Nikon's Can Fly!

While I was cantering through the most wonderful field and up a slight hillside, my heart jumped for joy! I was actually getting to ride up in the mountains and get to do one of my life long dreams of cantering through a field. When out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something black flying through the air! Then all of a sudden, Mr. Cowboy, who was riding behind me said, "THERE GOES YOUR CAMERA!"

Yes, my camera flew out of my saddle bag and landed on the hillside. I about died. We stopped our ride and Mr. Cowboy jumped off his horse to get my camera. It's not an every day thing when you see your Digital SLR flying through the air. I can only imagine how fast we were cantering and then having my Nikon fly through the air, what kind of damage was done.

Luckily it landed with the LCD screen side down. The lens cap had flown off and we went on a search for it. I was taking pictures to make sure it still worked. Can you believe there wasn't even a scratch on the camera!! I am impressed with the durability! See that field? We cantered through there. You can see the other group of riders behind us. We normally couldn't see them all day long, but because we stopped they caught up to us. The group looked for a little bit but we didn't find the lens cap. I said it wasn't a big deal, at least I have the camera and it was working. Caleb was a good sport about it all. He said he felt really bad for my camera going for a short flight. I told him it wasn't his fault and that I must not have secured my saddle bags tightly. I was glad that my camera was still working. We continued our ride up into the mountains and stopped for lunch. It was a really neat place to stop. We sat on an old tree and enjoyed some sack lunches. We got to see a rainbow and enjoy the peaceful afternoon. Mr. Cowboy rested his feet for a bit. Those are his most favorite boots. He has had them for 12 years. They are Olathe Boots. He has had the soles changed four or five times and he has had new heels put on about that many times too. Those boots have been a lot of places. It will be a sad day when he has to retire them. There were these HUGE dandelions. I thought they were so neat. We don't get very many dandelions in Louisiana. See how super huge it is!! It was all by it's lonesome. I then took some pictures of the wranglers. Yeah, Caleb is crazy!! That's why we love him so much!! Two of the Wranglers were rough stock riders. They had a lot of fun talking to Mr. Cowboy. They all shared battle stories and talked about rough stock riding schools and clinics. I learned something new about Mr. Cowboy. I learned that he was ranked number 2 bullrider in the National Little Britches Rodeo Association back in the day. Some of the teenagers that were there. They were funny girls. Oh to be 13 again. After talking for a bit and some potty breaks we headed back out on the trail. Oh how I wish my upper body would loose some weight. Sigh.....I hate how I look while riding a horse. We had some chances on this trail ride to spread out a bit and get to ride around in the fields. It was nice for a chance not to be all in a straight line. I still have a lot of confidence issues. I made sure I stayed right by Mr. Cowboy. I am such a dork. I used to jump bareback and ride any new horse that came to my old lesson barn. Kids have a way of making your nerves jump through the roof. We got back to the ranch for dinner and then some archery and a game of volleyball. Martine had never done archery before. She was a good sport about trying it and she did a pretty good job. She just cracks me up. Even seeing pictures of her makes me smile. Mr. Cowboy then went up for a go. Hubba Hubba, just look at those arm muscles!!! How you doing? There is just something completely sexy about my husband doing archery. Sigh.......... Mr. Cowboy did very well!! I got a chance to go too. All those years we did archery in gym class paid off!! It was fun to try it again. The last time did archery was when I was a camp counselor. I almost got a bulls-eye. So close!! The sun started to go down and we started a game of volleyball. It was a crazy no score type of game. It was getting pretty serious when someone spotted some Elk up on the mountain. There were three bulls with some pretty nice racks eating up on the mountain side. It was pretty cool. It was also pretty sad because our week vacation was almost over.