Best Laid Plans

All week I've been looking forward to tonight because my best friend, E, was going to be driving up from Maryland to visit and we were going to go riding :) We had a long trail ride planned, then a BBQ dinner and drinks at my house...it was going to be fabulous.

Mother Nature, however, had other plans. Although it had been hot and sunny all day, they were calling for some major storms to be passing through this evening. E decided to leave a little earlier in order to beat the rain and so as soon as she got here around 4pm we headed straight to the barn. No sooner had we gotten down there and started to brush the horses than it started spritzing. Drats. We checked the radar and it seemed to be the southern end of the larger storm, just a passing squall that would leave in 10 minutes or so. So we waited. It started raining harder but the radar said it would pass. She was riding Buffy, the big TB/draft, and I had picked Poppy, a sweet and talented old paint that could do anything and loved being out on the trails.

After a few minutes the sky lightened up and the rain changed to barely a drizzle so we figured, what the heck, must be over. As long as it's not lightning/thundering we can deal with getting a little wet and damn it, we wanted to ride! So out we went. I figured sticking to the wooded trails would be the best idea and it served us well for awhile. Once we got in the trees the foliage was keeping most of the drips from hitting us; we actually stayed moderately dry. After about 15 minutes it picked up a little but then dropped off again as we explored some of the nearby trails around my neighborhood. The horses were having a blast splashing through puddles and although we were mostly walking, we did get the chance to trot and canter a bit and they loved it :)

In the beginning, it really wasn't bad at all

Then the rain started picking up more so we decided it was time to head home. Although we'd been out for awhile, it was a winding past so we were probably only about a mile out at that time and on trails I am relatively familiar with (I say relatively because I used to travel them all the time but haven't been on them regularly in many years). We quickly found out, though, that although my sense of direction was spot on, the trails I was used to taking in the past were now often overgrown and the ones we opted to take instead tended only ended up leading into peoples' backyards. After trying two or three dead ends, and with the rain now coming down steadily, I said screw it. We will stick to the tree line as best we can but if we don't cut through this person's yard we won't make it out.

Luckily no one saw us and we didn't leave too many tracks (although I'm sure anyone who happened to see us at this point would have taken pity on us because we looked like drowned rats). As soon as we hit the neighborhood road we let the horses canter. A few cars passed and I'm sure they were thinking "What on earth were those poor girls thinking, riding out in the rain?" When we got to the intersection of the main road near my house we stopped to check for cars and out of nowhere the sky lit up directly across from us with a ginormous lightning strike followed immediately by the biggest boom of thunder! Thank god for these awesome horses, they were freaked out (so was I!) and jumped around a bit but they didn't have any melt downs. That was all it took. We had to walk down the big hill so they didn't slip but then we turned onto my street and let them go. We couldn't see at all by this point through the sheets of water but it didn't matter, the horses knew the way. (If Dan would have looked out the window at that moment he would have died laughing seeing us galloping down the street in front of my house).

We walked once we hit the trail leading down to the barn and then, ignoring all rules we'd been taught, we rode right into the barn before dismounting. Looking at each other then, in all of our soaked through glory, we couldn't help but burst out laughing.

E and Buffy

Me and Poppy

We were wringing out our clothes left and right and water was pouring off of us. It was like deja vu from last year when I got caught out with Kate and Lucy miles away from home in a freak summer storm. The horses, though, were such good sports and in surprisingly good spirits. Once we had them all toweled off and scrubbed clean, Poppy looked a little tired but Buffy was looking at us like, "When can we go out again? That was fun!"

Buffy loves adventures :)

Looking back, it was probably not my brightest idea to go out with the threat of a storm, and I don't know that I'd willingly go out in the rain like that ever again, but boy was it fun today!!