Monday, October 25, 2010

Daddy Daughter Date

On my last trip to Canada, my dad took me on a date! We loaded up the horses (and when I saw we I mean HE loaded up the horses) and drove up to Waterton for a horseback ride! 

Considering the fact that I grew up on a farm, it is pretty lame that I have always been freaked out of horses. And cows for that matter. Before I even got into the saddle, I was having images go through my mind of my horse bucking me off, and galloping away leaving me to be eaten by bears on the side of the mountain. My horses name was "Buck" to top it off-- NOT a good omen!

After riding for a couple of minutes on the trail. however, I found that it was actually a lot of fun!
Uh ya...I"m a cowgirl. No big deal.
And I am wearing four layers...I promise I haven't gained that much weight!
I was quite impressed with my Dad's "self portrait" skills. I can never get the camera centered, but he nailed it on the first try!

We rode up the side of a giant mountain...and it was pretty steep! It is a good thing that my horse didn't slip because I'm pretty sure I would have fallen down the mountain and died. I'm not being a drama queen at all...honest.

I was LOVING the ride by the time we got to the top! There was an AMAZING view!

And then we spotted this on the trail:
BEAR!!!
 There was some fresh bear poop not far from the track as well. My dad said that it was a good sized grizzly bear track. It was going the direction that we had just come from, which means that we would have had to pass it along the way. It must have been hiding in the trees somewhere! AHH! 


We finished our ride up the mountain, and ended at a beautiful little lake. "Lower Lake" I think it is called. We had lunch, and my dad got out his binoculars and found some mountain sheep above us on the mountain. I kept hearing noises in the trees though. I swore it was the bear coming for us...it ended up being a squirrel. My dad thought I was crazy!
Our picnic lunch...SO good :)
A-MAZING! Such a pretty lake, and it was so calm that it looked like glass! 
 Before heading back down, my dad got a couple of "Bear Bangers" from his pack...they look like pens, and when you set them off it sends off a bunch of flares and makes a loud exploding noise. We didn't have a gun with us, because you aren't allowed to take them into national parks. I was certain that we were going to run straight into an angry grizzly bear! Hello adrenaline! My Dad said he wasn't scared at all...and he laughed at me while I as freaking out...but I think secretly that he was a little nervous. (Don't try to hide it Daddy...you totally were!)


Luckily, we made it to the bottom of the mountain without incident just as it was getting dark. We loaded up the horses, and headed for home. About 2 minutes after we started driving, we almost ran over a different bear with the truck...it was a big black bear. Waterton is CRAWLING with bears!


It was quite the adventure, and a lot of fun (mixed with terror)! Thanks for the awesome date dad!

4 comments:

Ranae Broadhead said...

that sounds like so much fun! i love horseback riding! good thing you didnt run into a bear, i would have been so freaked out :)

Heather said...

aThat is just too cute!

Heidi said...

How fun! I get pretty jittery riding horses too- I'd much rather ride a car that will stop when I tell it too.

Jayelle said...

That looks so fun! Minus the bear thing...LOL. And your pumpkin carving adventure looks like it was fun too!