WW: Panama

I went to Panama this summer for a birding trip - nothing like jumping headfirst into a new hobby by traveling internationally to look at birds. It was so much fun and I figured I'd share pictures on this blog just for kicks. 

This is a Great-Tailed Grackle, they are so absurd

First night we stayed at this hotel by the water

Explored the city a bit

Then flew across the country and headed to our
destination in the Chiriqui Highlands

Our target bird for the trip was the Three-Wattled
Bellbird and we found it! It's a crazy bird

The lodge had a TON of hummingbirds

And other birds too

One day we went down to the lowlands to see
different species, like this giant tree chicken

And this beautiful tanager

Even more hummingbirds

It was so green and beautiful there!

The place we stayed grew coffee! So we did a
coffee tasting and it was great

I think I took the best hummingbird photos of my
life there

The last day we flew out somewhat early back to
PTY, so we went to this Canopy Tower

We saw a sloth there!

And obviously more hummingbirds

It was such a fun trip! My first international trip actually. I've spent so much of my life pouring all of my resources (time, money, blood/sweat/tears) into horses that it's been really fun to be able to do more with my life in the last year or so. I'm heading to Uruguay in about a month (!!!) for another birding trip. I really hope to be able to keep my resources well distributed when TC comes back to work. I want to ride more than I have been able to in the past few years, but I also want to keep traveling too! 

Jumping Lesson in San Diego!

When I decided to head down to San Diego, I told L that I wanted to do three things: eat lots of tacos, see lots of ponies, and take a jumping lesson from her trainer (if that was possible, and it was)! 

It was so fun!!

Definitely jumping ahead but that's... going to take
me a while I think lol

I had kind of been slacking on my jumping lately AND I realized that I’d only been jumping Flounder since my return to jumping. I love the fish but he’s obviously just one horse who has one type of jump and I was worried it’d take me a bit to figure out this new horse. I also worried that riding at a nice hunter barn in purple full seat breeches would be real awkward. 

Trainer DY is the NICEST person in the world and also so so good at what she does. She put me on the horse who actually attacked L, he can be a little snarky on the ground (not a surprise) but the moment I was on him, he was such a good boy. Not spooky, not lazy or hot, high enough tone to be super rideable but not so high tone that he felt tense. I immediately felt comfortable on him even though my stirrups were very short the correct length for jumping small fences. 

Dante's ears are so cute!

DY had us warm up with some forward and back, alternating between doing some work in sitting trot/full seat in canter and posting trot/jumping position in canter. I got my bearings but remembered that my short little jump stirrups took away the effectiveness of my leg aids and Mirlo slowly realized that I was not very effective even if my butt felt educated. I always wonder what the horses think when I get on them in jump tack. Like oh shoot this butt knows what it's doing... LOL the legs don't though *slows down*

We built up slowly through the lesson, first riding over a cross rail from the trot, then the canter, then stringing two cross rails together, eventually ending up with a little course! My little jumper horse (who has showed extensively in the meter jumpers and some hunters and equitation I think) definitely had a very different jump from Flounder’s and I tried to explain what I was feeling so DY could understand what to tell me. She said that this horse was more of an upright jumper, so he padded off the ground more aggressively than a horse with a flatter jump. Flounder doesn’t feel super flat, but he definitely doesn’t have this drop in front of the jump, he’s a bit softer off the ground I guess? I don't have the words to describe it at this point. 

I much preferred the longer spots even though they
made me want to jump ahead

Much of what DY had to tell me was what Kate tells me in our lessons, so it was great to hear the same things in different words. Mostly I needed to not jump ahead, keep my eyes up, and keep him upright through the turns and to the fences (he wanted to lean left). I worked really hard to make sure that my lines were well ridden given that I was at a really nice hunter barn and I caught myself leaning through the corners sometimes, woops. DY emphasized the flatwork between the jumps and that kind of woke me up a bit. I'm a dressage rider, I can ride flatwork. So I redoubled my efforts and things got better. 

By the end I felt like I kind of got the hang of his jump. It was so fun to jump a different horse (although I still adore Flounder and am probably too attached to him at this point lol) and especially fun to be in a group lesson with one of my very best friends!! I told L that I hoped that the next time I visit, she and Dante will be jumping so big that it wouldn't make sense to have a lesson together, but maybe DY can still make it work. I definitely want to take more lessons from her! 

