So here is the story of our romantic sunset horse ride on the side of a volcano on Maui on the last night of our second honeymoon. First, I would like you to meet my new friend. Her name is Hanalei…
When we showed up for our ride, we were delighted to find out that there were only four people going… my wife and I, the trail guide, and this cool Hawaiian surfer dude who was learning to work with the horses…
That is our guide on the right, and her new ranch hand riding tall in the saddle, pardners. There is my buddy Hanalei, taking a drink. Now, I happen to know a little bit about horses… because I love them. Some of you may have seen right off that there is something special about Hanalei. Notice the huge hooves and the short. stiff, bristly mane. And look how strong she looks. As soon as I saw her, I asked our guide if she was part draft horse… maybe one of those Belgian ones I couldn’t remember the name of. Our trail guide was very impressed that I had spotted this, and she realized at once that I was no mere city slicker… no dude ranch cowpoke… no urban cowboy… you get the idea.
Because my wife and I were the only people who signed up to ride that night, and because she trusted us not to fall off our horses or get kicked doing something stupid, she did something awesome for us. Usually, with bigger, less experienced groups, she took them to this pond near the mouth of the valley, let them walk around for a half an hour or so while the horses drank some water, and then started them back down the trail. But she asked us if we wanted to cut the rest time a bit, and go further up into the valley…
Well, heck yeah, I wanted to go farther… further? I can never keep those two straight…
And we did… back where the grass is tall and the pot farmers have their secret pot fields…
It was so awesome… oh… dang it… you can see my wife’s head up there, sticking above our guide’s head… I am not supposed to put pictures of my wife on the blog…
Whoops… there she is again… And don’t go thinking that I was riding in back the whole time. I happen to be a much more experienced rider than my wife, and I was leading the way for a while, but I took these after we turned around to start back down, as can be seen by the fact that you can see the ocean and an island in the distance in this next photo…
Another neat thing about this little adventure is that it was a sunset ride…
It wasn’t the most spectacular sunset we saw on Maui…
But watching the sun sink into the Pacific ocean from the back of a horse on Maui is pretty cool…
I took one last look at the valley as we crossed the road and put an end to our journey…
And then I couldn’t resist taking a picture of our monster-vomit-green convertible Mustang as the sun disappeared… because… you know… Mustangs are horses… so… uh… yeah…
If you ever end up on Maui, give these folks a call…
The Lahaina Stables… totally worth it.
