Giddyup!

A few weeks back Ross and I decided to do a tourist thing on one of our days off. Thanks to the plethora of coupons that can be found, we headed down to Kualoa Ranch in Ka'a'awa for horseback riding. They were booked solid of course. I hadn't thought to call ahead to reserve a spot on any of the tours. But the ranch is a tourist spot. And as such...large groups are often to be found. They were able to squeeze us in later in the day...tagging us onto a group of young boys and a mom out for a birthday party. The smaller group size was much more comfortable than the 15-20 heads they usually have out at a time.

The trail wanders lazily through the brush and trees around the ranch. A few head of cattle can be spotted here and there. A few bunkers remaining from WWII dot the field at the end of the trail. Throughout you are offered gorgeous views of the ocean, Chinaman's Hat (Mokoli'i Island) and the Koolau Mountains. The scenery is astounding. It's no wonder so many films are shot in this area.These are trail horses. We knew they'd be slow, stubborn and pretty much running on auto pilot. Mine, Chocolate, was one of the older horses and one of the few females. Stubborn doesn't begin to describe her. She was bound and determined to get there in her own sweet time despite coaxing from our trail guide and several kicks to the ribs from me. On the contrary Ross' horse, Spot, decided to stay as close and friendly with the horse in front of him as possible. In reality we all had very little control over the creatures we rode, but it was still fun...a slow leisurely plod in the valley.

Kualoa offers quite a few other activities. One we might be back for is the movie set tour...the ranch did host several blockbusters such as Jurassic Park, Godzilla, 50 First Dates and Pearl Harbor. Their footprints, sometime quite literally, are stamped in the ground.

No such lazy days await the next two days off...busy busy busy...