# All of you with your fancy hills and trees and scenery..



## Poseidon (Oct 1, 2010)

*cough* Wallaby, for one. *cough*:wink:

I have none of that. 

Abby and I went for our second ride outside today. This time by ourselves. Just down a straight gravel road. She balked a couple times because she seems to think her shadow is going to eat her, but we got through it and we powerwalked on! 

1. Abby sporting her new breastcollar I got in the mail today from dustycowgirl81. It matches my saddle perfectly. Now maybe to put some oak leaves and acorns on it.. Also, she looks terrified. This is actually her "What exactly are you holding?" face. 
2. Power walk!
3. More walking on the road.
4. This is basically what the majority of North Dakota looks like (granted, I was actually about 10 miles into Minnesota). It's more colourful when the crops bloom (especially canola and alfalfa). It's times like this I wish I lived in the badlands. That would make for some fantastic riding. 


Anyway, that's my retort to you guys with lovely trails in the woods that post all of your pretty pictures.


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## Wallaby (Jul 13, 2008)

That road looks like it'd be soooo much fun to run on! Also I distinctly love Abby's "what exactly are you holding?" face. She looks absolutely traumatized. XD And I like your breastcollar, it's classy.

It's not flat enough here to really run for very long. Either you start going hardcore up and then your horse starts being all "OMG!! Cannot breath!" or you start going downhill and you start going "OMG!! This crazy horse is going to trip over her feet and kill us all!" = not so fun. 

ETA- I totally missed that first line! hahahaha I would gladly trade with you for a week.  Or, I'll just bring you some trees from Oregon and we can plant them (since we are obviously big burly fully-grown-tree planting men) and then we can ride our ponehs among them!  Yay! Perfect solution.


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## Poseidon (Oct 1, 2010)

Almost every picture I have of her, she looks like she's about to be killed. Darned Paint genes. 

I don't think she liked the lope on the gravel much. I tried it and she didn't want to go very fast, which was surprising. I would have in the grass along the fields, but there are massive gopher holes everywhere. She didn't seem to notice them when we were walking on the edge of the grass either. She would edge herself over ever so slightly until we were close enough to the grass and I was enjoying a relaxing ride, then stop dead and grab a bite. I'll probably have bruises on my inner thighs from hitting my pommel when she stopped like that.


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## Lolamae (Apr 17, 2011)

You aren't the only one with long straight roads believe me.  

I have that too, although we do have a bit of Crown Conservation to break it up, frozen in winter, rutted and flooded in Spring, impassable because of flies in summer:-( Trail riding here can be pretty boring, can be? IS 

The only advantage that I can think of to straight roads 10 miles long is that you can see the traffic coming for miles ahead. 









That is frozen swamp on either side of the road and there is actually a CORNER, a very rare thing!

I used to have 2000 acres of mountain right on the other side of my paddock gate where I lived before, with 1000's more within hacking distance...bit of a difference to tobacco country here.


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## Poseidon (Oct 1, 2010)

Our frozen swamps have thankfully retreated back into the ground. 

I'll have some lovely fields to lope in at the summer camp I work at. We're going in a couple weeks and will be there until probably the middle of August. Woo!


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

Wow. I would go nuts with so much flat land. I NEED mountains. How else do you know where you are? Endless flatland makes me feel the opposite of claustrophobic; agora phobic? But, I realize there is a beauty and a soul to every landscape.


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## Poseidon (Oct 1, 2010)

Agoraphobic is the fear of going outside, so maybe? And we have road signs! :lol:

More trees than just wind barriers make me feel claustrophobic. I imagine mountains would be the same..if I had ever seen one. The nearest ones are in Montana, but I've never been there. I like the openness.

I'll have to post pictures when the crops are in bloom in a few months. It's so pretty. Canola is bright yellow and alfalfa is purpley-blue. It goes on for miles. At the summer camp I work at, there's a canola field across the lake that looks like the sun when it's all yellow.


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## corinowalk (Apr 26, 2010)

Here are a few scenery shots from random rides in my area. Some with Frog ears, some with Scooter ears.


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## Poseidon (Oct 1, 2010)

Jealous. It's so green and pretty!


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## corinowalk (Apr 26, 2010)

Spring in PA is very very Green. Winter in PA is very yucky tho.


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## Hrsegirl (Mar 16, 2010)

Ohh North Dakota eh? I love it tho  Yes, it pretty much does look like that everywhere...


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

Po, boring as it may be sometimes, I much prefer landscape like yours to those with choking trees and surrounding mountains. If I cannot see the horizon in at least one direction, I start feeling incredibly claustrophobic. Though all that green is pretty, I will take my brown just so I can see for a couple of miles in all directions :wink:.

Love the pictures and Abby looks great in her get-up. That is so funny that she looks so worried about what you're doing LOL.

Tiny, flat land is pretty easy to navigate so long as visibility is good. It's easy to remember that the town you see 12 miles off to your left is Thistown and that means that the _one_ tree on the horizon marks the western direction. Plus, it doesn't matter how far you ride, you can still turn around and see your barn in the distance :wink:.


