Adventurous?

OK, time for a horse story. When I had Trigger during my teen years, I usually rode around the edge of town where we lived, or out a ways on the nearby dirt roads. Once we trailered him to my friend's farm, and she and I rode around there, but that was an exception. Usually I was fairly close to home.

Except for one day.

Before this, my brother and I had each ridden to Grandma's farm, which was 5 or 6 miles away, and when I did that, Dad followed me to make sure I didn't have any trouble. It was fun, but was quite a ways, at least for me and my timid soul. So I was glad Dad was behind me. (Literally!)

Then, one day I headed east like usual on a dirt road near home. It was normal to go a mile or 2, then turn around and come back. But this day, I got to the 2-mile point, and for some reason, I thought, "I think I'll go south a ways." I'd never ridden down that way before. I turned south, enjoying the rural scenery and the quietness, just Trigger and I, riding along. I kept thinking, "Oh, I'll just go a little further." And I kept thinking that. We went on. And on. All of a sudden, I realized where I was, and how far I had gone. I was at an old schoolhouse that was 3 miles south of where I'd turned, which meant I had gone a total of 5 miles from town! And the worst realization was, NO ONE KNEW WHERE I WAS AT.

Even though it was a great day, a nice ride, and I had no trouble, that thought scared me, and I realized I had done an extremely unwise thing! So Trigger and I turned around and hot-footed it back to town.

Plus, it was a sunny day, I had a tank-top on, and my shoulders got REALLY SUNBURNED. But at least Trigger behaved himself, and other than my misplaced adventurous spirit, we had a nice outing.