Wow. That's about all I can say about how my morning was. I am almost speechless. I had the day off work so I could go horse hunting in the morning then spend a couple of hours in a cold movie theater for opening day of Dolphin Tale 2. First I had to grab my hunting snacks of a couple of Six Cheese Bagels from Einstein Brothers and a Razmatazz Smoothie from Jamba Juice. Now that I start work at 6:30am and that's when they open, I don't get to enjoy them all that often, which is probably good. Hahaha. Anyway, I headed out on my 'route' and as I crossed the river I looked where they were last time, but no joy. But WAIT! They were in a big open area just north of the river so I had to get turned around and come back. I'd made sure to charge my camera batteries yesterday and I already knew there was a memory card in my camera. Missing both has happened to me a couple of times before. Not fun.
After taking some pictures I headed on up north and exited the highway heading east. Up ahead was a vehicle pulling a couple of trailers, which I quickly discovered were horse trailers. EMPTY horse trailers. There was a big stock trailer and behind that was a smaller bumper-pull. Momentarily I thought maybe it contained horses for the new riding stable I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, but then I saw that it was empty and I started to become concerned for the wild horses. A couple of weeks ago I read that a bunch had been stolen from a holding facility in Wyoming, I think it was. Eventually, though, he turned and headed towards Mesa. It was still an odd sight, though. A pick-up pulling a big trailer, pulling a small trailer and on a road full of twists, turns and dips. I was actually glad to find the bigger trailer was empty because I'd feel bad for the horses trying to keep themselves balanced on that road, even if the driver was going pretty slow and kept pulling to the middle of the road to let other cars pass.
From there it was to my next spots, but all I saw was an older dude riding a Mule. That caught me off-guard because I don't think I've ever seen a Mule in person before. I didn't realize how tall they are! We exchange waves and went in opposite directions. I headed back the way I came and that's when I hit my first pay dirt. This one area, there's a recreational area on each side of the road, both with it's own name, but part of the same river. I'd already gone to the one on the north side of the road so I went to the south one this time. I turned down the road and had to stop almost immediately. About ten feet in front of me was a small family unit: stallion, mare, and young foal. Maybe about six or seven months old. They were moving so I grabbed my camera and took a bunch of pictures. I then decided to go check the other side of the road again. I'd seen a large horse trailer go down there and I was curious. Turned out to be a commercial horse transport, probably local-ish, and the driver seemed to not really know where she was or where she was going. The reason I think it was a local transport is because of the type of trailer it was. Just a pick-up pulling a long trailer. All the other transports I've seen were semi-pulled or one big unit. So I turned around and headed out down the road and less than ten minutes later got my second surprise...a group of six horses along the side of the road. I've never seen them outside the fence line so, of course, I was worried about their safety since a spooked horse is a dangerous one and I was concerned some idiot would honk their horn at me or slam on their brakes when they spotted the animals and the noise would scare them and cause them to run out into the road. I parked my car on the opposite side and got out with my camera and just kind of stalked them for a couple of minutes. There was a break in the fence and two of them went through it so I tried to encourage the others to follow. Once they were all on the other side of the fence they weren't really in a place I could photograph them without going to that side of the road so I headed back to my car and drove on. It was just a really neat experience and I hope my pictures turn out decently. Every now and then I think of doing one of those photo books with some of my better pictures, especially when I get an offer for a free one, but I haven't done it, yet. I did one of some of my better zoo pictures and right now I'm not even 100% sure where it is. Hahaha. But I will try to get some pictures up for you on Monday. Yes, I have a laptop at home I could upload them to and share them over the weekend rare than Monday, but it's just easier to do it from work.
Well, I guess that's it for now. I'm about to look at the magazines at Barnes & Noble to see if I 'need' any hen head to the movies. Hope you all have a great day and a fantastic weekend.
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