What a lovely weekend it was! It rained on and off Saturday, which is such a rare treat for southern California. We mostly puttered around the house all morning then decided to go on a mountain bike ride in the hills near our house. The trails were nearly deserted, except for a few solitary walkers with their dogs. We rode all over this park, through the dry grasslands, up and down a few steep trails in the chaparral, and down a trail in a fire scar from last July 4. That fire has long been out but the smell of char is overpowering in some places.
I haven’t ridden my mountain bike in quite a while. The last time was either last spring or the spring before. I don’t even remember. Nonetheless, I felt quite cautious on some of the single track trails. Once I panicked and nearly caused a wreck. I probably would’ve made it down the little hill safely if I had just relaxed. Confidence only come with practice. Maybe next weekend we’ll go again.
On Sunday the clouds cleared out so I had an 8:00 a.m. riding lesson under sunny but cool skies. Rachelle was going to have me ride Polly again but apparently she had a sore foot. I was assigned to a chestnut gelding called Washington instead. He was really cute when he opened his mouth to accept the bit when I bridled him. Normally horses need a bit of encouragement in order to accept the bit. He opened his mouth when I approached him with the bit.
Washington is a flexible horse. It seemed like he had spent a fair amount of time going in small circles because when I asked him for a little bend around my inside leg, he gave me a lot of bend. He’s very sensitive to leg yeilding so it was a pleasure to bend him in both directions and to cue him back to the rail. I only have two complaints about him: he doesn’t go into the canter right away when signalled but extends his trot instead. And you have to ride in a modified two-point at the canter because he slows down to a trot if you put your full weight on his back. Other than those two things, he’s a smooth and willing ride. He jumps very nicely too.
Yesterday afternoon we went to Macy’s so I could spend the $50 gift certificate Dave won at his office’s Halloween costume contest. I bought a roasting pan since I’m hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year. The mall and the mall parking lot were both a madhouse. We were surprised at all the shoppers, this being a regular weekend, not a holiday weekend. Shopping was about as much fun as being in a traffic jam. Even though we were only there for a short time, I ended up with a tension headache that lasted twice as long as the shopping trip. Something is out of whack there.
Tomorrow I won’t be posting as I have to take a short boat trip into Santa Monica Bay to collect water samples for my advisor’s research. The boat leaves the harbor at 7:00 a.m., which means I have to leave the house by about 5:45 a.m. We return to harbor around 1:00 p.m. Then I bring all the water samples to the lab and we filter water for a couple hours. Then I go home exhausted because of the anti-seasick medication. It’s fun when we see dolphins and ocean sunfish. Sometimes we don’t see any wildlife at all except for the usual hordes of seagulls.