Charlie and Dino at Willamette Mission State Park - getting ready to hit the trail!
Sunday, November 1st was a spectacular day. The temperature was in the fifties but the bright autumn sun made it feel like high sixties. The sky was almost cloudless, the air crisp and inspiring and the first thing that popped into my mind was “What a day for a horseback ride!”
At about 11am we loaded up the two geldings and took the 45 minute drive to Willamette Mission State Park. It was obvious when we got there that anyone who owned a horse was thinking the same thing on this glorious day. The horse trailers were numerous and there were more coming in after us.
The lovely spot where we ate our picnic lunch.
After we unloaded the horses we tied them to the trailer with their hay bags and proceeded to a picnic table to eat our custom-made picnic lunch! It’s not always the case where I haphazardly plan something and it turns out perfectly, but, the week before I ordered a custom-made picnic from Perfect Picnics here in Newberg. I wanted to try what read from the online menu to be the most delicious sounding food. I had decided that regardless of weather or our plans, we were going to have a Sunday picnic – even if it meant spending it indoors at home! As it turned out, we had an amazing day to enjoy our picnic! The butternut squash salad was perhaps the best salad I have ever eaten (who would have thought to put roasted squash in a salad?).
Once lunch was consumed with heavenly joy, we saddled the horses and hit the trails! Willamette Mission is a great place for an easy trail ride. It’s relatively flat, the trails are wide, and there are wooded sections, open fields and some beautiful views along the river. During this time of year the trails are a little muddy and slick with some large puddles to navigate through but if your horse doesn’t have a problem with mud or water, it’s worth the soggy parts.
We kept to a walk or trot through the wooded trails due to slickness and blind corners but in the open portions we kicked into a lope with only a minimum of back-end slippage! The horses were feeling darn good as evidenced at one point when Hershey did a “Chuck Norris”-to-the-side kick-out loping up one of the small hills along the ride. As I have never been thrown from Hershey in all the seven years of his riding life it came as a surprise to him when I landed half out of the saddle and hanging off the side after his little kick-out (yes, I was totally unprepared for that). Since I don’t like hitting the ground, I clung to the saddle and attempted to claw my way back on while Hershey stopped and waited patiently. Fortunately Charlie rode Dino up along side of me allowing me to grab his arm so I could hoist myself back in the saddle.
Continuing on through the wooded portion of the trail, where at times you ride alongside the Willamette River, you eventually come out to open farm fields. You can take one of two directions – to the left where you do a short stint along the fields and then head back into the woods to loop back to the main trail or to the right where you take a long route along the field, hit a dirt road, then eventually enter the woods again for the same loop back. We choose the longer way as it provides for a great galloping stretch unobstructed by turns and plenty of stopping room! The footing is fairly dry but there are a number of large puddles along the stretch. Our horses generally gallop right on through but every now and then Hershey thinks he’s on a cross-country course and will leap a puddle. I usually gallop in two-point position in preparation for these giant leaps.
We encountered some other riders along the trail, all very friendly and in high spirits! Surprisingly, for the amount of trailer and horse traffic in the parking lot, we were mostly alone on our ride. The trail is long enough that the riders can space out and the loop around at the back end of the ride means you only have two-way traffic for the first half of the trail. The only disadvantage to Willamette Mission is it only has the one major riding trail with the long or short loop option at the end. Here’s a link to the arial view map of the area – Willamette State Park Map . There are a few branch off trails but they all seem to be short-loop forays off the main vein and aren’t shown on the map.
Aside from the fact that this isn’t the State Park for miles and miles of trail (hit Hardy Creek or Silver Falls for that!), it’s a well maintained park, has great picnic areas, is good for the short, easy ride and works well for the beginner rider or horse – in the dryer months.
It’s always a surprise when they’re feeling their oats and do that side kick thing, but it’s a lot of fun. I have a recipe somewhere from a store that was sampling a salad made with pumpkin that may have been like your butternut squash one, cause it was delicious as you said yours was. It was made with walnut oil & fig balsamic vinegar w/mixed greens. I tasted it last year. I hope I can find that recipe. I never made it but always wanted to. It was a real taste surprise. The pumpkin soaked up the fig balsamic & walnut oil, making me thing it was bread.
Yeah – your salad sounds a lot like the one I had – toasted walnuts, goat cheese, craisins, onions (I think) and the roasted squash. But it was the amazing dressing that really set the whole thing apart from normal salads. Anyway – Hershey has never kicked like that with me on him before! He sure was surprised when he almost lost me. Such a good boy – just stood there solid as a rock while I grabbed his neck and struggled to get back on! LOL!