travelista

The sky was bright blue; there were no clouds. The sun was shining. But it wasn't too hot or too humid for a New York summer day. In fact, a friend & I decided that it would be the perfect day to go for a long trail ride on our horses. Except we had exhausted our own trails, so we decided to jump the fence boarding the land next to ours and take off across the overgrown meadow, following the trails made by four-wheelers.

Eventually, we came to a road and crossed it, the telephone poles as our guides. On top of a hill, we saw another four-wheeler path & took it. We found ourselves in the woods. We had never been to those woods before, so our excitement was high. But our faithful horses didn't flinch at our new spirits; they simply followed the trail, occasionally batting their tails at the bugs.

The trail we followed seemed to lead us further and further from home, but neither of us cared. We didn't talk much; we were enjoying ourselves: new trails, new adventure. The trail eventually broke out into a meadow and we stopped to look across the hill below us. The sun was setting, and our horses happily munched at the grass that was as tall as their bellies. They were probably glad for the break.

With some reluctance, we started off again. The trail brought us back into the woods. The quiet settled all around us, except for the crunching and leaves and branches under our horses hooves. We came across mud in some places and our horses tip-toed through it, snorting and throwing their heads up to tell us of their protest. Then came the half-fallen tree. It was a small tree, but it fell across our path. My horse willingly went off the trail to get around the tree, but my friends horse did not. After a few minutes, he finally mustered up the courage to barge under the higher end up the tree. My friend ducked as low as she could, and they successfully made it through. The horse managed to pull the tree down as well, but he wasn't scared.

We continued on, hoping that the trails would lead us home somehow. But the trail got thinner and thinner and eventually, we found ourselves amongst trees with no direction of home. We plunged forward, however, up a small incline. In order to keep ourselves from getting hit by branches, we had to let our horses take the lead and carry us through the trees. When we ended up on the other side of the incline, we found ourselves in the very road we had crossed. We looked at one another and laughed. It is a day I will never forget.