Random cowboys, random horseback rides...

Have you ever gone for a hike in the mountains and while minding your own business, a cowboygallops over to you on his horse and asks you if you'd like to take a quick ride?

Yeah... me neither... until last weekend.

SunStars and I were trying to maximize our weekend and get out into the world a bit (it's soooooo easy to just stay in and watch too much Netflix when it's chilly outside, but after having been all over the country, visiting family, during winter break, we still had a bit of wander left in us. He's lived in the Denver area for several years now, but hasn't truly been a tourist in his own town yet. Since I'm new here, I've been finding all sorts of fun local things to explore.

We set out, with puppy in tow, to hike North Table Mountain in Golden. It was a great, and obviously, super popular trail. There were people with their dogs all over the place and it made me happy to see that so many people had also opted for nature instead of Netflix.

I was also a bit shocked to discover that I was super out of shape. The trailhead is on an incline, 'cos duh... you're hiking up a mountain, but I got winded every 3 minutes or so. When we got to the top, things flattened out a bit (yep... it's called Table Mountain for a reason!) and while I was being silly and trying to scale a rock face, a cowboy literally galloped over and demanded that I take a short ride on his horse. While I'd been shocked to find how easily I got winded, I was super stoked that even though I haven't been on a horse in about 5 years, I didn't need any help to climb into the saddle and I knew exactly what to do when SunStars' dog and the pony weren't getting along.

I proceeded to spend the remainder of the hike saying, "I got to ride a pony" and giggling. I was so incredibly happy with my surprise mountain-top horseback ride!

I guess that just goes to show that getting out into the world can have an awesome payoff!