Such a good packer horse for me!

Jumping remains so fun for me, it's such a breath of fresh air with how I've been feeling about dressage. Although my post tomorrow about my lesson with my local trainer should read a little more positive. Still, it's fun to have jumping to fall back on as my fun horse activity these days (and Sunny's western dressage training, which is still going, I just haven't had time to post about him!). Major thanks to L and DY for making my weekend in San Diego even more fun by letting me jump, yay!

Post Pandemic Tacos and Ponies

This last weekend I got on a plane for the first time since January 2020! It was definitely a weird experience, but I was only on the plane for an hour because I went to visit L in San Diego! I hadn’t been down to see her since her wedding TWO YEARS AGO, it felt like way too long. 

My welcoming crew at the barn

I flew down Friday at 2:30 and she came to pick me up around 4. One of my favorite things about visiting horse friends is that they frequently pick me up from the airport and take me straight to the barn, and that’s what we did! We went to go see Dante and turn him out to roll. I hadn’t seen L’s new barn yet (and it’s not even that new at this point lol) so I got a quick tour of both the barn she’s currently at and the one next door that she used to be at. It’s such a nice barn! The arenas had good footing and the turnouts were super fancy (and TC proof, there was hot wire between the boards lol I will forever be obsessed with checking if fencing is TC proof). 

After playing with Dante and me making him smile until he was annoyed with me, we headed home to go get tacos. When I told L what I wanted to do this weekend, it was very simple: horses and tacos. I haven’t had really good tacos in a very long time, we have one or two restaurants up here that come close to the quality of tacos you can get in San Diego, but honestly nothing compares. We walked down with T and each got a taco and shared nachos. 

I already miss the food SO much

That evening L had a grad school zoom which T and I both attended, it was super fun but I got distracted by an equine physical therapy book that L showed me. I immediately ordered it because it went into specific detail on the muscles of the horse and what the development of each muscle can tell you about how your horse works. For example, the longitimus dorsi is the back muscle most commonly affected by saddle fit and the thoracic sling is what dictates whether the horse has a dip in front of the withers, not the cervical trapezius as I thought before. I definitely want to read this book when it comes to me and I’ll share what I find out. 

We definitely stayed up too late because we got to talking about a video game I couldn’t beat that I happened to have there with me and T offered to beat it for me (there’s way more to do after you beat it but I stopped playing it last year because my SO told me that he didn’t want to beat it for me and I think he thought that’d just motivate me to try harder and it did not). We did finally go to sleep though!

My horse was smaller than Dante, which I
appreciated lol

The next morning, we walked to get breakfast at a really delicious breakfast place. I don’t know why but I was super hungry on this trip, probably just being at a place with amazing food and finally getting to visit friends? I dunno, but I devoured my breakfast. 

After that, L and I were off to the barn again to take a lesson! Both of us actually! I had asked L if her trainer had lesson horses and if I could take a lesson and she said yes and signed us up for a semi private lesson. Because Dante is doing smaller confidence building work, he is jumping the same height I’ve been jumping on Flounder so it worked out perfectly. I’ll talk more specifically about the lesson tomorrow but it was AMAZING, I learned a ton and had so much fun. 

We stopped by the grocery store to pick up some supplies for the evening because we had a fire in the backyard with some friends, one of them being Carrie! We laughed that I’d escaped the falling ash in the bay to then just inhale a bunch of smoke from the fire when it’d blow at me, but it was worth it. We ordered pizza and ate chips and guacamole. L had picked up a pie from the store, which was so good I honestly looked into having one delivered to my house this week (and even texted the SO “I’m considering ordering us a pie” and he wrote back “wat?”) but the shipping was as much as the pie itself. Oh well. Carrie also made a chocolate mochi cake with peanut butter frosting which was AMAZING and has inspired me to eat more mochi in general. 

Thule dog is the most adorable

The next morning, we had pie for breakfast and then headed out to the barn! L had asked me to bring all my fun rider aids and I did! I brought my Equicube, my rider bands, and the Mary Wanless rider belt. 

You may wonder, did I get stopped by TSA for any of this stuff and the answer is yes I did. The Equicube must have looked like something I could smuggle stuff in because the poor TSA man pulled it out and looked at it with the most hilariously confused facial expression. He looked back at me, back at the cube, turned to see if any other agents might be able to explain this to him, then he took out a wand thing to rub all over it, shrugged to himself, and put it back. I figured it was better to just stay quiet than to go into grave detail about what the cube was and how it worked. 

