Cowgirl Up!

On our way down from Williams, we took a detour through Scottsdale.  A few months ago, I found a great deal on Groupon for 2 hour horse back rides through the desert.  We decided to redeem our vouchers while the weather is still nice and pleasant.  When we woke up in Williams, it had started to snow (little kids were trying to talking among themselves, trying to figure out what was falling from the sky) and visibility was about 20 ft.  (SOOOO glad we weren't going to the Grand Canyon that day.)  We even overheard the waitress at breakfast telling some other customers who were headed to the canyon that day that it should be "interesting".  Yikes!  That's too much money to spend for "interesting"!  As we descended in altitude, it became rapidly apparent that our head colds were worse than we thought and an emergency stop at Walmart for Sudafed to keep our sinuses from exploding was in order.  By the time we hit Scottsdale, we were feeling much better.  Oh, and the weather, for us, once again, was PERFECT!

Our little cowgirl hopping up on her horse, Bullet, a spirited little horse who tolerated Amelia's constant bossing around quite well.  She was not happy to just sit and ride.  She wanted to tell that horse what to do.  2 inches to the left, 3 inches to the right, faster, slower.... I finally had to tell her to leave the poor thing alone, that it would just follow if she left it alone.  She obeyed.  Mostly.  :)

Both girls, ready to go!

My handsome man...
(who didn't want to wear the helmet, but was guilted into it by his 6 year old)
He had the alpha mare so he led the rest of us on our walk.  I had a cantankerous thing that while I was hopping up on her was warned that she had ADD.  And she did.  She refused to follow the trail that was set before her and wanted to do her own thing.  And since she was #2 in a line of 7 horses, each time she went off the path to walk the wrong way around a bush, so did the line of horses behind us.  :/

The closest we could get to a family picture.  Turns out it's rather difficult to line them up like you would bikes.  They have their own ideas of where they'd like to stand and who they are and are not willing to stand next to.

This poor boy gets an A+ for playing along with our silly schemes.  He rode that horse all by himself and without any complaint even though anyone who knows him would be able to tell that he was just miserable.  He doesn't like the unpredictability of a horse.  Especially one he's riding by himself.    He would stiffen up every time the horse started to gallop, but he didn't say anything...

Sweet Abby.  She got the slowest horse.  The one that followed all the rest from the very back.  She said the same thing always happened to her at Camp Yavapines.

Jeremy and Abby making their way through the desert.

Amelia and Marshall at the front.
Abby at the very back.
Turns out it's pretty hard to take a non-blurry photo when turned around backwards on a moving horse.

I love the Saguaro cactus.  This is the closest I've been to them.  They're the cactus everyone thinks of when they picture the desert, but they are only found here, in the Sonoran desert.

I thought this note was funny.  They are serious!!  Too bad the door didn't close the whole way and would just go right back open.

Two hours can go pretty quickly while enjoying horses and the desert.  I think we were all feeling a bit tired, wind blown and dehydrated by the time we were finished, but it was so much fun!