Don’t Go Horseback Riding
By Julia A. Keirns
(This article was published at Epinions.com on July 8,2000)
Don’t go horseback riding at Brown County State Park when it’s been raining and the trails are muddy unless you are an experienced rider. I’ll tell you why later.
A couple months ago in May, my husband took me to a quaint little log cabin on Greasy Creek Road in Nashville, Indiana. It was our 14th wedding anniversary. We had three glorious days with no children. What to do? What to do?
The first day we drove into Nashville. We found out it is not a place to drive around. You must park and walk. Parking in a lot will cost you about $3.00. We were lucky enough to stumble across a free space on the side of the road. The specialty shops are endless. One after another. There are several art galleries, including a Thomas Kinkade Museum. You can ride a horse carriage around town. There are several antique and garden shops. It is really quite nice. Of course, everything is quite expensive. After a few hours of that, we were ready to go back to the cabin for a nice relaxing evening alone. Then it was Saturday. What to do? What to do?
Brown County State Park is only about two miles from downtown Nashville. We had been informed there was a neat old covered bridge at the entrance to the park. I wanted to see the bridge. It did cost us a few extra dollars to get into the park because we were driving an out of state vehicle. The ranger who greeted us was very nice and friendly. He gave us a map and told us there were over 30 miles of roads in the park. We checked our gas gauge. Whew! We were okay.
BCSP is the largest park in the State of Indiana. It has 15,696 acres. It is just unreal how big this place is. Right inside, in a big field to the right, there was a car show going on that day. Hundreds of Ford Mustangs to see. I’m not a huge car fan, but my husband was in heaven, and it really was neat. Then we drove past the Olympic size swimming pool. Nice!
The first place we stopped was the Saddle Barn to check out the horseback riding. For ages 8 and up it was $8.50 per person for the short trail. The short trail was 2.2 miles long and took 40 minutes. The long trail was 3.3 miles long and took one hour for $10.50 per person. It was rainy and chilly and had rained the night before. I could wait. Besides, I had never ridden a horse before in my life. Well, I think I sat on one when I was 2 or 3 if that counts. I really wanted to ride the horses, but it wasn’t going to hurt me to wait out the rain. Pony rides were available for kids under 8. The parents have to put their kids on the ponies and then walk them around the ring. They also had hayrides through the park at certain times.
We drove on down the road and saw lots of pull off picnic areas, sheter houses and beautiful views. It is quite mountainous in Brown County. I felt like I was in Tennessee.
We passed a Fire Tower that visitors can climb and look out over the countryside. Drove past some more picnic areas and even some ballfields. On down the road a ways, we came upon a lake. Strahl Lake is 7 acres. We couldn’t actually see it from the road or parking area. We had to walk down the trails that led back to it. No boats are allowed on this little lake, only fishing from the bank. We saw several hikers and backpackers. BCSP has several walking and hiking trails marked on the map. There are 12 miles of easy, moderate and rugged trails anywhere from 1 to 3 miles long.
Next, we saw the Horseman’s Campground. We weren’t allowed to enter. It is a private campground for horse campers only. They take their horses and camp and ride the trails.
Okay, so now we are clear at the south end of the park. The covered bridge entrance is clear at the north end. Around some curves and up some hills, ride the brakes on the way down, and we headed on down the road. Saw some beautiful scenery here. Whoops! There just went a wild turkey across the road in front of us!
We passed several campgrounds – Taylor Ridge, Raccoon Ridge, Buffalo Ridge, and Rally Campgrounds. We stopped in one of the camp stores to get a snack and a drink. They had lots of neat souveneirs.
There is a Nature Center that we went into next. There were stuffed specimens of all types of wild animals and birds that can be found in the park. A lot of squirrels, foxes, turkeys, raccoons, snakes, and owls.
We headed on around the road to Ogle Lake. This lake is much bigger at 17 acres We got out and hiked about a third of the way around it. People were fishing in little row boats. Then it was lunchtime. It is not hard to find a picnic table in this park. We ate lunch and decided we were definitely going to go horseback riding. On the way back to the horses, we passed several more lookout towers and lookout points. We found a road that went back into an area where the Family Cabins and the Abe Martin Lodge and cabins were. The Family Cabins are log cabins you can rent. They have 2 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and they sleep 8. They looked very nice.
Did you know that Abe Martin was not a real person? He was a character in a cartoon strip. The artist lived in Nashville, Indiana. The lodge is named after Abe Martin, the character, and each of the other cabins is named after a different character in that cartoon strip.
Okay, to the Saddle Barn. We paid our money and waited only about 15 minutes to saddle up. We lucked out and only had 4 people in our group, plus the guide. Up we go, into the saddle. Okay, I got this. This isn’t so bad. I was last in line, bringing up the rear behind my husband. He looked like he was sitting crooked in the saddle the whole way. He was. Did I mention that he had never ridden a horse before either? We had an absolute ball! Until…about 10 minutes into the ride, I had had enough. You know that inner part of your thigh that gets sore when it rubs on a horse saddle? My inner thigh began to feel like I had been on that horse for 10 days instead of only 10 minutes. Not to mention the pain in my lower back from my degenerative discs.
These horses kept wanting to stop and bend their heads down and eat the grass. Don’t these people feed these horses? A couple of times they even turned completely sideways on the trail. C’mon…straighten back up. Then the guide loudly hollered, “OK, gallop!” What?! Huh?! Ok. So I galloped. Or rather, the horse did. I quickly pulled on the reign and made the horse stop. “Don’t ask me to do that again!” I hollered up to the guide. “Who’s had enough?” I asked. And the girl in front of my husband raised her hand. Did I mention the trail was muddy? The trail was muddy. Oh, and did I mention that it was mountainous? It was mountainous. This meant that the trails went up and down, way up and way down. So far down that the guide told us to push our feet clear forward and lay down on the saddle. Huh?! Really?! So as I laid back in the saddle, my horse lost his footing in the mud, more than once, and he actually slipped! He lost his footing! I think I lost something too!
40 minutes is definitely way too long to be on a horse riding up and down mountainous muddy trails if you don’t know what you are doing and have never been on a horse before. Don’t do it! That night we crashed, and the next morning, the word SORE does not even begin to explain the feeling. It was the day to go home and that was okay. We couldn’t have done anything if we had wanted to. We simply could not move any muscles hardly at all. I think I remember it being quite the chore to pack up and get out of there.
I absolutely loved going to Brown County State Park though. It was beautiful. I will never go horseback riding again probably in my life, but I am glad I did it. I want to go back and take the kids. They will love it. Maybe we will come back next May. It was a beautiful place to spend our 14th anniversary.