We took Dante out and L warmed him up and then I gave her the rider aids one by one. I ended up leaving the Equicube with L because it was so helpful to her and we conspired to see if she could have her trainer use it in lessons and maybe buy one for the barn so she could use it. Fingers crossed!

I then got a turn on Dante and WOW he is so grown up now! I haven't ridden him since like... 2017? 2018? Because I saw L twice in 2019, once for her horsey bachelorette party when I had mono (so couldn't ride) and once for her wedding (we were too busy to ride). L has done such a fabulous job with him, he felt really good. 

Dante, you better like jumping or I'll
make you into a dressage horse
muahahaha

After riding, we came back home and then too soon, we were heading out to drop me off at the airport to fly home. The SO came to get me and I pretty much immediately went to bed and slept ten hours lol!

I forgot how much I adore visiting my friends. Things have obviously been tough with TC’s continued muscle issues this year and it was so nice to both get away from the stress of that and to have L to talk to about it. She gave me a lot of really good ideas and I walked away feeling a bit more hopeful.

I had a super ride on him yesterday and I have a lesson with local trainer today, then tomorrow he gets his teeth done. 

No Cars Allowed

Last we left off, I was four days into my reluctant time away from TC. Wednesday morning, we took off toward Mackinac Island, a small island in between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan.

The island has a place in my heart because as a kid, it was the BEST place. It has NO cars on it, just HORSES! They also make amazing fudge. Sugar and horses, definitely my longest two loves of my life.

When we were in Michigan previously, I had wanted to go there, but it's a 2.5 hour drive from where we were staying (the cabin on the lake) and it's not really a day trip kind of place unless you're closer, as it requires you to ferry over to the island and ferry back. This time, I was excited to be able to go.

The Fort

The Grand Hotel

We got there midday on Wednesday and after checking in at our really cute suite/condo/bungalow place, opted to eat a late lunch (or for me, a very late breakfast) right away. It was delicious, though this was the moment I began REALLY missing ethnic food, or just any kind of food with spices.

From there, I stopped by a fudge shop because you JUST can't not. My family and I stood waiting for our carriage tour, eating fudge and chatting about the horses.

The carriage tour was AMAZING! Highly recommended, it was absolutely beautiful. We went through town a bit and learned about the history, then headed up past the Grand Hotel and to the Butterfly Conservatory. When we got up to the conservatory, they let us off to wander around a bit before we got on another carriage (they do this to make sure the horses aren't overworked). There was a cute little spot there to wander around, so we got off the carriage and wandered. They had some information about the horses, mostly their enormous shoes, which was interesting. My mom told me that they were TC sized, they were not.

Once back on a new carriage, we went into the woods and saw a few interesting historical places (skull rock, arch rock, some cemeteries, and Fort Mackinac) before arriving back at town.

Carriage tour horses (not ours though)

The drivers talked a lot about the horses and horse care, as it's a common question. Apparently most horses only work the summer months because there's not much going on in the winter. There are 500+ horses on the island in the summers and only about 20 on the island in the winter (because there are people who live there year round and they need to get around/get deliveries/etc). The horses don't work a ton, maybe one or two hours each day total and they live in stalls with group pasture turnout when on the island and they live in large pastures when off the island. It's easier to bring the horses to the food vs bring the food to the horses in the winter. The drivers are in charge of their horse care, our first driver had four horses (two pairs) that were "hers" to care for. So it's nice that they get to have consistent people working with them, all handlers are professionally trained.

I was impressed with the horses in a few ways. First, they were all in good weight and had pretty good muscle on them for horses who pull carts at a walk all the time. Their farrier care mostly looked good (one of them that I saw was a bit long and one had a loose shoe but other than that) and while they were sweaty and occasionally breathing hard, my horse is also sweaty and occasionally breathes hard. Apparently many of the horses stay in work on the island until their mid-20s! But they are always retired when they let their people know they're done working.

I was also beyond impressed with their tolerance. There are bikes EVERYWHERE, people yelling and running (in addition to there just being so many people there), the Fort has cannon/gunfire at least three times a day, and the ferries are pretty loud too. TC would definitely be skeptical of at least the cannon/gunfire and ferries, and I consider him pretty unflappable outside the arena.

