust me and tries to be good. she drank out of puddles and kept her cool even when excited. she wasn't very trippy but did one bad stumble and fell to one knee, recovered and kept trotting. chris said the ground there was rooty and rocky. (thanks for making me feel better) ug. so disappointing, she just has the perfect disposition if she can only figure out her feet! so we arrived back at the trailers, very hot in our winter coats! we untacked and POOF, socks took off again. the zombie people moved in their clucking semi circle again and questioned heading toward the road. what? one said chris needed a head collar for him. chris said she needed a sledge hammer for him. she was very very mad. sereele didn't even get upset when he disappeared, she just ate her lunch. unreal. we let them eat grass for a bit and then loaded up. socks went right in and rode niceley. as we got closer to home it was raining and sleeting and very windy, had been a horrible day at home, we were so happy we decided to be optimistic even though it goes against both of our natures. hahaha. but we never did get our 20.00 cupcake:(.

1 comment:

  1. UGH, so mad at him......but glad I went riding my steed instead of the steel one with Shawn....think I stayed warmer and drier. =P

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