Adventure – Sleigh Ride

Dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh o’r the fields we go asthma all the way.

Sunday dawned bright, beautiful and balmy for a January Tahoe day – balmy as in like 58 on the south shore. A perfect day for a sleigh ride – snow covered mountains as the backdrop, a lake view – what could be better? Josh faced a dilemma. He loves being with his family and he enjoys horses but his team was in the playoffs and as a Chicago sports fan, that happens infrequently. So, Josh elected (with his family’s whole hearted approval) to catch part of the game instead of taking a picturesque sleigh ride.

Because of the balmy temperatures and the fact that the south shore gets less snow than the west shore (where we were staying) stateline had a bit of a dingey old snow look to it but once you turned off the main road things became a lot prettier. Josh departed us at the parking lot and we (my parents, the kids and I) made our way across the highway to Borges Family Sleigh Rides. Claire was a bit grumpy. She’s turned into quite the homebody and although she loves Tahoe, the snow and GiGi’s cabin, there is no substitute for her home and at this particular time she was begging to either go home or play in the snow. The almost 2000 lb Belgian horses distracted her temporarily. They were beautiful and HUGE horses. But Claire wanted to play or more importantly to her, find a patch of fresh snow so she could eat it.

Fortunately for us, the morning crowd was light and we waited maybe eight minutes before being loaded onto our sleigh. Meme and Pop Pop behind the driver with Conor and Claire elected to sit in back with mom. We were introduced to Jack aka Eeyore a 15 year old draft horse who apparently can pull like 4000lbs. Claire was a little unnerved by the jostling of the sleigh and further distracted by all the pristine snow we were treading upon that she wasn’t allowed to play in. Conor was content on Meme’s lap taking in the sights. About halfway through the 30 minute sleigh ride Claire was emboldened and decided to help Vanessa, our driver, hold the reins – that lasted about a minute and just as Claire was getting passed back to me in the back seat, a familiar twinge hit my chest. Familiar in that old smell from childhood way but not nearly so pleasant. Familiar as in time to visit the doctor’s office for the smoking of the peace pipe (that’s what we called it – it was a breathing treatment). It was back – asthma, a condition that has been such an infrequent visitor I had almost forgotten about it.

Claire “driving the sleigh”
To keep Claire entertained and distracted from her inability to play in the snow she delved into amateur photography. Here are a couple of her photos.

As we rounded the bend and Jack commenced a short lived trot back to his home base both Claire and Conor got pretty squirrelly. Conor dozed off just as we pulled to a stop. We descended the sleigh and my mom turned to me, “did you enjoy yourself?” I wheezed out a “yes…but I need to get out of here, asthma.” She gave me that you’re kidding, ok, lets get a move on it look and began ransacking her purse for an inhaler. Claire got to feed Jack two alfalfa biscuits, I think that was the highlight of the adventure for her. Mom came back with a no such luck on the inhaler and we gathered the group and went in search of Josh over at Mont Blue.

I was conflicted as I called Josh. The predicament I was in was going to bring up a sore topic between the two of us. The first summer that Josh and I dated he took me horseback riding at the camp he was working at. By the time we got to his parents house for lunch I resembled Martin Short after his bee sting in sheer luck and I tried to play off my reaction as getting a cold all the while my chest was constricting and I could barely see because even my eyelids were swollen. He was frustrated that I neglected to mention my horse allergy and even more frustrated that for years I always conveniently forget to mention the horseback riding and my reaction to my parents. So…though I was now ten years older I was faced almost the same issue. Sigh.

We tracked down Josh and he just smiled and took inventory about how he could help but the smoke of the casino did nothing to relieve my asthma but thankfully a stroll through the fresh mountain air over to jamba juice did help to loosen my chest and i was able to get away from the incident without an inhaler and as more time and space separated me from the horses, I could appreciate and enjoy the experience the sleigh ride had been.