The Vacation Curse

The Vacation Curse

It seems that Ellen and I have always had a really tough time with vacations--things just go wrong.  All we want to do is go for a trail ride.  Usually, it isn't anything serious.  The weather plays a big part in the problem.  The park loves to do trail maintenance on our days off.  Sometimes it will be a sick horse.  I don't know how many times Mingo's hoof abscessed on a vacation.  One time, we both took a week off--and we were sick most of the time with some sort of intestinal bug.  (We rode, anyway.)  That's just how our vacations go.  We expect things to go wrong.

Of course, since I retired, every day is a vacation day for me.  Still, when Ellen is off--those days are special. 

She has been having a really tough time getting vacation, this year.  Finally, she got 2 days off.  Though they were in our least favorite month due to heat and bugs, we figured we would make the best of it.

Of course, the weather thought it was funny.  We ended up with the hottest, most humid days in years!   To make matters worse, we had rain right before it, so the river was too high for Ellen to cross on the first day.  She had a very hot arena ride.  I went for a ride with Kevin in the park.

The second day, she could cross the river, but it was still a little muddy--and she just didn't feel like it was a good idea.  There was a project she wanted to work on in the arena, anyway.  Since it never cooled off, over night, the morning was already brutally hot.  She wasn't missing much.

Kevin and I were going to go on an easy trail ride.  A new boarder at our barn, Faith, wanted to join us.  Her horse, JP, still isn't a consistent river crosser, and she wanted to follow us.  (She is only now, as she is reading this, realizing the risk of going on a trail ride with me.)  Her horse is an adorable, Morgan-looking gelding.  JP stands for Jackpot--because she hit the Jackpot with him.

Ellen was going to meet us on the other side of the river to go for a walk when we were riding.

All went well going down the hill.  I did notice tire tracks--and thought that might be a sign of a problem.  Sure enough, as we got toward the bottom of the hill, we discovered a large piece of machinery in the water--the park was finally fixing the river bank!  Ellen's gut was right!  It was a bad day for her to ride in the park!

At that moment, Ellen called Kevin on his cellphone from the other side of the river to tell us what was happening.  We continued down to the bottom.  There were a couple horses ahead of us that had turned around and were heading back.  As they came passed us, one of the horses went sideways into Starry, JP got worried and started backing up--right into Cole.  Cole was troubled by both JP and the woman's horse who was trying to trot past us.  Sigh.  I have had problems with this woman's horse, in the past.  I didn't have the patience for it, again.  I just ordered her to stop her horse so we could get everything sorted out.

She was able to, and we did sort it out.  Then, Starry didn't want to lead anymore.  All we wanted to do was ride to the end of the trail, so we could turn around and do the hill a few times.  And then--the guy on the machine saw us.  He drove it to our side of the river and stopped it to allow us to pass.

He asked us if our horses would go by, and I told him, very confidently, that Cole would.  I really didn't know if he would, but I was sure going to try.  Cole marched down the bank and walked right next to the machine to pass it.  His only hesitation was with the mud that was churned up by the machine.  I was so proud of him.

We got to the other side to wait for Starry and JP.  I wasn't in a position to watch what happened next.  Starry started to cross.  Of course, he didn't have a problem with the machine--the only thing that scares him is turkeys.  Halfway across the water, he changed his mind and started backing up.  Kevin had to circle him in the river to get him to go across.

All of this was too much for JP.  He refused to cross at all, so she took him home.

I called Ellen, who was already back at the barn, and told her to come on down.  We made it.  She was very surprised.  Kevin and I trotted off, happily.  We only went to the next river crossing, turned around and walked home.  After a while, we met Ellen, she joined us, and we all went back together.

When we got back to our river crossing, the man was still working on it.  He saw us and pulled the machine up on the other side--out of the way--and shut it off.  Over the years, the park workers have been absolutely wonderful when they see us.  Not once, has any of them been any less than courteous.

Starry and Cole crossed and walked by the machine with ease.  Everything is less scary when we are going home!

So yes, we had our typical vacation curse--but at least Ellen's intuition was right.  She would have hated to ride Dante through all of that.  (I really don't think Dante would have been scared, though.  He would have just wanted to touch the machine.)