Horseback Riding on Orcas

September 14, 2015 Comments Off read Attractions, Horse Girl, Pacific, The Great Outdoors, Travel, USA, Washington, West

Sadly, no, not horseback riding on orca whales, which is probably a ton more exciting though rife with danger if you’re shitty at holding your breath and a wimp about getting hypothermia. Instead, I went horseback riding on Orcas Island, the largest island in the San Juans (though not as populous as San Juan Island, which I visited briefly last year and plan to revisit soon).

Just like San Juan, you can get there by ferry or plane–I elected to take the ferry again, this time taking my car across so I’d have an easier time getting to Moran State Park, where the ride was to be held. In case you would like to do the same thing–learn from my mistake and make ferry reservations. I hadn’t even considered that capacity would be an issue, because I was getting to the terminal so early and just figured it would be first come, first served. When I pulled up to the ferry ticket-seller, she scowled and asked if I had a reservation. When I told her that I didn’t, she said I’d just have to wait and cross my fingers…uh oh. Luckily, I was able to drive on to the ferry I’d planned on taking, as there are so few ferries that I never would have made my ride time with a later crossing. After the crossing, Jason immediately made reservations for the trip back, and I’m glad he did, as some of the scheduled crossings were already indicated as full and I had no intention of spending the night.

After the ferry docked, I made my way to Moran State Park, which is on the other side of the horseshoe-shaped island (you know, if a horseshoe was sort of mutated and mangled and really nothing like a horseshoe at all), bought a Discovery Pass, and parked. I ended up with a good amount of time to kill, so I took a short hike on the Cascade Lake trail and also started on the trail to the waterfall before second-guessing my ability to get there and back before the ride and doubled back to wait. And wait.

Eventually a big horse trailer pulled up, we filled out some waivers indicating that we would not sue if involved in a horse-related injury, checked off boxes pertaining to our level of horsemanship and whether or not we wanted helmets. As I’ve fallen off of a horse before (in a lesson that was attempting to teach me to ride at a trot bareback, which I wasn’t ready for and promptly went ass-over-teakettle), I definitely wanted a helmet. Not so much to protect my head from impact with the ground, but to protect it from those four skull-crushers that they have the audacity to call hooves while I’m rolling around on the ground like a helpless squishy bug. No one else wanted helmets, but after they saw me strapping one on, they changed their minds. I’d like to think that it’s because I make wearing a helmet look cool, but not even I am that self-deluded.

Once we were properly geared, we were assigned horses based on our skill levels. I’d selected that I’d had more than 8 hours of riding under my belt (which is true, I probably have at least a hundred hours, just not, you know, in the most recent twenty years save for a couple of rides at Long Beach), and I was selected to ride Candy. Not because she was particularly difficult or spirited, but because saddles tend to slip on her and they figured I’d be the least freaked out if I started going sideways. Which didn’t end up happening, so hurrah for that!

The trail ride was suitably difficult, not the nose-to-tail plod I expect from the majority of rides, but a lot of narrow switchbacks with steep ascents and descents, needing to pick your way through huge roots and other hazards and duck under low hanging branches. On my beach rides, I felt 100% comfortable pulling out and fiddling with my camera, but on this ride, I was able to take a quick shot while we were stopped and immediately put my phone back in my pocket because I needed my concentration elsewhere. Speaking of stopping–we stopped every single time a horse pooped so one of the company riders could hop off and kick the poop off the trail into the weeds, which meant we stopped a lot. A lot. Sometimes we’d ride ten feet before having to stop again. Candy pooped six times. Multiply six poops by seven horses and we stopped 42 times. I don’t think it was quite that many, but it was close.

Close enough that by the time we made it back to our starting point, it was nearly an hour later than we were supposed to have finished. Which wasn’t really a problem for me insofar as the ferry was concerned since I still had nearly five hours before I had to board, but was a problem in that nearly everything else on Orcas was closed. At 4pm. Someone recommended a pie shop in nearly Olga. Closed. Back near the ferry terminal, the gift shops were closed, the ice cream shops were closed, and the only place that was open, the Orcas Hotel, sold us a sandwich and a drink and then hustled us off their property so our sandwich-eating wouldn’t be in the photos of the wedding they were hosting. So we went back to the car and waited. And waited. And waited. I ended up falling asleep for a while. I actually considered trekking back to Doe Bay and paying for access to their clothing-optional hot tub because trying to avoid looking at hippie schlong would at least be something to do.

Finally, FINALLY, the ferry arrived and we boarded just in time to catch the tail end of a really pretty sunset.

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“Helen, please. Don’t drop the J-bomb.”

September 19, 2011 2 Comments read Attractions, Horse Girl, Pacific, Travel, USA, Washington, West

This weekend we attended the 4th annual Pumpkin Hurl and Medieval Faire (or, as it was abbreviated on their schedule, Hurl Faire, which brings to mind an entirely different sort of gathering) which marks the start of the Snohomish Festival of Pumpkins. The event organizers, recognizing that while trebuchets flinging pumpkins is an awesome premise, there’s also a lot of downtime between tosses, and thus it became a medieval catchall, with “knights” on horseback hacking veggies on posts, “viking” battle classes, and, of course, shops with food and sundries. The best part about visiting a medieval faire, ANY medieval faire, is that none of them are authentic. Everyone gets to be lords and ladies for the day instead of struggling with class warfare! Knights battle each other instead of slaughtering peasants for funsies! Wood fired pizza, roasted corn, and turkey legs instead of pottage and stale bread! A distinct lack of plague, leprosy, and typhoid fever! About the only thing that’s the same is dental hygiene, given that since I’m without insurance, I’m just about as likely to have my tooth pulled by a barber.

