In Praise of Mares - Not Missing The Storm

We have been out to the Indiana Dunes to ride the trails the last couple of weekends, and of course, there is always something to talk about afterwards. To me that is what is so neat about trail riding -- it is always an adventure of some sort. Even if we are just going for a short ride on the trails near our house, something always makes the ride unique -- sometimes scary, sometimes funny, sometimes just a bit more interesting.

A couple of Saturdays ago, the day looked beautiful in spite of the weather channel warnings that storms were headed our way. We looked outside at the blue sky, felt the perfect temperature, and then looked again at the weather channel and its green blobs headed our way and agreed -- "What the heck! Let's go anyway. We will be done riding by the time the storm gets here."

Sure, we would have been thru the trails before the storm got there. The day was still beautiful when we arrived at the Dunes and began grooming the girls and tacking them up. The day was still beautiful as we admired a new truck in the parking lot, then met the owner as he came back from his ride. It was still beautiful as we stood there talking trucks and horses for about 45 minutes.

He was riding a mare, and we talked about how some people say mares are so awful. None of us could understand that -- our mares are great!

It was still beautiful when a husband and wife came out from the trail, also riding mares, and stopped to talk. It was the first time we had been to those trails when every horse there was a mare! There were only 3 trucks and trailers in the lot, and we were all there in the parking lot together and we were all riding mares! It was so neat!! The husband and wife do some training, and said that they would rather train a mare than a gelding -- they said that mares learn faster (no surprise here -- females are smarter!!). In fact, they own 5 or 6 horses, and they are all mares. So it was still beautiful as we stood there feeling all "mare superior" and talking for another half hour.

Finally we started on our ride, and there were some grey clouds overhead. We get almost all the way thru the trails, we were about 3 miles out, and it started to rain. I mean really rain. Thankfully the Dunes are pretty wooded, so we were not getting soaked. But I could also hear thunder..... So we picked up the pace. It was not long until John and Zora were way ahead of Divna and me.

I got to one point on the trail where it comes to a "T" -- to the right takes you back to the parking lot; to the left takes you back out on the trail. I had a premonition that John and Zora went off to the left. Somehow I just knew it.

Sure enough, when we got back to the parking lot they were not there. Once in the parking lot I could see there was lightening with this storm. I did not want to be out in the clear and take a chance of becoming a lightening rod. Also, out in the open like that I was getting soaked, so we went back in a little ways onto the trail to wait for John and Zora.

Divna started getting all nervous being without Zora. It seemed like eternity until they showed up. Sure enough, they took a left at the "T" -- John got mixed up, so he let Zora find the way back.

We waited under a picnic shelter until the rain subsided.

All in all, a pretty good ride!!!