Day 6 - To Ride Horses with the Drunk Indians or Not to Ride Horses with the Drunk Indians? That is the Question.

Well, something like 6ish months later we are picking up our story from the vacation to Montana. Thanks to my trusty, dusty iPhone I can remember what happened on this day...vaguely. Not blogging about a trip for 6 months is kinda like a challenge, it makes my brain hurt.

So where were we? Oh yes, in the most amazing cabin of our lives...except that they had made that slight mistake and overbooked us so we were getting kicked out. Oh yea, also I woke up that morning to another microbear in the wall. I think it needed to snuggle cuz it was trying to scratch its way into my bedroom and this time my husband was not there to protect me...he was out being an adventure man taking pictures like this:


Don't worry, I like looking at pictures and not risking my life by getting charged by rams (yep, he almost did) so I'm okay that he got up at who knows what time and went here while I snoozed away with the microbear clawing at the wall.

Anyway, on this day we moved to our next home:


I must have really been slacking because I don't have a picture of the outside of this place. We were worried, because they didn't look so hot from the outside, but they weren't bad actually, just exceptionally tiny for 4 people and luggage. They were definitely better than our other option...the tepees.

This day we were on a hunt for horseback riding. Lucky for us there was a horseback riding place right across the street! So we pull right in and we were all about horseback riding...until we walked into the little shack where the horseback riding professionals (I think I refer to them as Indians in the title, but I'm probably really supposed to say Native Americans...from here on out I will refer to them as "the people who ran this joint") were hiding out. Our first hint that this wasn't a good idea might have been that there were no other cars here, but we are adventurous...to an extent. The fact that the people who ran this joint were downing their beers like no tomorrow and we had just filled up on a breakfast of French toast should have been our first red flag. Then I remembered a little story I overheard from someone at the last place we were at and that went something like this.

Lady: We were in St. Mary's and wanted to take the kids horseback riding and we found this little place off the road that did just that.
Man: Oh that's fantastic news! I'm sure the kiddos loved it.
Lady: Well, not so fast. This place was run by a couple drunk guys and there were only 2 riding helmets...except they were actually bike helmets.
Man: That's not so bad....except for the drunk part.
Lady: We asked the inebriated fellows what the age limit was and they responded by showing us with their hands a height of about 3 feet and said, "About this old." That's not an age! We decided not to risk the future generations of our family with those nuts and we came here.

By "here" this lady meant the last place we stayed at...Many Glacier Hotel. So, the four of us decided to not risk the future generations of our families either and we drove back to Many Glacier. Sad to say there were no cameras allowed on this trip. Or jackets for that matter, unless you were wearing them. It was too warm for that.

We signed our souls away to those horses. Thankfully we didn't get in a situation where we were tempted to sue one of them. We got lectured by the horse riding man...and he was serious...he almost ripped a lady's head off when she was fussing with her helmet instead of paying full attention to him. It got ugly when she talked back to him, but I held in my laughter quite well, but I think I might have hid my face in embarrassment for her. Nothing like two grown adults talking back at each other like one's a parent and the other is the 6-year-old child.

Anyway, Doug rode Gus and I got to ride Bart. Or was the other way around? My iPhone isn't clear. I'll stick with Doug and Gus and me and Bart.

Oh, I just remembered! I'm short as most of you know so the stirrups were quite high on my horse so the horsegirl had to help me into the saddle. In process of me attempting to look like I knew what I was doing I managed to kick her in the face on the way up. There was no blood and she laughed at me. I'm super smooth.

Two things stand out to me on this trip that I remember on my own:
1. Gus was a tailgater. I really wish I would have had the bumper sticker "Stay off my tail (although the bumper sticker is not that nice) unless you're a hemorrhoid." Seriously, horse, there is such a thing as personal space.

2. Bart tried to murder me. My first warning might have been when they put a muzzle on him before we even started the trip. I'm the only one with a muzzled horse, something is wrong. Apparently he was an eater and I was supposed to show him who was boss. Hello, have you met me?! I've never ridden a horse alone for the most part and we are going on clifflike structures...I'm pretty sure I was tense the whole time. Especially the time we tried to crush my leg between his belly and a tree and most especially when he decided to take his own path...I tried to direct him back to the straight and narrow, but he was having none of that. That was my cue to panic. I think I hid it well while I was saying bad words in my head. Forgive me.

I also learned on this day that after you ride a horse for a couple hours you really do walk bow legged. It's weird and kinda embarrassing.

That night we went back to our itty-bitty cabin and played some dominoes cuz we're cool like that. Doug made an amazing domino structure cuz he has a genius engineer brain and played with Legos as a child. Jessica and I watched in amazement:

Impressive, eh? Well, just wait til' you see what I built! I totally showed him up.

I played with Legos as a child too.

Then we went to bed.

Tune in for the next installment (hopefully in less than 6 months): "Day 7 - Apparently We Hiked This Day and Saw Some Animals, But I'm Gonna Have to Try and Remember Because I've Slept Since Then"

Sounds intriguing, huh?