Sunday the itinerary read: 8 a.m. breakfast TBA (I thought that was the restaurant’s name.) They informed me it’s to be announced. TBA ended up being another  D.O.D.  called the “Duluth Grill.” We gave it a thumbs up. Different menu items featured duck (I always think yuck) one was duck and eggs called “Quack and Cluck.” That combination is just so wrong in so many ways. Yet we were ga-ga over the corned beef hash, which wasn’t ground fine but big chunks. Janet and Pam tortured us by telling us to make sure we went to the bathroom before we did the surprise of the day. I was sure we were boating on Lake Superior so I started stuffing my pockets with table napkins. The thought of hanging my butt over a boat filled me with dread. We drove into Wisconsin and lost sight of water, but horses were in abundance. We pulled up to a barn and I exclaimed, “It’s a trail ride!” Esther took one look at the horse stomping in the trailer – clenched her teeth and dug in her heels like a mule. The only thing she didn’t do was lay back her ears at us. (She explained a horse bit her in the back in childhood.) Janet begged, threatened and teased but to no avail. Ten minutes down the trail we said, “Thankfully she didn’t come.” This was no lazy trail ride – we rode 12-14 miles in a forest with fallen logs, under fallen trees, over wooden footbridges, up steep hills with steps two feet high to get to the top. Picture us with a horse lunging to make it up and down, a foot away from a steep drop to the Tamarack River. We even crossed the river two times (a first for us all.)
At the halfway point I already felt like I’d ridden four hours. Janet said, “Just think we could have done just two hours, but Gay wanted to get her money’s worth and said our butts would be just as sore at two hours as four hours. I looked at Gay and said, “Really?”
One of our guides was a woman who was the girlfriend of the trail boss. Tired of her silence I tried to make conversation by saying, “I wonder if Dick has Esther riding a pony yet?” She turned in her saddle and gave me The Look. Then I realized that it did sound bad so I tried to do damage control by adding, “I mean a Shetland pony.” I just dug myself in deeper. Janet said she thought “Geez, Dee, just shut up.” Dick blessedly asked if we wanted to take a shortcut back and Janet shouted, “I’m stopping at the nearest bar and drinking til the pain in my a— goes away.
I yelled back and told Janet, “I can see the road from here! Five minutes later I yelled, “I lied.” What she yelled is unprintable.
Dick suggested we stop at his favorite watering hole, The Cozy Corner. You realize you’re  not in South Dakota when the owner asks if we’d care to look at two dead black bears in his cooler. Then he produced much to our amusement, an eight-foot gun for us to prove he had shot it. My bowl of chili has never tasted so good.
We fell into bed like weary Cavalry soldiers. The next morning I knew there was pain in my rear and I examined the source in the mirror. It was then that I discovered I actually have two sets of butt cheeks. Yep, you lift up the big ones and there’s another smaller set underneath. That trail ride was worth every ache and pain.
Tally Ho,
Dee Baby
P.S. Gay wore pearls for the ride – always elegant – ask her why she had extra underwear in her pocket.