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Thursday, October 30, 2008

A beautiful weekend in Skaneateles, NY

My very good friend, Claire owns a horse boarding, training, and riding lessons barn just outside of a quaint little town called Skaneateles (pronounced Skinny Atlas), New York.  Scott and I, with dogs in tow, spent the weekend visiting Claire, her friends, and her fabulous business.  We left DC at 3 pm, and surprisingly didn't hit too much traffic.  We got to Claire's place at 11 pm - just enough time to get the grand tour of her charming-despite-the-lack-of-furniture farm house, let our dogs and Claire's dog (Dallas) get to know one another, clean up their messes, then fall head first into bed.

Saturday turned out to be a lazy, rainy, and chilly day, though not nearly as cold as I was expecting.  In my memory, Claire talked about pre-Halloween snow storms, but in reality it was in the low to mid 50's all day.  (Claire assured me that while snow isn't too uncommon before Halloween, my memory was quite faulty).   

That evening, we met Claire's beaux, Rob who was a great conversationalist and really fun to meet!  After a scrumptious dinner and a trip to the local bar (since it had something Claire's house doesn't - a TV to watch the World Series on), we wound up at a friend of Claire's to watch the rest of the game and crashed at around 3 am.

The next morning came early!  The same friend who lent us the TV and couch for the game happens to also own two glider planes, and he picked Scott up at 8:30 to go for a ride.  You may or may not know, but Scott is an avid aviation enthusiast and dreams of getting his pilot's license some day, so he was super excited!

The highlight of my trip (apart from the great people we visited and met) was a horseback ride through the New York country side in gorgeous 70+ degree weather.  It was strikingly beautiful, with a bright blue sky and mountains in the distance.  I rode Geronimo- a giant black and white spotted Friesian/Draft horse with a head the size of Rhode Island.  Scott looked like a pro on Ransom, an appaloosa gelding with a long history of being a good trail horse. 

Thanks, Claire, for a fantastic weekend!  We look forward to seeing you and all of your friends next time you're in DC!!

1 comment:

J. Scott said...

Ransom was a huge horse! I look tiny in that picture. I thought my coat was a different color, though (not pink).