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## Poseidon (Oct 1, 2010)

smrobs said:


> Po, boring as it may be sometimes, I much prefer landscape like yours to those with choking trees and surrounding mountains. If I cannot see the horizon in at least one direction, I start feeling incredibly claustrophobic. Though all that green is pretty, I will take my brown just so I can see for a couple of miles in all directions :wink:.


So do I. If you drive over the river into Minnesota and go about 30 miles in, there are trees that just exist and don't serve as wind barriers. :shock: Going down by the Cities bothers me quite a bit because there's so many people and buildings and I can't see the horizon. That was one of the hesitations I had about becoming a Film Major: If I actually liked it and stuck with it, I would be reluctant to move because it's so open here (and the population of the entire state is like 674,000 ). Luckily, I realized I don't like film and am rather bad at it.. :lol:

I'm not going to lie, I don't think I would enjoy the brown. Right now everything here is brown-ish with some green edging, but shortly it will all be green, then a variety of colours and a lot of golden. Then white...and more white..and still white. Haha.

I remember my 10th grade English teacher telling us about how a friend of hers from some big city in a larger state came to visit her. She showed him around and, at the time, she lived in a very small town. She told us he said, "You would have to be very comfortable with yourself to stand out here like this because you can't hide."


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## flytobecat (Mar 28, 2010)

I don't know about fancy trees, but we definitely have scenary and lots of cactus.
While the ground can be flat, that is not always the case. :mrgreen:


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## Poseidon (Oct 1, 2010)

Cacti! My aunt and uncle lived in Arizona for years and sent us Arizona Highway calendars every year. I've never been there though.

I want to go riding here:










In the Badlands. Particularly Medora. They're in the southwest corner of the state and the exception to the utter flatness. It's gorgeous there. I think it was 8th grade we went on a trip there and went on a trail ride. Fantastic.


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## flytobecat (Mar 28, 2010)

Poseidon - Me too! That looks fun.
Corina - I miss green so much. Spring here is beautiful, but very short lived. Big sigh!


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## Moonstruck (Apr 22, 2011)

LOL! Her face is P R I C E L E S S! :rofl: It looks beautiful out there. I long to be in wide open spaces like this. I live in S. Florida and there isn't too much of that here.. Unless it's in the everglades and you wanna be eaten alive!


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## Lolamae (Apr 17, 2011)

flytobecat said:


> I don't know about fancy trees, but we definitely have scenary and lots of cactus.
> :mrgreen:












Oh my! What I would give to just see that sort of terrain for real, let alone ride in it. I guess it is like everything, if it is normal then one becomes quite blase about it and takes it for granted. 

I grew up in England, rolling hills, trees and very, very green,(a lot like corinowalk's pictures) then I lived in Wales with the mountains, now here in Ontario it is so flat and deadly dull in comparison. 

The highest point in the *whole* of Ontario is no higher than my paddocks in Wales!:-( I prefer hills, even better, mountains, but with them comes rain, and I *hate* the rain and mud. Spring this year has been (is being) awful, it has rained non stop for 4 days and my fields have geese and ducks swimming in them:-x Again.


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## Poseidon (Oct 1, 2010)

Moonstruck said:


> LOL! Her face is P R I C E L E S S! :rofl:


She is a master of facial expressions. Her grumpy face is quite possibly the best one. She was not in the mood that day.


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## mls (Nov 28, 2006)

Poseidon said:


> This is basically what the majority of North Dakota looks like (granted, I was actually about 10 miles into Minnesota).


Were you at the Red River Valley horse fair last weekend?


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## Poseidon (Oct 1, 2010)

Unfortunately, no. I think I thought about it, but I had to work 7-3 those days, then came home and fell asleep. Haha.


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## mls (Nov 28, 2006)

It was pretty quiet. Saturday was cold, wet and windy. Sunday was better but still chilly sitting in the barn all day!


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## Poseidon (Oct 1, 2010)

Lame! I was thoroughly not impressed about getting up at 6 on Saturday only to walk outside and it be all cold and rainy. Thankfully, I work in a pool where it's warm and humid.


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## corinowalk (Apr 26, 2010)

flytobecat - PA has tons of trails, just trailer in! I'll even ride with ya if you can stand my horse swooning over yours...lol 

I used to trail ride more desert-y type terrain when I live in SoCal. I loved that too! The green always gets me though.


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## Whisper22 (Jan 2, 2011)

flytobecat said:


> I don't know about fancy trees, but we definitely have scenary and lots of cactus.
> While the ground can be flat, that is not always the case. :mrgreen:












I recognize the Superstition Mountains, I'm guessing Gold Canyon or Queen Valley area.


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## Moonstruck (Apr 22, 2011)

Poseidon said:


> She is a master of facial expressions. Her grumpy face is quite possibly the best one. She was not in the mood that day.


:lol: she is just too much! <3


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## GeminiJumper (Jun 12, 2008)

Oh don't worry, we've got all the boring straight country roads you could ask for here in Illinois. Miles and miles of gravel roads and corn and beans on both sides!


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## flytobecat (Mar 28, 2010)

Whisper -its the Sups-I'm north closer to Gold Canyon
Corino -I might take you up on that some day.


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