Grandma Zips

My friend Neva came to Kauai determined to go on a trail ride here. She has ridden all over the western United States, and wanted to add the south-est and west-est state of all to her list. She did some research and found three choices. One let the riders spend some time on the beach and one was a self-guided ride. The beach ride was on the other side of the island from where we were staying. The self-guided ride didn't make sense for someone who had never been on the island before. How would you know where you're going? So she chose the third option, to ride on Princeville Ranch.

The only problem was that ride combined horse time with a zipline experience. That didn't sound like a good thing to any of us (we're flatlanders, you know, and also old ladies).

Before she left for Kauai, one of Neva's granddaughters told her, "Grandma, you can ride a horse anywhere, but you can't do a zipline in Sacramento. Go for it!" Neva waffled back and forth right up to the time of the ride. Finally the time came and Char and I took her to the stable.

We stuck around while the stable staff did a short training session for the riders. We wanted to see how they did that. And also the paniolo (Hawaiian cowboy) who was in charge was pretty cute and I needed to get some pictures for Katherine to show her what she missed.

Paniolo, View 1

Paniolo, View 2

There were 9 riders, a truly motley bunch. There was a big couple from Texas (everything from Texas is big), 3 young ladies who were vacationing together, a pair of newlyweds, and a bald guy wearing shorts, who we later discovered was the island's zipline inspector. At least that was his story.

This was the dude string, a handsome bunch of horses. Kauai is as much heaven for horses as it is for people. These horses live in a perpetually green pasture, the temperature is never very hot or cold, there are no flies, and all they have to do is take a slow walk for a couple of miles every day.

Waiting for the dudes

This is one lucky bunch of horses. They all came from Canada as PMU foals about 8 years ago. Many of their mothers were draft horses that were used to collect pregnant mare urine for Premarin. Like dairy calves, the foals were just an unwanted byproduct and many were eliminated. Some were adopted, like Katherine's horse Shylah (See Katherine's Sept. 10 blog HERE) and these guys.

This is the horse Neva got to ride.

Neva on Aki

Big Texan on a big horse

Char and I waved goodbye and went off to find Pierce Brosnan (another adventure).

When we went to pick Neva up 3 hours later, we saw the group coming back and made bets about whether or not she had done the zipline. We surmised if her jeans were clean and dry, that meant she had stayed with the horses instead.

Heading Home

"I did it!!!!! And it was fun."