I have been plotting a moon light beach ride for, well, forever it seems like. And have had my plans thwarted time and time again. But, persistence won out in the end. As soon as the beach opened for the season for riding, I watched the tide, the moon chart, sunset times, and the weather. It all came together for a ride today. The conditions would be perfect. Clear skies, warm weather, low tide at 5:28 PM and sunset at 5:51 PM. A sunset full moon ride!!!! Brooke and Cierra were going with me. It would be Brooke's first time to ever ride on the beach. She would be riding my new mule Buckshot and it would be his first time at the beach. Cierra has ridden at the beach with me but on my horse, Marie. So, it would be her mare Tinkerbell's first time at the beach. I would be taking my mare Marie as Luke is still having trouble with his pulled groin muscle and I didn't want him walking though any soft sand. For quite a while there has been a standing joke between Cierra and I about racing. We've had several races between Tinkerbell and Luke and I always loose badly because Luke has no interest in racing. The western pleasure lope is his favorite "fast" pace". So, Cierra has never had Tink full out. I had been telling her for days that we were going to have a real race at the beach with me on Marie and I was going to "take her down". The old fat lady on the old horse was going to put the young whipper snapper in her place. HA!
We took Brooke's 3 horse trailer so I picked it up in the morning so I could load all my tack into it and be ready to go. I actually headed over to Upper Pond Stable a little earlier than I needed as it was one of those days where I knew if I sat down and relaxed for too long, I might just doze off. I got to the stable around 3:00 PM. I turned Buckshot out in the indoor arena to hang out so he wouldn't have to stand on the trailer until we were ready to go. He thought that was great, he thinks the indoor arena has the best mule rolling sand in the world! He rolled, and rolled and rolled again.
When Cierra arrived at the barn, we got all her things loaded into the trailer, and loaded Tink into the trailer first. The first stall in Brooke's trailer is the smallest so it is where Tink needed to go. We then put Buckshot in the second stall as we still had to pick up Marie at Nancy's house, who is leasing her at this time. The second stall was pretty tight for Buckshot as he's a big boy but he went in with no fuss. He didn't look all that comfortable once in though. When we got to Nancy's house, we noticed that Tink's haybag was on the trailer floor. I went to get Marie while Brooke and Cierra attempted to get the hay bag. The hay bag was part way under Buckshot so Cierra attempted to reach under and grab it. She knelt down, put her hand on Buckshot's front leg so he'd know she was there, then reached for the bag. This upset Buckshot and even though she was way up by his front leg, in a way only a mule can manage, he gave her a pretty hard kick with a hind leg. Cierra was ok but we were sure she would be sporting a nice bruise in a day or so. I missed it all as I was getting Marie. When I got to the trailer, I knew we needed to get the hay bag off the floor but we'd have to unload Buckshot to get it. And we decided to load him in the back stall at that point as he'd have more room and be more comfortable. So, in Marie went, then Buckshot last and were off for the beach!
