Day 7- Horseback Riding

A friend told me before we left on our trip that I would need to pack a jacket to wear in the evenings. I was dubious about this at first, but now I am so glad that I listened to her. I always assumed that Arizona was a desert, but apparently that's mostly southern Arizona. We are in northern Arizona, at an elevation of about 7,000 feet, and the temperature in the evenings and mornings has been in the sixties. The terrain is mountainous, and we're staying in the heart of the Ponderosa Pine country, so it's nothing like I expected. Also, according to the locals, northern Arizona is in the middle of its "monsoon season." It has rained every evening we've been here, and will probably rain every evening until September. The air is very arid, and although I've laid out for hours in full daylight at home, I still got sunburned in just the few hours we were outside at the Grand Canyon because of the thinner air and higher elevation. Most of my pictures are centered around animals today. We got to go horseback riding this morning with a fantastic and knowledgeable trail guide and some pretty tenacious horses. The dark one below is Guinness(like the beer because he's dark, get it?), and the light horse is Andrew. I was thrilled to make this ride because of my unrequited lifetime love of horses. We got to ride them up the mountain through the Ponderosa Pines and Alligator Juniper trees(which are probably two reasons I've had terrible allergies for the past 3 days) and saw beautiful scenery. Our precious horses were such troopers, very sure-footed, even if Guinness did have quite a personality! This has just fueled my desire to one day live around horses.

After leaving the horses, we toured Bearizona, a drive-through wildlife park that showcased bison, big horn sheep, wolves, and bears. All the animals were active and visible; it was one of the better wildlife parks I've experienced. It even had a walk-through portion that showcased the baby animals. The baby Arctic wolves were my favorite.