Posting the photo of my sister Patsy on a horse, I began to think about girls and horses. In my childhood some girls, such as Patsy, were horse crazy. She had Breyer model horses, read Marguerite Henry’s books such as “Misty of Chincoteague,” and took riding lessons. She really wanted to own a horse, but we had no place to keep one. I had several friends who were similarly smitten with horses. At the Camp Fire Girls camp I attended there was a special unit called Ranch where girls spent the week riding and caring for horses.
Me not so much. I rode them when we were at the Oregon coast, as in the picture above. Riding horses on the beach was fun and the horses knew their way up and down the sand and then back to the barn, so no skill was required. But that was the extent of my interest.
I last rode a horse 35 years ago when I was at Canyon de Chelly with my daughter who wanted to ride. A Navajo rancher had a few horses to rent and after sizing us up sent me on an ancient horse, my 8 year old daughter on a pony, and his 10 year old son as a guide. My horse was irritated at having to move at all. Meanwhile my daughter and the little boy hightailed it off across the canyon floor, laughing as they went. And proving my genuine disinterest, I didn’t envy them at all.
Saved By Words 
Camp Fire Girls – haven’t heard that in a while! Anyway, I have yet to ride a horse.
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Don’t think you’re missing much! Were you a Girl Scout or Camp Fire Girl?
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I was a Girl Scout: first a Brownie, then a Girl Scout, then a Cadette – before I decided it was no longer “cool”!
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You stayed longer than I did. I quit after grade school.
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Are you sure that horse that won’t move is burro? Horses are expensive to board and yet great for foot travel especially sands, rocky path, and uphill battle.
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It certainly could have been a burro.
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I never tried riding one. I am afraid we don’t have that kind of luxury here.
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I don’t think horses are common in humid countries. And they certainly are a luxury, even here.
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I haven’t ridden a horse in a very long time and was also recently thinking of changing that! I am in the south after all. It couldn’t be that hard to find a horse I can ride. 🤔
I did more riding when I was a child. My parents always took me to those fairs with a horse or pony you could ride around for a bit.
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That sounds like a fun hobby to take up again. Did the ponies at your fairs just go around in a circle?
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I think the ponies did go around in a circle but I remember riding horses in more open areas at other fairs.
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That would have been fun. Ours were always roped together
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Haha, I wonder why. Maybe they thought you would have gallopped away with them!
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Probably right.
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