It’s been busy over here!
Two Sundays ago, Rj was home sick while I drove over to my parents house for dinner and a visit. We had great conversation while making dinner and my dad and I struck upon the thought of horse riding on the beach. We’ve done it only once before and the experience was fun but frustrating. The horses were paranoid about the sand and the Gulf and there were too many gawking bystanders to really enjoy being there with the horses.
Jacky and I circa 2010
I don’t think I’ve properly introduced you to our horses. Frequently, you’ll see mentions of ‘the ranch’ on here where we go to work, hunt, and play. Out there, we have about 20 head of cattle, two donkeys, and 6 Arabian horses (about half are purebreds and half are mixed).
(clockwise from top left)
Cowboy (green/black halter), Xena, Jacky, Jack Daniels, Kien, and Texas
We love having them and taking them on mini adventures such as last Saturday. It was a beautiful day so we decided to load up Kien and Jack Daniels and hit up the beach!
Naturally, Jack (the dog) was a trooper and came along for the fun.
Jack Daniels is the brown horse on the left while Kien is the white one on the right.
We live in Corpus Christi where the Padre Island/Mustang Island beach is less than 15 minutes from anywhere in town. Our ranch is a distance northwest outside the city limits but a relatively easy drive to the island.
Since it’s now January, we figured there would be few people at the beach. Boy were we wrong. There were a significant number of cars, people, and dogs out there all enjoying the sunshine and mid-80′s weather. As a result, we couldn’t really let the horses go faster like we wished but were content with a nice lazy walking pace. The Gulf of Mexico was still a chilly 60 degrees so we didn’t see many people swimming.
My mom met us out there and brought a fantastic picnic lunch. We took a moment to enjoy some sandwiches, fresh fruit, and cold water before riding off into the sunset horizon.
After a while, I left Jack off his leash to run around. I figured he would follow along nicely but he kept running up to each car, family, dog, you-name-it to smell them all over and declare them boring. Frequently we had to whistle and holler after him to get him to catch up to where we were. Eventually I got tired of waiting for him and hoisted him up onto the saddle with me and he spent the rest of the ride enjoying the view from his high up position.
We rode out for about an hour before calling it a day and heading back. My favorite part was riding by the kids. They would just look at us with eyes filled with wonder and point us out excitedly to their parents. When we would wave, they would wave back such as if we were a parade passing through!
We had a great time and think the horses did too. Kien was brave to go near the waves but Jack Daniels wasn’t having it one bit. Nosir, he wasn’t going near those crazy waves! Nevertheless, they arrived back at the ranch tired and we rewarded them with lots of treats, hugs, and plentiful hay.
Despite the large crowds there, we really enjoyed taking the horses there. Hopefully we can scout out a different location where we can go a little faster with the horses. 
Today’s Workout
Today I hit up the gym with my friend LeAnn. Since today’s Tuesday, my challenge was the 40 minutes of intense cardio for Tina’s Bootcamp. I had a nice time chatting with LeAnn for the warm-up and then focused on being a beast on the treadmill for the rest of the workout!
After we wrapped up everything, we headed over to the mat section of the gym and spent a good 20 minutes talking. We squeezed in a few ab exercises but it was really nice to catch up! Tomorrow, I’ll be back with Rj to tackle tomorrow’s bootcamp challenge!
Question:
Have you ever ridden on the beach before? What was your experience?
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