Big Night at the Ranch

Tuesday, June 9 – This evening brought one of the most highly-anticipated – or most-dreaded, depending on who you ask – activities of the trip: Horseback Riding. The mere mention of it made Sandy's palms sweat anytime the subject was brought up over the past couple of weeks. However, a horseback ride through the Sangre de Christo mountains at Bishop's Lodge just north of Santa Fe came highly recommended, so we took the plunge.


We signed up for the sunset ride, and we were lucky enough to be the only ones to do it tonight, so we essentially had a private tour with our wrangler, Matilda. When we called to reserve the tour yesterday, Sandy told her about her lack of riding experience, and she said, "I have just the horse for you." Hmmm.... what does that mean, we wondered? It turns out Sandy was appropriately given "Cadillac," a nice, gentle female horse. I got "Preacher," the tallest horse at the ranch. Fortunately, they had steps to get us up on the horses.

Matilda was great, and was very helpful - and successful, I think - at calming Sandy's nerves. She gave us a brief lesson in horseback riding basics: starting, stopping and turning. Then we went out on the path for about an hour. Heaven help us. If Sandy had a horse incident, I'd never hear the end of it.

To get a little flavor for the experience, check out the Horse Cam:

In the end, it was a beautiful night, the views were awesome, and a good time seemed to be had by all... or at least the horses.