Not dead in the head yet!

It's been raining.  Lots.  So I haven't seen the Nutter in a week.  :(

However, I have another story from the last time we went riding.  :)

I set out with Mona after work last week.  We were approaching the tunnel leading to the bigger section of the park when Peanut stopped right before a blind turn leading quickly downhill to the tunnel.  He was paying rapt attention to the out-of-sight tunnel, and I could tell why: the sound of a bike was amplified and echoing through it.  The view is wide open for a while heading to the tunnel, so I knew that it was heading towards us.

I started fretting a little, since the rider would swoosh suddenly into view after making the racket.  Then I just relaxed, as Peanut felt relaxed, and just waited.  As predicted, there was suddenly a rider who saw us and, I think, we scared him.  Even Mona stood well, and Peanut, again, didn't bat a golden eyelash.

The rider stopped, dismounted, pulled his bike over and started apologizing profusely.  I said that there was no reason to be sorry, that there was no way for him to know that we were there.  I rode past, and he commented to Anne-Marie about how it's good that our horses don't mind bikes.

I wonder sometimes about the reactions that the bikers see when they come across horses.  When I think of riding a bike (can never seem to decide on a bike over a horse, though), I think of riding in another great, rambling park that doesn't allow horses.  I don't want to deal with them from a bike!  I just wonder if the riders in Fair Hill are used to horses losing marbles as they go by, which explains this biker's reaction.

We later turned towards a new trail we explored on foot that is across from the parking lot in this stretch of park.  Both horses got upset as we approached the lot, as there was a lot of activity from a clattering truck, to bikes being unloaded from the back of a truck, to people pulling in and out and just meandering around.  They still listened, and we turned down the trail.

This trail is a lot nicer to walk than the difficult one that we explored and already rode twice.  However, the nervousness from the lot never left Peanut.  I could feel the tension through the saddle and in his strides.  I had to encourage him to keep moving, and in several parts I could tell that he was scared and wanted to turn back.  Each rustle from a squirrel was scary and each dash of a bird through the foliage was cause for alarm.  In reality he pretty much kept walking, but he was letting me know that he was not happy.  I just kept thinking the whole time how much he was trying.  He really was.

At the third path back to an open field I let him take it, and he calmed down a lot.  I told Anne about how I felt that he was on the edge of a melt-down, and she said that you would never have known by looking at us.  We both seemed to be riding out quite normally.

I consider that a victory.  :)