AAA: Miles Upon Miles

9:28 PM
By Beka Burke
9 Comments

Disclaimer: hey, guys, remember when I talked about eighteen months ago about starting a job I wasn't really qualified for? What I lacked in knowledge and experience, I made up for with fucking tenacity and trainability. And I've recently been promoted. This changes my life from sitting at a desk for eight hours a day to being in the field for the majority of the day. Talking to people. Fixing things. Panicking when shit stays broken. Which means... less time for blogging. I'm also helping to train my potential replacement, who I hope isn't my actual replacement, because he already thinks he knows the job, despite my corrections, and I've warned my new supervisor that I'm 99.78% positive that I'll be pulling a knife out of my back eventually. So no blogging around him, either.

But on to the ponies!

On Friday, yeah, over a week ago, Hillary and I woke up early and had breakfast at a little chain shop then met my trail riding buddy at the barn. We loaded Archie on Hillary's trailer (WITH NO ISSUES!), loaded the wonder ginger, and followed trail buddy to her friend's barn, where we picked up horse number four. Following them, we were led to a little dirt road on the dead end of some questionable dirt road street (not that I have anything against dirt road streets). We'd already tossed saddles on the ponies before the trailer and promptly finished the tacking up process and started out on the dirt road.

My trail buddy had told me about this trail riding opportunity a couple times and I begged her to get us in, because it was more than I could offer around my barn. We started out a little walk and then did a short trot/canter. The lead horse (who wasn't Archie!!) was a gaited mare and her owner had hearing issues, so our pleas to slow down a little bit or wait up weren't always heard. It didn't matter. It was still a great area to ride in and the sand was absolutely perfect for my crippled gelding.

We drifted in and out of the woods, but it felt like we spent more time in the sun. It didn't take long for Archie to start dripping sweat and for me to feel a twinge of sun burn and, before I knew it, we'd crossed miles and spent a couple hours.

Somewhere along the way, Hillary noticed that Archie had pulled his right front. Always his effing right front. When we'd been out for over two hours and I was pretty sure that my ass was permanently adhered to my saddle with sweat, we headed back to the trailers.

After taking the kids back to the barn, hosing them off and checking them over, we headed back to my house and cleaned up before going to lunch and getting manis/pedis. None of the equestrians I'm friends with are interested in going because horses ruin manicures. So mayyyybe I was little excited.

We met David at the house and then headed downtown to show Hillary the shopping opportunities and my favorite martini bar before taking her to my favorite restaurant, Jazz'd. I'm a very focused host. It's an excuse to take people to the places I love. We got home a little late and pretty much headed to bed in order to get to day three, which you can read more about on Hillary's blog here. It's more her story, anyways.