This is a funny time of year for fun adventures. Some weeks are flush with a dizzying array of seasonal activities, while others are sort of a no-man’s land. The weather can turn on you in a minute – waking to overcast and chilly skies, only to have the day clear up and heat up to nearly 70 degrees like it did for us last Saturday.
Browsing through the “CLT” section, the horse show at the Anne Springs Close Greenway caught our eye. My daughter is as horse crazy as a lot of other 6-year old girls, and at FREE, the price was right.
Plus, it gave me an opportunity to use a new g-e-n-u-i-n-e "Sportsman Series" Thermos brand thermos that I bought recently at Wal-Mart. I’ve been feeling pretty pleased with myself about that. It’s a big “wide mouth” silver one that I filled with stove-top cooked hot dogs and hot water for an outing. Sure, I could have bought hot dogs at said outing, but the thermos thing was way better. It’s actually pretty funny how many times I’ve worked my new thermos into conversations in the past few weeks.
And, so, on a perfectly chilly and cloudy morning, we bundled up with our thermos full of hot chocolate and headed to the gorgeous Greenway to check out some horses. Which was the extent of the experience, really. We stood around for a while and saw perfectly normal looking children and teens riding some pretty amazing looking horses. Heaps and heaps of them. There were a few well-heeled “horse set” types, but it was mostly 4-H’ers riding around and showing off their skills. While my daughter COULD have noticed this aspect, she was mostly focusing on the fact that horse poop stinks and it was EVERYWHERE.
So, while I hadn’t set out to “cure” her healthy interest in horses, I think I may have inadvertently done that. Which is good, since there’s no way she’s ever getting a horse.
When one of the horses started to urinate in front of all of us – sending my 2-and 8-year old boys into hysterics – it was time for a change of scenery. We found a trail head and took a mini stroll down to the river to chuck rocks and crunch in the autumn leaves. We had worked up a sweat by the time we got back to our car – winter coats off and more in need of an ice cold glass of water than a hot cup of cocoa.
The Anne Springs Close Greenway in Fort Mill, SC, offers beautiful trails for humans and horses alike. For more information, visit www.leroysprings.com.
