Horse back riding.

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Have I veer told you all about the first, and last, time I ever rode a horse? No? Didn’t think so. Well, I was at my friend Gene’s family reunion, it was held at a large campground. Our friend John also was there. One day during it (it ran the weekend) John and I were sitting around a campfire and Gene comes up to us and says “Hey, they are giving horseback rides for$10.00!” I had never been on a horse before, so we went off and found the place where they were giving the rides. Well, we paid up and they found us each a horse. They helped me onto mine and …I hated it. I was way higher off the ground than I was comfortable with. I decided I would get used to that though (since I had already paid.). They gave us a brief lesson on how to handle a horse. It didn’t make a lot of sense. They told us that the horse may try to graze and that we shouldn’t let it (This I later found out is like saying “The sun may try to set. Don’t let it.”) So off we go. The horse starts off. Now at this point right here before we got more than a few steps away, I should have said “Ok! I’m done, get me off this thing!” The feeling of a walking horse is indescribable. Some adjectives do come to mind though. Terrible. Awful. Horrible. But I figure I can bare this, I have paid my $10.00. So we are off. We get a certain part of the way and the Horse (I later find out named Pepper) starts to graze. I try to figure out a way to stop it from grazing, short of hurting it. I don’t want to hurt the horse. I just want it to stop grazing. Well, the way to get a horse to stop grazing is to wait. It will shortly notice that the other horses have gotten ahead of it and it will canter to catch up with them. How to describe cantering. It’s amazing. Amazing my heart didn’t explode, or some vessel in my brain didn’t break. This of course was a series of events, stop, graze, canter, stop, graze, canter, etc. We start heading for this hill and going up it. Now remember, I’m on the back of a horse. Hating every second of it. This is a contender for the worst $10.00 I have ever spent. Oh yay. We get to go up a hill.[/sarcasm]. I decide that as long as the horse doesn’t stop at the top of this hill. I can finish this ride. The horse stops at the top of the hill to graze. I’m done. No more ride for me. I stop and eventually the horse guide at the front of the line notices (I don’t even remember how) that the horse at the end of the line has stopped. He asks me if something is wrong. I say “Get me off this horse.” He says, “It will be fine.” I say “Get me off this horse.” He whistles to the horse, trying to make it come. Well, the one thing that I did learn from that lesson is how to make a horse stop. We didn’t move. The horse Guide comes back and says that he will get me off the horse, as long as, I lead it the rest of the way back, and I keep up with the group. I acquiesce. I lead the horse back and rather enjoyed that. I like horses, as long as I have my feet on the ground. So, have you ever had an experience you thought you would like and it just turned out horrible? Or have you ridden a horse? Was it good for you?