In which we go up the Hill of Death and we don't see things the same way

Fiddle and I agree on many things, but our perspective

of the world is, of necessity, quite different.

Pretty view, right?

ME:  Look how far up we are!  I can see Mount Constitution!  I can see Lummi Island!

FIDDLE:  I can see monsters.  Monsters everywhere.  How am I supposed to keep this silly little monkey safe with all these monsters around?


We were out riding with Kitty and Mak.

"Why are we trotting through all the food?"

Fiddle's thoughts about Mak are complicated.  He's a bother.  He's a pest.  Maaaaa, he's LOOKING at me!
  But also...

She sorta loves him.  Like, "sorry, I know he's a gelding and I know I was spayed  four five years ago, but he is soooooo sexy I just gotta pee for him.  And again.  Again...."

Gahhh.

I actually had to use the riding crop to short-circuit the peeing thing and get her mind back on her feet.  Once she was trotting, the peeing thing stopped, thank the stars.

Kitty thought it was hilarious.  

The route we took isn't interesting.  It mostly exists on my training list because it's a Big Steep Freaking Hill.

We weren't aiming for a fast ride. The ground is pretty hard right now (no! rain! lately!) so we walked a bunch of road that I would normally trot.

Plus, of course, the moral obligation to hop off the horse and walk down the hill beside her once we've got to the very top!

That squiggly bit at the top is switchbacks.  Original page HERE

This graph shows the "shape" of the ride...and the shape of the hill!

Several of the hillsides have been logged recently, and I haven't ridden the route for maybe two years, so we didn't take any of the side-trails that might have been more interesting, since I didn't want us to get lost or stuck.  Our route was a straight out-and-back, instead of a loop.


And yet

Color by God and Studio Ghibli

You can't help seeing how pretty the world is from up here.