Whack! Wednesday

This blog post is aptly named since after nearly three years of riding, I fell off Queenie.  Whack!  Right on my back.  Luckily, I wasn't hurt.

I always say that if something bad has to happen, I hope that I at least get a good story out of it.  Well, my fall is one heck of a story.

Zoe and I took our girls out the gate in the back pasture for a ride through Rachel Carson Park.  It was a beautiful fall afternoon and we were enjoying a casual ride.  At about the halfway point on the trail, a fallen tree formed an arch across the trail.

The tree looks exactly like this only much closer to the ground

Zoe and Deja followed a narrow path around the tree.  But Deja made a significant deposit on the path and Queenie decided she didn't want to step in it.  She turned and walked right under the tree.  She had no problem fitting but I was going to hit the tree at waist level.

In the split second that it took Queenie to get half of her body under the tree, I apparently took complete leave of my senses.  I grabbed the tree and pushed against it as Queenie continued walking.  I didn't let go so before I knew it, I was lying on my back on Queenie's rump still clutching the tree.  I felt like I was part of a circus act.

 

As Queenie continued sauntering forward, I did not let go of that tree.  Perhaps after years of watching my daughter compete in gymnastics, I thought I could just swing my legs over the tree, jump down and salute the judges.

 
Did not happen.  Instead, I rolled slightly, fell off Queenie and hit the ground.  I confess that in that one second between leaving Queenie's back and eating dirt, I thought, "Oh shit.  This is gonna hurt."  Zoe had no idea all of this was going on behind her until she heard the "thunk" when I made contact with the ground.

I laid there for a minute stunned and staring up at the sky.  The first thing I said to Zoe was, "do you have Queenie?"  As I slowly rolled up, I started laughing at how ridiculous I must have looked in the 30 seconds it took for the whole grab-the-tree, lie-on-Queenie's back, hit-the-ground event to occur.  Where is a camera when you need one? 

I credit my safety vest and helmet with preventing serious injury.  I only have a few scrapes and bruises on my arms.  I thought I might be sore today from the impact, but I'm not.

Oddly enough, even though I was wearing heavy boots, I must have jammed the toes on my right foot when I hit the ground.  I don't think anything is broken, but two toes are bruised and I'm limping a bit.

I don't think that I will be wearing the high-heeled shoes that I had picked out to wear to a wedding this weekend.

The old adage is that you have to fall off a horse three times before you are considered an experienced rider.  I hope that I can count the two times that Queenie decided to lie down and roll while I was in the saddle (read about those adventures here and here) plus my "Whack! Wednesday" event and call it done.

In the meantime, today I will ....