Maplewood Trail Riding Date!!

This weekend Travis and I enjoyed our first "date night" in about 6 months (and not sure the last date night really counts, since we were with family)... it's our first date night alone since I was pregnant. I mean, I'm pretty sure we must have had a date night when I was pregnant. I can't remember one. The last night date night I really remember was when we drank a whole bottle of wine at an upscale eatery and then hit the town, and that was definitely BEFORE I was pregnant. Anyway, the point is, this was a long time coming! Travis' parents took the girls on Friday. Then after work I ran home and we dressed upand then hit the Fargo street fair with NO kids in tow!! After that we went to a burger joint called Sickie's Garage (they sub a veggie burger)... SO good! They make all kinds of crazy burgers. I had a "jalapeno popper" burger with jalapenos, a sweet chili sauce and a cream cheese spread. YUM! And sweet potato fries and micro brew... food heaven. Travis had a "tater tot hot dish" burger and a "Philly cheesesteak" burger. We were there pretty late, and then hit a local bar in Glyndon for fun on the way home. Kind of an anticlimactic end since the bar only had a handful of sad-looking locals, but Travis and I whooped it up with darts and an arcade hunting game.

Soooo... getting up the next morning at 6:30am to load up the horses for our planned trail ride was a little bit rough, but we grabbed some coffee and energy drinks and headed out!

 In between some crazy weather (heat index of 103 Sunday and crazy wind on Friday) we had the most beautiful riding day. Saturday was mostly sunny and in the high 70's with a light breeze.

 Starting out on a beautiful, wooded trail.

 

 Maplewood is full of pretty lakes and ponds.

 

 

 There were lots of open, rolling hills and very steep wooded hills. We had to go over and around some trees and walk through water... lots of fun trail terrain! The horses were amazing.

 

 Deer!

 

 

 Travis snapped lots of scenery :)

 

 

 

 

 So pretty and peaceful!

 I found a really nice hiker who took a pic of us on Sunny and Bella :) We only saw a few hikers, and some row boats on the lakes, and one group with horses.

 

 

 After a brief rest with grazing and a picnic the horses were super feisty and we did some hand galloping on some of the more open trails! Hence the very sweaty horse. So fun. I mean, I was singing and yelling yee-haw a lot. That's how fun it was! ;)

At the end of our ride! The trail head had FILLED with horse trailers by the time we left around 2, so I'm glad we got there at 9am and had the place to ourselves for so long! We can't wait to go to Maplewood again. What a treat!