Carriage in the gardens of the Grand Hotel

Such sweet ponies

I definitely looked up a lot about horses on the island during some down time. Apparently there is an equestrian center outside of the tourism area, you can board your horse there for $60/night, there's an outdoor arena and a round pen. It costs about $200 per horse to get the horse onto the island, you drive your trailer directly onto a ferry and unload the horse in the ferry (when it's docked), tack them up, and ride them to the equestrian center. I'm pretty sure there's a separate dock for that (we saw it on our bike ride, much quieter than the one on Main st). There are 60+ miles of trails on the island and they looked beautiful, I'd love to teleport TC over to the island and ride him on those trails.

If you can't bring your own horse, you can lease a horse for an absurd amount of money if it's a monthly rate. It's $2,000 to lease (again not sure if that's for the entire summer or per month) and you get 14 hours a week with the horse that you have to arrange with the people in charge.

Or, if you're just visiting, I saw that there were horses for rent for $50/hour. You can just take them off by yourself. I think they require you to go on a guided ride if you've never been near an animal bigger than a dog, but I for sure could have just taken a horse and wandered around on the trails, and I was tempted to do this but it's expensive and I have my own horse at home. It felt like I was driving past a restaurant trying to convince myself that I HAVE FOOD AT HOME. I mayyyy have mentioned to my family that it'd be nice to ride so that I could practice what I had learned in my lesson before I left.

Delivery horses

Heading up our street in the taxi

Wednesday night ended with a quick bite to eat at a bar and then wandering around on Main St in the evening after all of the day-time tourists left. Staying on the island is definitely a bit pricier than not (there was no cost to stay in MQT because we stayed with extended family, so it was easier to justify the two nights on Mackinac), but it was totally worth it IMO. The evenings and early mornings are beautiful and quiet.

On Thursday morning, first on our list after breakfast was renting bikes (way cheaper than horses) and biking around the island. It's an 8.2 mile loop and it's pretty much all paved and flat. It was SO much fun. I think it was really good for me to have a kind of exhausting day, I didn't feel nearly as stir crazy by the end of the day. It was also just such a fun bike ride. It was right along the coast and while there were plenty of other cyclists and hikers (er, walkers), there was no cars! There were conveniently placed viewing areas and stops so we never really got tired or even out of breath.

The one selfie that managed to come out okay!

My bike for the day, I loved it and wanted to take it home but
uh, my neighborhood isn't safe enough to ride around in

Stepped off the bike to hike around this little nature preserve

At the end of that, we returned the bikes and took a taxi (carriage) up to the Grand Hotel. This is NOT my kind of place, it's very ritzy (we had to pay ten dollars to get inside just to look around) and IMO very gaudy. I was not about it, but it was a cool experience to do once and never do again. We got to wander around in the gardens and then stopped at the ice cream shop just outside to get some ice cream before walking up to Fort Mackinac, which was way more my speed.

The Fort was SO COOL, there was a museum on sight and you could go into all sorts of restored rooms, like a school house, the barracks, and so on. We saw both a cannon demonstration and a rifle demonstration from guys dressed as soldiers from the 1800s.

The Grand Hotel, not my jam

Very fort-like with the walls

Lots of stairs, the barracks are on the left here

That evening, we went to dinner and headed to bed a bit early for an early morning ferry ride back to the car, which we then drove back to Marquette to fly home. I really appreciated an entire day of travelling as it allowed me to read, do my crossword, and play video games on my computer - a bit of a vacation from vacation.

Then this weekend it was back to real life with riding, teaching (I have two new clients, wee), and all the chores I needed to do in order to unpack and get everything ready for the week.

I don't travel a ton (and honestly wouldn't travel at all if it weren't for my family's persuasiveness, all my money => TC basically) but I am so grateful for my family who encourages me to attend these vacations and get away. After six months of being back in the bay area, I'm still working on acquiring enough work where I am not financially stressed, but not so much work that I'm stressed because of lack of sleep/free time. I was definitely on the latter side (hence all my lessons, I love it! But I was losing it mentally by mid July) before we left and I feel so excited to get back to it. Nothing like a wonderful vacation to make you realize how much you love your life at home.

