Horseback Riding and Hell - Part 1 of 2

This is (eventually) a story about the time Charlie and I thought we were in Hell. The real Hell. That's why it's capitalized. Before that part, comes a story about horseback riding.

 

For my 26^th birthday my dad bought me two tickets to go horseback-riding in Half Moon Bay. There are probably mixed reactions to that statement. About half of you will think, oh that sounds like a fun time! And the other half of you are thinking, Meg... on a horse... on the beach. These are not things that the Meg I know would be willing to do. Are the tickets exchangeable for cash value?

 

I know I'm not big on outdoorsey things. I'm aware that I live in a beach community and proclaim to hate the ocean. And I've never been big on “activity” as a whole.... But, I actually thought a horseback ride on the beach sounded quite lovely. Apparently, my father has been aware of my secret love of 40-year-old pass-times for some time now.
 

And I mean – horseback-riding? It's just like my favorite activity: Sitting... but on a big animal. And I won't even have to walk on the beach (I seriously, really hate sand. Sand can suck it.) – because the horse will do it for me.

 

It's about an hour drive to Half Moon Bay from Santa Cruz. A little less if you drive with purpose, and a little more if you think you're headed to a romantic ocean-side tour atop mighty steed – by now I'm imagining myself riding bareback, full gallop, with my hair flying out behind me and Instagram-supplied sunspots glittering all about. Charlie, in full Knight's raiment, charging next to me on the back of a white stallion... or at least something else that is attractive and enticing like this:

or

But that's not reality. I mean, it's reality in the sense that someone really took those pictures. Those people really exist. That really happened. But what I really mean is...

 

This is reality:

Cute, right? Cute like a bus full of retards.

In our defense: I have a genetic defect called Cranial-Chromosonal Duplicity – it's when I wear any kind of protective head gear, I instantly look like I have Down's Syndrome. And Charlie put his helmet on crooked, and I never told him to adjust it – so he looked like a drunk camp counselor the whole time. It doesn't help that I was at my absolute fattest, and Charlie smiles like a dipshit when anyone points a camera at him.

The location: Sea Horse Ranch. It was very... ranchy. Dirty, dusty, smelled like horse shit, the buildings and stables looked old enough to once house gold-panning supplies. It wasn't really what you would call quaint, but you could tell they didn't give a damn about appealing to tourists anyway. They specialize in riding lessons for beginners, horse “rentals” for more experienced riders.

There were a bunch of horses, about twenty Mexican guys and one sassy old broad. The sassy old broad seemed to be the owner or manager of the ranch, and she was the one who checked us in, and talked us into wearing the helmets, which were supposed to be optional. She gave us the basic run-down of rules and regulations and crap and handed us a waiver that pretty much signs over your entire life.

While we were pretending to read the waivers, a girl came up to inquire about a ride. She had been on the beach when she saw the horses and decided to “just be crazy!” But the sassy old broad shut her down faster than a woman's reproductive system while Todd Akin is raping her.
 

She wasn't just short with the young beach babe – she was a fucking bitch to her.

 

“You can't very well ride a horse in that tiny little thing you call a bathing suit! You have to have full-length pants, and close-toed shoes on. Do you even have pants and shoes with you today at the beach? I doubt it! I get girls like you up here all the time. You see the horses out there and you think you're just going to come up here, barefoot and almost naked, and take your little cell phone pictures with your friends. Well, unless you can find some clothes and shoes to put on, don't even bother asking for a ride...."

On and on she went berating this dumb girl, who in all probability thought her attractive face and tanned little body would get her a ride on “those Mexican guy's horses” for no charge with little convincing. I won't lie – it felt good to watch this mean old bitch lay into the unsuspecting self-entitled youth, but at the same time I was thinking, Damn, Horse Lady! ...How do you stay in business if you turn away all the dumb rich tourists? They might have pants back in the car...


Then I wondered if maybe during her years on the job, she has asked enough dumb rich tourists to know that they never have pants in the car.

The bikini girl leaves, dejected. We are given our safety gear, dejected. We don't look like equestrians, we look like head injury recovery stories. Our horses are geared-up and ready, so with the help of our friendly but succinct tour guides we climb into the saddles and are on our way.

 

Just as we head out, a miracle in itself comes speeding around the corner of the barn – a black cowboy on a Segway. Let me get a little more descriptive: an African American man, in chaps and boots, on one of those faggy Wozniak wheelchairs. This man was the resident photographer.




So, while the horses didn't seem to be bothered in the slightest, I reacted as if I just saw Sasquatch breastfeeding – you want to make sure what you're seeing is real, but you feel like you shouldn't stare. I just smiled like an idiot and let him take a few embarrassing pictures of me.

 

Most of the ride was on a little trail on the bluffs above the beach. There were some pretty parts of the trail where you go through a few puddles and little tunnels of greenery, but about 90% was just a dirt path where you couldn't see much other than mounds of dirt and dry grass on either side of you. If we weren't two retards on the backs of two retarded horses the ride would have been about 20-30 minutes.



But since Charlie's horse was a lazy fatty that kept stopping every twenty paces to eat more shitty looking dry yellow grass, the sixty minute tour lasted just as long as advertised.     

The most interesting part by far was when we took this really narrow path through the cliffs to get down to the sand. Both horses were pretty damned fat, and the path was very narrow. As we were approaching, I was sure I was going to skin my shins to the bone on the sides of the rocks, but the horses seemed to know what was up and took it really slowly.

Once we were down on the beach, there were a lot of people, and the tour guide – in very broken English – explained that we needed to get back up to the bluffs before the horses got freaked out.

For the most part the horses seemed fine, but apparently Charlie's horse was a little nervous and decided to stop and let a little of the pressure off by taking the biggest piss I have ever been witness to. The average horse produces about 2.5 gallons of urine in a day. I think this one had been saving up. The stream hit the sand with such force, that it began to carve out a crater that looked like a replica of the Grand Canyon. It was the Colorado River of piss. So, I'm right behind the horse getting the best view, and Charlie is just sitting there, looking over his shoulder at me, kind of shrugging – and we both get to laughing. Even the Mexican tour guide, who hasn't said more than seven words, is laughing along along with us. 

So, Fatty McPee finishes up and we get on our way up the cliffs, back to the trail. The upward climb was even scarier than the downward climb – but it wasn't about scraping my shins as much as it was about toppling backwards off of a horse down a rocky cliff. It was super steep, and the horse was over my bullshit and wanted to go home. We made it. Charlie's horse stopped another seventeen times to eat dirty beach grass. A dog barked at my horse, and we got to run a little bit. The mythical black cowboy on the Segway took a few more pictures. And we were soon back at the ranch, a little stinky, with helmet hair, standing in a little shack paying $30 for a CD of shitty images from the black cowboy.

 

Horseback-riding makes you hungry. And when you follow up horseback-riding with smoking copious amounts of pot in an enclosed minivan – you get seriously hungry. We left the ranch looking for a place to smoke and a place to eat, hoping they could be the same place. Eventually we found this little diner – what we thought was a small town's answer to Denny's – with a big empty parking lot, and pulled into a spot in the back. Check out a picture of this place – the parking lot is HUGE. Perfect.

And the building is bland as hell... As Hell?

Yes, as Hell. 
 

To be continued...