Hill Country Equestrian Lodge

I recommend the Hill Country Equestrian Lodge, which was recommended to me by horse fancier and owner Brian at work.

The friendliness of the Lodge's proprietors Diane and Peter is reflected in their cats. Their dog, Maggie, was standoffish and their horses were initially skeptical of new people who looked like they might try to climb on their backs, but those were the friendliest cats I've seen in a while. Saturday morning we parked ourselves in the wooden chairs on the wooden porch wishing the weather would change so we could say, "Storm's a comin'" and "Yep" when Blinken, seeing us, bounded up and into our laps to be attended to. Another feature of Blinken and his buddies is that they are, to a cat, fluffy. I'm normally partial to short hairs, but these cats were special.

And that's the story of our visit to the Hill Country Feline Lodge.

No it isn't.

Highlights

Hot tubbing under the stars with my new glasses that make the stars all pointy again. There was very little light pollution so the Milky Way was easy to see.

Sleeping in (till after 10 AM on Saturday).

Walking.

Trotting.

Cantering.

Doing it all again Sunday morning.

My horse, a dappled gray mare named Molly (or was it Mali?), was a Cadillac of a horse, requiring only the lightest touch. It was almost as if she knew what to do before I told her. I wonder if the fact that I always wanted her to do what the horse in front of her was doing had anything to do with that. Actually, I did occasionally try to get her to stop so we could trot to catch up. I succeeded but not for long at a time--she seemed uncomfortable getting separated from the others.

Sunday morning we did a fair amount of trotting and cantering. I don't think I've ever cantered a horse before and it was a blast. It was easy to imagine falling off the horse, especially when a blue heron flew up out of the grass next to us and spooked our horses. No lives were lost nor limbs broken, but it gave us an appreciation for Diane's stressing of the importance of balance. First you learn to be centered and balanced on the horse, then you worry about the details of accelerating, decelerating, and steering the horse and shifting gears (though I don't remember Diane using those terms). As far as I can tell after two rides, horses have four gears: walk, trot, canter, and gallop. We never made it up to fourth gear.

It's a shame it's such a long drive to Bandera. We may need to find some place in Austin where we can taking riding lessons.