Surprise Destination

I’m not sure if Abigail was giving Lily the pony a hug or

just decided to use her as a leaning post. The kids had a fun

day visiting the ponies, and Alivia proclaimed it was the

“best surprise ever.”

Surprise Destination

By Allan Olson

This weekend we hit the road, well at least on Saturday, we went on a one day road trip that was about two hours away in a little town called Meadowland, Minnesota. However, the journey getting there was slightly longer as we did some geocaching along the way.

We left home about 8:30 a.m. and the kids were only informed that we were going geocaching and there would be a surprise for them later in the day. We took off heading east, but dropped south of Bena, we visited the little towns of Remer and Hill City before going steering closer to our final destination. Visiting those two towns was intentional as they both filled a goal on my geocaching adventures, the stop in Remer filled one of the pages on the DeLorme Map challenge I’m working on and the other filled another county – Aitkin that I had yet to cross off my list. The first stop in Remer was at the caboose and since it had to be explored by the kids that took the longest. While there we also managed to find the cleverly hidden geocache to fill my map page.

We continued on our journey and found only five more before we had to shift the course of the travels. I had informed the host at our final destination we would be there about 1 p.m. and since I’m normally a stickler for time, I wanted to keep to that schedule. The final destination was to see Nikolai’s pony Lily – he’s had that pony since he was two or three – in a long complicated story we “won” the pony through the Beltrami County Fair. Over the years she’s stayed at many homes, but never with us. Only in recent years have we had a yard that could kind of accommodate her, but with our busy schedules and lack of horse knowledge it’s been best that she stays with a friend. In that time she’s been housed at other places for a variety of reasons – including breeding and most recently training. Over the last several months that she’s been at her latest home she has been given riding instructions and has been able to give rides without someone leading the reins. The trip was one that was more of a last minute plan – I saw a video of someone riding her and I decided that it was time for the kids to visit – so we did.

We arrived on location at the same time as the family friend – my wife’s childhood friend of 30 years, who had also come to check on the progress of the pony. The kids had absolutely no idea where we were – except that the place had horses and that was exciting enough to visit. We visited with the host while she talked about her little farm and in the meantime – Nikolai had already put the pieces together and figured out the intent of the visit, the other three remained clueless. A couple minutes later, Lily was led out of the barn with a saddle and ready to ride – the kids were excited with their surprise visit when they realized not only could the pet the ponies and horses but they could ride as well.

Abigail was the first to climb on Lily and after a little instruction about how to “steer” the pony with the reins they set off on a short walk around the yard. Each of the kids all took a turn learning how to ride the pony and Alivia somehow managed the longest ride. She asked for another turn on her and probably rode her for at least 10-15 minutes by herself. In the meantime a couple of other horses were brought out to ride –including a large draft horse that used to give carriage rides in Duluth’s Canal Park. The large animal was just a gentle giant and all he wanted was attention and if that meant he had to give rides –well he was okay with that also. Another horse the kids made friends with – especially Nikolai – was an old logging horse named Charlie. The big beautiful animal while used to people and kids – still had trust issues from his earlier life of just being used to work and not always treated kindly. Nikolai talked with the horse and pet him for a long time and then was handed a brush to further his grooming treatment. The kids spent about another 30 minutes walking around the pasture with the other horses and said goodbye to them all – especially Lily, the main guest we came to visit. In all we spent over two hours visiting and left confirming what we were already certain of – Lily is once again in good hands.

We did attempt one more geocache on the route home but it wasn’t meant to be and the rest of the way, the kids were tired and crabby so I decided to stay the course and no further stops until we reached our house. My wife departed with her friend at the farm to celebrate their 30^th year of friendship so that evening it was just the kids and I at home. They watched television and I did some things on my computer. On Sunday – I managed to stay in bed until nearly 8:30 a.m. before running to get my niece from college for the day. Later we did some cleaning, made banana bread and zucchini bread and Nikolai made biscuits to go with the gravy for supper.

I would call the weekend – a success.

This weekend is a geocaching weekend – well at least Saturday is. We are heading out on a day trip with my cousin and family, it should be a fun time as long as the weather holds.

Please remember to watch out for the buses that are carrying our most precious cargo. Remember to take pictures to preserve a lifetime of memories. And thanks for reading, and have a great week! Feel free to drop me a line at cltimes1@arvig.net or stop by the office for a visit.