^{Oh, how the mighty have fallen…}

After the horseback demonstrations ended, we were allowed to go meet and greet with the horses and their riders. Being able to look and not touch at the Puyallup Fair was torture, so I was quick to take them up on the offer. When the horses whuffled their soft breath into my hands, I instantly became the horse-obsessed, brace-faced twelve year old I used to be, starry-eyed, and slurping through my headgear. If I’d had a bigger car, I would have probably tried to steal one of them, namely the dark grey Warlander. Before I could work on the logistics of cramming a horse into my backseat, Jason hustled me away to viking battle class. In class, we learned the difference between Hollywood theatrical fights and real swordfights, the basics of protecting yourself, getting your opponent off-balance, and proper striking technique, with large wooden shields and swords. We were then paired off to fight one another, ultimately having a sparring match with everyone in the group. The instructor said “Ok, people, it’s like you’re fighting in oil. Slow movements, slow strikes, we aren’t looking to actually injure anyone here…except the girls, who are really going at it!” It’s true, when I was paired with the other girl, we battled like it was going out of style. However, most of the time someone came at me with a sword, I found it prudent to turtle up behind my shield. Sure, I wouldn’t be able to see my enemy, but I also wasn’t going to take a sword to the head. After our mock battles, we were taught about how to form a shield wall, and after we charged at one another, class was dismissed.

Then, it was time to watch pumpkins being launched downfield.

By far, my favorite part of the third video was the man standing next to us, describing the scene for someone on his cell phone. “It’s going…it’s going…it’s going…it’s going…I can hardly even see it! Oh man, it’s a tiny dot! Oh jeez!” Ever since, Jason and I have been commenting on anything even slightly remarkable with “oh gosh!” “oh jeez!” “oh gosh!” “oh jeez!”

Next year, I’m showing up with a horse trailer.

Man’s dominion over nature?

August 25, 2011 2 Comments read Attractions, Horse Girl, Pacific, Travel, USA, Washington, West

Since we only had a few days to spend in Long Beach this year, we tried to cram as much as possible into those days. So instead of sleeping off the previous night’s booze, we rose early and drove to downtown long beach to go for a morning horseback ride along the ocean. We arrived a bit too late for the first ride of the day, so we had an hour to kill in the area, which felt like much longer as nothing is open that time of day. During our hour, we spotted this charming sign:

Really? At no point during its construction did anyone look at it and say “Gee, that’s an awkward pose, and it sort of looks like this dog has a big deformed ballsack”? Because it took me quite some time to figure out that it was intended to be a paw and NOT a ballsack, and it wasn’t just the early hour clouding my judgement. We also spotted some deer grazing in a nearby field, relatively unconcerned about the morning’s light foot traffic. This meant they kept eating instead of raising their heads or doing anything picture-worthy, so in a move that is bound to end either in hilarity or tragedy, I encouraged Jason to go near them with the phrase “Oh, they won’t hurt you, I just want some pictures.” Jason cautiously moved toward them, warning them “Hey deer! Predator moving in your area!”, and this is what happened:

Apparently we’re not so great at the menacing predator thing, even if we are the top of the food chain. Those deer weren’t thinking “Oh no! Apex predator!”, they were merely annoyed. In the event of some apocalypse that wipes out civilization, should we survive the initial impact, I don’t know how well we’ll fend for ourselves by attempting to annoy food to death. After the hour had passed, we went back to ride some horses. Two years is long enough to forget just how obstinate a horse can be, and as it turns out, their obstinacy hasn’t lessened in any way. This time, I was seated on an obstinate horse named Gunner, who seemed rarin’ to go, fighting to move forward as everyone else was still mounting their horses. Oh, he was rarin’ to go, all right. Rarin’ to go right back into the pen to eat some oats. It didn’t matter how much I pulled back on the reins, said “whoa”, or shot thoughtwaves of “I am going to have you turned into glue” at him with my brain, he wasn’t having it, and proceeded to trot right into the pen to chow down, with me dragged along for the ride like fat ballast. After he was forcibly dragged away by the wrangler, he then stood in line backwards with his head wedged into a corner like he was a little kid pouting. We were warned not to let the horses eat any of the dune grass as it’s not good for them, but Jason’s horse recognized that he’s a pushover and viewed the whole trip as an endless snack bar. CHOMP. CHOMP. CHOMP. “Hey, no, I don’t think you’re supposed to do–“CHOMP.

We were furthermore instructed to keep some distance between our horses, which had been easy to do two years ago when it was just the four of us, but we had a lot of butt-sniffers in this group, which meant that horses were lashing out at one another with some frequency. I managed to mostly stay outside of the fray, but every once in a while, Gunner the butt-sniffer would wedge himself up in a group of horses just for sniffs and giggles. After the ride, I was helped off my horse by a five-year-old, which didn’t do much for my sense of self-confidence. I paid this child back in kind by not tipping him and hobbling away bowlegged.