We woke up early in the morning, we were so excited! Today was our birthday! Well, actually it was just my twin sister and my birthday. We were turning 10. Our little sister’s 7th birthday was coming up in a couple of months. To celebrate all our birthdays, Mom had booked a horse riding session at the Ponderosa Stables in Phoenix.
Ponderosa Stables is located in South Mountain Park, the largest city-owned park in the world. The Ponderosa is a working stables and houses more than fifty horses. The owner of the Ponderosa Stables lives in Colorado and only visit this location once a year. Apparently he is about 84 years old and remembers the names of all his horses. He owns about 2,000 horses and several ranches. There were cowboys and cowgirls doing their daily chores, like cleaning up the stables and feeding the horses. We didn’t know horses were that big! We had never seen one up close before. A couple of cowboys and cowgirls brought out our horses, and helped us get up onto the saddle using a set of steps, but it was still pretty hard work!
Once we had all settled down on our saddles, including our grandma and grandpa, we set off down the trail. Our guide was a seventy-year old cowboy named Nivaldo. He looked like a true cowboy. He was at the front of the pack holding on to rope that was tied to my sister Svara’s horse. When Nivaldo started, all our horses followed. They were very well trained trail horses. We also had a cowgirl guide at the rear end, because there were seven of us and, also because there were three kids.
Our ride was not at all what our mother expected. She was expecting a ride on a paved road. Instead, we rode our horses on a fairly rugged trail; through trenches, over rocks, and down steep hills. At one point one of the guide horses came next to mine, and my horse bucked. That was scary, but exciting! Apparently these trail horses do not like when another horse come next to them. They are trained to walk in single file. We, the kids, really enjoyed our ride and were really sad when the ride ended. Our parents enjoyed it too, but not as much we kids did, and I think they were relieved to be on safe ground!
Afterwards, we were treated to a cowboy style breakfast: eggs, bacon, and thick pancakes, all cooked on skillets.
After eating, we drove back to the resort. On the way we stopped at “Nothing Bunt Cakes”, a cake shop. Nothing Bunt Cakes makes the best cakes ever! The night before we had looked online to see if there was a store in Phoenix, and to our surprise we found one not far from the hotel . We were so excited! We bought a eight inch bundt cake and a small bunt cake each (they call them buntlets) to celebrate our birthdays later in the day. After we got back to our hotel room we relaxed a bit, and then we changed into swimsuits, and headed to the “River Ranch”, where all the pools and the Lazy River were!
We grabbed floaty’s and floated slowly down the river – and when I say slowly, I mean really slowly! There really was no current; it was mostly just the wind, which was at that time, a very slight breeze. After floating around (or in my sister Svara’s case, playing around), we decided to try the water slide. Svara slipped down fast enough, but the rest of us got stuck along the way. I think because we were too heavy for the water! To top it off, we were able to enjoy food by the Lazy River: cranberry juice, chicken tenders, and fries.
After a most enjoyable time at the “River Ranch” we returned to our rooms very tired. We relaxed in the room and played some chess with our dad. At about tea time, we all got together to cut our bunt cakes to celebrate our birthdays. We put candles on the cakes and our parents and grandparents sang happy birthday. Then we dug into the cakes! They were delicious! Everyone ate at least one slice. The day had been a long one, but an extremely exciting one with new experiences. To cap it all off we had a relaxing bubble bath, we set up our beds, snuggled under the covers and watched “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”. The movie was exciting, and scary. What a great way to end the day! Once we hit the pillows, we fell into a very deep sleep.
By Simran Jayasinghe
