More About Horses

A few weeks ago I blogged about the Westernaires Equestrian Center, which is located right next to the Jefferson County Fairgrounds, in beautiful, exotic Lakewood, Colorado.  You can bring your own horse and ride up into the foothills, or else rent a horse at the center and ride on your own or with a group.  It reminded me that my mother Mary, father Nelson, my mother's parents Louise and Bill, and my mother's good friend Peggy all drove together to Colorado from Chicago back in the late 1930s.  They visited the Garden of the Gods, Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, and also went horseback riding while they were here.  I found the photograph above in one of my photo albums, along with quite a few others.  My mother is on the left, my father on the right, and my mother's friend Peggy is in the center.  My mother often spoke to me about this trip.  My Grandfather Spillard did the driving. There were no interstate highways back then, and it took forever.  My grandfather would start thinking about something, and would begin driving very slow, then speed up, and then slow down once again, all this during a hot summer in the Midwest.   Also, the horse my mother was riding did not like the way she was riding it, and kept giving her dirty looks.  She never rode a horse again, although there was not much horse riding opportunities back on the South Side of Chicago. Probably a good thing.