On the Lake Again

This last week, I was in Michigan again! The last time I was there was two years ago. As much as I enjoyed last time, the entire trip was pretty upsetting for me as the reason behind the trip was that my grandfather had passed away (which hit me incredibly hard because I missed out on seeing him before he died, I had the opportunity to, but I had to work and I was on my way to see him when I got the phone call) and we were going for his funeral.

Sunset on the lake

Hello lake superior

Walking toward the beach

This time around though, it was just a family vacation.

My parents and I flew in on Saturday night, we arrived pretty late into the Marquette airport and basically just went to the cabin and went to sleep. My aunts and my brother and SIL arrived the next evening.

I managed to sleep in okay on Sunday and we hit a breakfast place right around when I'd normally eat breakfast on the west coast, so solid brunching time. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't the greatest (cold and windy), so we decided to go to the Maritime Museum and do the lighthouse tour. I'm a sucker for museums and it was nice to get in from the wind.

Looking out on the lake from the lighthouse

Lighthouse!

My dad enjoying his hammock

It was Lake Superior Day at the museum, so that was pretty cool! The museum itself was great too, lots of information about the lake, including lighthouses, shipwrecks, a bit on mining, and some WWII stuff. The lighthouse was really fun as well, we learned all about how it was run previously and how it's run now. Apparently being a lighthouse keeper once paid only $250/year. I've been asked to pay that much to ride for 45 minutes with a clinician.

From there, we grabbed food from the grocery store for the few days we'd be there. And we stocked up on pasties because you just have to.

After that, I got my dad to go on a bike ride with me! We went to a little nature preserve and rode along super easy trails until we hit the river. Then we went on a trail that wasn't a trail, so it was way more challenging before we figured out how to get back on the actual trail.

That entertained us mostly until my other family members arrived, both my aunts, my brother, and my SIL.

Biking along the lagoon

Down at the lighthouse

The "cardio" they promised us lol

Monday morning I *actually* slept in and it felt amazing. We had a bit of breakfast before going on a hike and getting ice cream. It was a fairly easy hike along the lake, especially given that my aunt is an avid birder, so she stopped us frequently to see birds. There also just aren't a lot of hills in this part of Michigan.

On our way back to the cabin, we stopped at the same ice cream spot we did last time (this will become a theme). I had what they called "rainbow" ice cream, which was my attempt to try different kinds of ice cream. It basically tasted like sugar... which was fine!

When we pulled in at the cabin, my aunt who owns the cabin was there and had brought paddle boards! I freaking love paddle boarding, so my brother and I were dropped off with them at the boat launch on the river and we paddled out to the lake. It was a blast and good sibling bonding time.

Easy (very easy) hiking trail!

A cool tree on the hike

Ice cream after the hike at this quirky place

That night, we played one of my favorite games, The Resistance. It was hilarious. If you're unfamiliar, the game basically divides people into members of the resistance or spies. Spies try to fail missions and the Resistance tries to pass missions. Spies know who everyone is but members of the resistance don't know who is who.

The first game was a bust, as my dad, thinking the red hair on his character signaled that he was a spy (vs the blue symbol in the corner of the card), so the spies ended up winning as there were too many of them lol. The next two games were great. I was a spy and there was much manipulating of my family members. My brother is a sucker, I can always make him believe I'm on his side.

My aunt talked about it for the rest of the trip, I think it will be a good present for them at Christmas.

The lake! 

Walking out on the boardwalk

Birding on Tuesday morning included walking
through this bog

Tuesday morning I did NOT sleep in, so I felt like crap the entire day, cool! After going on another short hike to see some more birds, we spent the morning lazing about. My family was happy to hang around the place, but I convinced my mom to go to the ice cream and soda shop that my grandfather worked at when he was a teenager. We got some broccoli mac n cheese (omg so good, definitely making that at home) and then I got some ice cream because tradition, also ice cream is delicious.

Back at the cabin, the weather actually started to turn for the better (it had once again been windy all day) so I relaxed on the beach for a while before changing into a swimsuit and heading out on a paddle board with my brother. It was fun to chat with him all weekend about various things, with how busy I've been, I've had almost no time to spend with my brother and sister-in-law, despite living so much closer now! I'm hoping to have things way more streamlined in the next few years so that things can settle down for me in the future. I do want to make sure I keep spending time with all my favorite people.

Rope swing!

Such a beautiful place

Never getting sick of this view

Wednesday, we woke up somewhat early and zipped out to Mackinac Island. I'll post about the adventure there tomorrow, it was great!