Oregon Vacation: Horseback Riding

On the evening of our engagement day I had planned for us to go on a beautiful sunset horse ride on the Bandon beach at the Bandon Riding Stables. I had been to this place in the fall of 2007 when I had gone with my sister, niece, nephew, and my uncle Lou’s girlfriend. That 2007 horseback ride was wonderful and pleasant and I hoped I could provide the same experience for my lovely fiancée!

However, my great plan did not go quite as I had hoped.

We arrived at the riding stables about 20 minutes before we were schedule to leave. We looked around the stables, enjoyed the scenery, and enjoyed each other’s company. Once everyone who had signed up for the sunset rides had arrived, the group leader selected a horse for each of us, helped us up onto the horse, and gave us brief instructions. Our ride started out well with everyone getting used to their horse and making the final adjustments before leaving.


After a short trip down their driveway and along a small section of the road, we made our way down to the beach. After about five to ten minutes we arrived down on the beach. The scenery was absolutely amazing with the sun getting ready to set and so I thought I would get out my camera to take some pictures. I had done this the previous year while horseback riding, focusing on holding onto the mane whilst taking pictures. The horse during the previous year had no problems with this, but within seconds of taking my camera out the horse freaked out and started turning quickly and began running around in circles. I held on, listening to the leader of the group trying to tell me what to do, and I did what they had told me, but within about 5 to 10 seconds I fell of the horse and landed the wet sand. The angle which I landed resulted in my landing on my left hand (in which also had my digital camera) and my lower back (lower spine). As you can imagine I was scared and stunned at what had just occurred, but I gathered up my strength, stood up, and hobbled back to the group.

My body must have been pumping a lot of adrenaline into my body because in the first few minutes after falling off of the horse I was not in that much pain, but it became apparent after a while how much I had been injured. The leader of the group had me get on the lead horse since they did not want me to ride the crazy horse any more. That was quite the experience because the lead horse did not really want to stop ever and so when the group leader(s), who were behind me wanted to stop, it was a challenge to get the horse to stop or even slow down.

At the turn-around point of our horse ride, during the group picture taking, I decided that I didn't want to ride anymore and couldn't ride the rest of the way back to the stables. I had to walk a 1/2 mile to get back to the riding stables while Annah had to ride her horse back with the rest of the group. It sucked, but we were reunited at the end of the ride and we embraced each other and were happy that we were back in each other's arms!

It was quite the experience...but not quite what I had expected. But it will be a good story to tell our children!