How To Smash A Banana 07/19/20

Elk Meadow Lodge & RV Resort, Estes Park, Colorado

The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but man is tested by the praise he receives.  ~ Proverbs 27:21

I was a little nervous about this day.  Excited, but nervous.  Would I meet the requirements?  Am I in good enough physical condition?  Is my limited experience enough? Can I mount a horse by myself?

Yes.  You read correctly, as you skimmed over the words to get to the pictures.  I did, in fact, say horse. 

We’ve been looking all throughout the places we’ve been this season, for a place to do a trail ride.  But trail rides aren’t cheap, and we weren’t interested in spending our money just to plod slowly through a field or wooded area.  But we found a place just up the street that proports to offer four-hour rides up and back down a mountain.  And it is close to my birthday after all, so . . . . happy birthday to me!

But as I mentioned, not just anyone is permitted to participate.  So I said a prayer, crossed my fingers and my chest, rubbed my lucky rabbit’s foot, kissed a shamrock, picked up a penny (lying face-up naturally), touched the horseshoe over my door, captured a lady bug, and away we went.

Here’s how the Cowpoke Corner Corral describes the ride:

The 4-hour ride reaches the top of Rams Horn Mountain.  Reaching an elevation of 9.300 feet, this ride gets breathtaking panoramic views of the Continental Divide, the Estes Park Valley, and Rocky Mountain National Park.  This ride is a very challenging and enjoyable adventure for riders with some experience.  Riding experience and being in good physical shape is recommended for this ride. Also rider must be able to mount and dismount horse without assistance.

Now you can see that my concerns weren’t totally unfounded.

And yes, in case you’re wondering, we postponed church this morning, because our ride was scheduled to begin at 8am.  It was now or never though, so we figured the Lord would understand as long as we didn’t completely forget about Him.

What a great time we had today!  And just as always, God was everywhere! We’ve never had so much fun on a trail ride before!  We loved our assigned horses – a red roan for me named Twenty.  (Who would name a horse that?)  And a paint for Blaine named Apache.  There was one other couple from Michigan riding with us.

And for our edification today, Roan is a horse coat that has an even mixture of any colored and white hairs on the body, while the head and “points” – lower legs, mane and tail – are mostly solid-colored.  Because mine has a base color of chestnut or sorrel, it’s called a Red Roan.

Blaine’s mount, we were told, is a Paint.  A paint horse is a breed.  (as opposed to a Pinto which is a patterned horse of any breed or size)  The white markings are the horse’s pattern.  Because a Paint horse is a breed, it must have specific breeding to qualify for Paint registration and must be 14hh or taller.  “hh” stands for ‘hands high’.  In English-speaking countries, horses are measured in “hands”, or 4” increments.  It’s a measurement that originated in ancient Egypt.  In other words, for today’s example, 14hh means that Blaine’s horse must measure 56” from the ground to the top of the withers (shoulder), or 14hh.

And that, my friends, is your hippology lesson for today!  (In the Greek “hippo” is horse, logy is study 😊)

And our guide, Megan, was very hospitable and engaging.  She rode most of the trip leaning sideways so she could talk to us.  Until she began working here in May, she was a city girl from Iowa.  She goes back to school in October, and will put in more hours toward her goal of becoming a veterinarian, so we talked a little about what it’s like to work in a vet’s office.  Since I worked in one for about 10 years, I was able to give her some practical information. 😊  She also told us of a visit to her cabin last night – – from a bear!  When we returned, she showed us how the screen was torn from the door!  It was 2:30am.  Her other bunk-mates weren’t too thrilled either.

The only thing we wished they’d told us was that one of our four hours would be spent on top of the mountain.  Yes, there is a hiking trail there to climb even higher and we did part of that, but they really should let people know so they can be prepared.  Fortunately, we both wore our hiking boots today.

It was kinda nice having a horse do all the climbing work today – including steps and rocks.  Going up, we had to lean forward in the saddle on the really steep parts. (Megan always told us when to assume the proper position) Blaine had insisted on taking a snack with him, but I somehow ended up with the banana in my sweatshirt pocket.  However, it kept trying to jump out, so I laid it across the saddle in front of me.  That worked really well, until we started climbing – and leaning.  By the time we reached the top, the thing was totally ripped apart, smashed and ground into my pants and the bottom of my sweatshirt.  What a mess!  And no way to clean it up except with our fingers and some water from the water bottle we took along.  I should’ve had Blaine take a picture.  You’da gotten a kick out of it.  😊

Yes.  We have no banana.  Sorry, dear!

Going down the mountain, we had to lean back, squeeze our thighs, and grip the back of the saddle on the steep parts.  As you can imagine, we were using muscles we hadn’t used in a long time.  And it showed when we dismounted and tried to walk to where the Jeep was parked.  Lol!

Terrific morning!

Church was a bust. We didn’t have enough service to pull up the worship service, so we just did a devotional like we do most mornings. : (