One week ago Today, we landed in Texas and headed to the first stop of our adventure: The Beaumont Ranch.

 

The Beaumont Ranch is a guest resort and fully operating, family owned ranch in Grandview Texas. The ranch sits on 800 acres and is a working cattle ranch with a herd of Texas longhorns, horses, llamas, and other local wildlife.

We wanted a true “Texas experience”, and one of the first things Chris said he wanted to do was a ride a horse in Texas. So as soon as we had breakfast, we headed south to Grandview Texas.

We arrived early for our 2pm trail ride, and at noon the sun was already beating down hard on us. We knew it would be hot when we chose August, and it was very hot.

We explored the sprawling grounds for a bit. They included a small lake, a gigantic dining hall, gift shops and a series of buildings set up to look like an old western village. From the Sheriff’s station right down to a small white chapel, the area looked straight out of a movie set. We had a lot of fun posing for pictures, and luckily we were already decked out in our best western gear.

It was early afternoon in August, and a Thursday so the resort was quiet. For the most part, it felt like we had it all to ourselves.

When it was time for our horseback ride, we were joined by two other people and an instructor. She introduced us to each horse, and went over the basics for all of us beginners.

I didn’t think I was nervous, but when she put me on one of the newer horses my confidence wavered.  The horse could sense my nerves, and I had some trouble getting comfortable and getting the horse to listen to me.

I ended up switching horses, taking the one she described as “fat and lazy.” 

Much more my speed.

Once we were saddled up and feeling good, we headed off onto the open road… err… trail.

The Beaumont Ranch is breathtakingly gorgeous, and I realized it as soon as we started trotting away from the stables. It didn’t take long before all you could see on any side of us was just expansive, flat land. My horse, the fat and lazy one, took his sweet little time trotting me along and really didn’t care about me trying to squeeze my legs to make him go faster, and really didn’t care when I gently kicked his sides either. So I got used to slowly trotting behind the pack and was more than happy to do so.

I couldn’t tell you the last time I was on a horse, and even then, I don’t think I ever took a “trail ride.” Being so out in the open, and following along an imperfect path was completely foreign to me and felt like a real adventure. I can’t speak for whether or not this is common in trail rides, but I was shocked at how many steep hills we went up and down, the trees and branches I had to steer and duck away from and at one point we even crossed a bridge over a stream. We were truly horseback riding, all out in the open. It was so much fun.

Even as we roasted out in the sun, I could feel the heat from the horse and the sun pounding down on us taking a toll on my energy levels, all I could do was look around in amazement at how crazy beautiful it all was.

It was the perfect way to spend our first Texas afternoon and felt like a truly unique way to experience a brand new place.

After our hour long tour of the grounds on horseback, we returned to the stables where Chris took a lesson in lasso roping. He caught on quickly first learning how to swing the rope above his head and then throwing the lasso at the longhorn hoping to catch it’s long horns.

When we finally poured our exhausted, overheated selves back into the car to check in to our hotel- we were sunburned, smiling and couldn’t stop talking about all we had experienced.

 

About two hours later, after a detour to Whataburger for a quick lunch to replenish our dangerously low beef levels…. we got back to the hotel and finally, finally were able to rest. What a day.