Horseride up the mountain

Thursday featured a leisurely morning. Breakfast was scrambled eggs and bacon. Emily and I wanted to check out the Panther Creek riding stable because we had been told the owner was a rough, unfriendly guy. We didn’t want to expose the girls to that. We spent more than 10 minutes talking with him and his wife without incident. I told him that we didn’t want “sailor language”. He satisfied us and we went back home after going to the post office for Emily to buy post cards. We also went to Food Lion to buy some gluten free flour and brownie mix. We ate lunch and then Stacy drove to Panther Creek for our 3 1/2 hour ride. This was the main part of the “dude ranch” gift to the girls. Evelyn stayed home and made spaghetti for dinner. The ride went well. We went up to 4,000 feet through the forests and up some steep grade. We stopped to rest the horses and then went on to the top where there was a flat rock providing a fantastic view of the valley below. I didn’t recognize anything and didn’t know which direction we were looking. After about 20 minutes, we started down. I thought going up was hard, but going down was harder. I thought I would fall off several times. Both Emily’s and Stacy’s horses were constantly stopping to grab some grass. We got down much faster but were concerned when we went over small rocks, but the horses were sure footed. We returned home a bit late and ate the spaghetti before Evelyn and I left to usher at Haywood College where very few people went to see the Folkmoot USA performers. We came home and visited until bed time.