My horse’s name was Maui. Chad’s was Blue Callou. The adventure ride was advertised as tame. The horses are old and it’s only 2 hours of walking. 30 minutes into the ride we get this face off.
Nikkii says, “why don’t you get a picture next to Chad.” Yeah, cool. I hardly know how to steer this beast, so let me tug on the reins a bit, and he starts walking near Ck4. In a split second my horse is stamping its foot and huffing, then all of a sudden the wild beast goes up on two legs and I’m holding on for dear life. “Don’t pull the reins! Kick him in the side. Pull the reins!” Albert, the horse wrangler/leader, is calm as a cucumber watching all this action twiddling his thumbs, and I’m looking for him to put this guy down. It honestly happened too fast to be scared.
Eventually Maui finds Duchess, his GF, and calms down a bit. For the next hour I’m riding behind Duchess who keeps blasting farts in my face which was pleasant. To climax the trip, we settle into a pasture for picture taking and Chad’s horse and mine start AGAIN. I try to pull the reins up to settle Maui down and he pulls the reins right back showing who’s boss. These horses were uncontrollable that I’m not sure how a novice would feel comfortable. Not to mention Sam’s horse, Tracker, literally fell down and threw him off. Safe to say, I probably won’t horseback ride again because the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.’ and calms down a bit.
Backroads
That story was one of the more entertaining moments of the Yellowstone trip. To add some context on how I ended up on a horse, a group called Backroads takes your money and sets up 6 days of events. We went white water rafting, horse back riding, hiking, and biking. They book all the hotels, feed you, all while providing the entertainment. The guides are attentive and, frankly, overly nice to the point I assume they are brainwashed. Even still, I’d give the company 2 thumbs up for putting on a fun filled excursion through Montana/Wyoming. A note was our group was mainly retired people. I’ll outline a few of the highlights of the trip.
- 7 Bets for $2 dollars – On the first night in Bozeman, Montana, they have sports betting machines. Chad got excited and made bets that ended up winning 2 bucks. I took an anytime Schwarbomb for $30 bucks that hit in the first at bat of the game and tipped the bartender $50. Bill and Chad would get along great.
- White Water Rafting – I didn’t go into this with much expectations and it proved to be just ok. Nothing too crazy and it was more relaxing than running wild rapids.
- Scenery – The hiking and scenery was truly spectacular. I don’t have enough time to go through all my photos, spruce them up, and then put them in a gallery so here’s a few. Nikkii took the picture with the car which turned out great.
- 40 Miles of Biking – I’m not a biker. I can’t think of a time when I rode more than 1 mile on a bike other than an Indego. Well, there was a 40 mile bike ride where most people get E-Bikes and a New York guy in our group said only pussies ride E-Bikes. I’m in good shape so what the hell. A stretch of the ride went for about 8 miles straight into direct wind and I was totally gassed. I finished the ride exhausted and in need of a beer I couldn’t even drink.
Money Spent
It wasn’t a cheap trip when you consider the hotels in between Bozeman and Jackson were mainly $400-$500 a night. I’m sure Backroads gets a decent deal, but for the 6k or so, I’m not sure how they make much money on the 6 days. The way I look at it, you can always say, we’ll do it next year. As you age, you start to realize there might not be a next year. Or you may not be in the right condition to do it. So when opportunity comes along, you have to jump on these types of opportunities. I met a lot of interesting people and had a unique experience with friends. It was worth every penny. Imagine remaining friends with someone for 35 years!
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