We knew we'd be arriving pretty close to sunset so were hoping we didn't miss it entirely. We also knew the state park were we usually park closes at sunset so we would not be able to park there. When we arrived, the place I had thought we could park was heavily posted with no parking signs. DANG! We drove down to the fort and there was just no room for us there either. So, we drove back to the park entrance and pulled over on the side of the road. There is a turn lane there that with the park closed, would not be used so we parked on this. We didn't want to tie the horses and mule to the trailer and worry about traffic, though there wasn't much traffic, so we just took turns holding horses and mule while each of us saddled up. We then planned to just ride though the parking lot of the state park to access the beach. We had just mounted up when the park ranger showed up to close the parking lot gate. He would not let us ride though to the beach as the entire park is off limits after sunset though the park only owns a portion of the beach that we normally ride on. It didn't matter as we had to regroup for a new plan. I told Brooke and Cierra to load up the horses and mule but keep them saddled. We'd go back down to the fort again and see if any parking space had opened up. In the horses and mule went and back to the fort. To our relief, there was enough room for us to park! YEAH! So we unloaded again, bridled up and rode down to the beach. There was a Phippsburg police officer parked right by the access path and he commented what a lovely night it was and said to have a nice ride. I had my camera ready as the light was fading fast and I knew I would not get many, if any, pictures of this adventure. I was in the lead on Marie and walked her out onto the beach with Cierra on Tinkerbell behind me and Brooke on Buckshot in the rear. As was snapping away with the camera, I did notice that Brooke had only gone a short way past the access path and had turned and gone back to the end of the path. Shots was standing quietly so I thought she was still talking to the police officer. I then noticed that Tinkerbell looked like she was about to loose it and have a meltdown, the sight and sound of roaring water that comes at you in white frothy waves was a bit of a mental overload for her. I decided I had better put the camera away and do something to calm the situation. I rode over to Tinkerbell and grabbed her bridle. Tink was still scared but very happy to snuggle up close to Marie and she did not attempt to pull away from me. I noticed Brooke was still standing in the same place and asked if she was ok. She laughed and said she was fine. That it was Shots who had decided to turn around and walk back to that spot and was now in freeze mode. But, he wasn't doing anything dangerous so it was ok. Brooke finally convinced Buckshot to get his feet moving down the beach. He stayed up high in the soft sand, then stopped right in front of the big windows of Spinny's restaurant, which was quite full of people, and peed. When Shots was ready, we kept moving down the beach and both Shots and Tink finally relaxed and I was able to let go of Tink's bridle. From then on Tink quickly went from scared to curious and then to being quite relaxed. And Shots ears were soon doing a big flop as he was walking. By the time we went around the point, it was fully dark and the moon was up and it was absolutely gorgeous! We walked down to where the beach is narrow between the water and some cotteges that are up on a rocky bank. At this spot there was a little stream cutting across the beach that I've never seen here before. No surprise as this beach changes all the time. In the moonlight it was hard to tell how deep it was or how soft the sand might be. And the moonlight was shining off the water very brightly. I urged Marie to step in and she was not happy about this at all. Cierra actually got Tinkerbell to go in first and Marie followed her. Shots wanted nothing to do with it. He got very worried so Brooked hopped off and I went back and ponied him into the water from Marie. It took a bit of encouraging but he did eventually come into the water. We decided not to go any further down the beach at this point as we'd soon be on the State Park portion of the beach where we weren't supposed to go. So, we turned around and headed back. Since Brooke was still on foot, I asked if she thought she would be ok if Cierra and I did a little trot and canter down the beach. She said to go ahead. I wasn't sure it was a good idea but Cierra and I started out at a trot and called back and Brooke said to keep going so we did. We trotted just a short way and I picked up a canter. Marie was quite reluctant to leave Shots behind but kept up a steady canter. Cierra came up beside me and we slowly picked up the pace until we got into a fairly fast gallop though not full out. It was absolutely exhilirating cantering down the beach in the moon light. But, about the time I was considering really letting Marie go, I discovered I was having an age related technical difficulty and even more, I was worried about leaving Brooke behind. We would have to reschedule our race for another beach ride. So, Cierra and I pulled up and headed back to Brooke. We picked up a canter again but both Marie and Tink got over excited about going back towards Shots and we quickly brought them back to a trot. Had we felt we could safely let Marie and Tink run going back, we would have had a truly exciting race! We were relieved to find that Shots and Brooke were still together but indeed Shots had not been happy about being left behind and Brooke had had her hands full. It is a credit to her equine handling skills that she was able to hold onto a very unhappy 1200 lb mule. Together we headed back keeping the pace to a walk, enjoying the beauty of the night and enjoying each others company. It was one of those special times you don't get often and we wanted to savor every moment of it. Once back at the trailer, we quickly untacked, cleaned up after our equines and headed home. We had to play musical trailer stalls to keep Shots in the larger stall but he was a very good boy about going in and out of the trailer many times. And luckily Ben showed up just after us when we were returning Marie as we'd have never found the barn lights. I then dropped off Tink at Upper Pond stable causing us to shuffle Shots in and out of the trailer one last time. Then on home to rest and relax and enjoy the lingering joy of such a wonderful ride with such wonderful equines and friends.
Sounds like a beautiful ride!
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