my moniker was never truer than now

I went on another dream vacation three weeks ago. And once again, I am still paying for it.

My short explanation to everyone (for the seriously injured state of my body) is this:

I behaved on vacation as if I were 25 years old and in great shape… neither of which are true!

My husband and I booked a week-long SCUBA trip for ourselves and our 2 youngest (whom had not just had a spectacular wedding) at a resort that Hubby had had his eye on for YEARS … but it takes me longer to agree… more expensive, longer plane ride, JUST WHAT ARE WE GOING TO SEE SPECIAL THERE THAT WE CANNOT SEE IN COZUMEL???

So I had finally agreed to go to the fabulous SCUBA retreat at
Anthony’s Key Resort in the bay islands of Honduras. Back in February I made the choice of the screened-in poach type housings (no electric a/c) versus the slightly more pricey a/c huts, where you could NOT have the option of opening your window to the ocean night breeze… I imagined my Gulf Coast Family would be able to endure the heat for the reward of the ocean breeze at night through our open air cabins. Then I had my daughter’s wedding and forgot all of this.

As we arrived in Honduras, Hubby had already placed all of us on pre-non-malaria pills. Then we found out that we were in rustic screened in porches (with a bit more wood around the bathroom for privacy).

ALL of us were a bit taken aback at the privative nature of our rooms….

but we are all good campers and also gulf coast acclimated, so one by one we came to accept and appreciate our new home (MiddleSon made a point of telling me in the first 8 hours that in spite of what we expected and in spite of Youngest’s complaints, he already loved the place!).

The short story is that for the first 4 days I SCUBA ‘d my ass off. 12 dives (80-60 feet) in those first 4 days. Plus every afternoon I am networking at the pool while my husband (sensibly) naps. It was at the pool that I learned from my dive-boat-friend’s sister (who as a non-diver was enjoying all of the non-diving enjoyments of the resort) that the horseback riding from the local wrangler was FANTASTIC!!! Not just your regular resort-horses, but REAL run-on-the-beach horses! (and it is allowed!) So I asked my new friend, Long-Island-Erin, if she was going riding again that week, and she said yes, on thursday morning…. can I come? …of course! BTW, it was ALSO at the pool that I introduced myself to/snagged a family group traveling together: father with 2 sons from 2nd of at least 3 marriages who all currently live in Calgary & whom I CORRECTLY identified at the most likely friends to our 2 young adults on the trip. Not that I will ever get any credit for facilitating that wonderful great fit of our trip…
But back to my story about ME!

So Thursday morning, I sent my family diving (the deep wreck dive — the Odyssey) while I saddled up with Erin, her hubby and the horse wrangler.
Friends: I had THE RIDE OF MY LIFE!!!!! OH MY GOD, I CANNOT TELL YOU H0W WON-DER-FUL AND FAN-TAS-TIC IT WAS!

As I held on with my out of-shape-thighs to the best horse i have ever had the privilege to sit upon, we (Erin, me, Erin’s_hubby:J, and the horse wrangler/native Martin) guided our horses past local houses (with yapping dogs chasing our running horses just as country dogs chase cars on the highway), condos (more expensive than they appear or so says martin), wooden -park your yaught here docks and the boardwalk to the bar spots, and just beautiful undeveloped beach….
oh yeah, I was living one of my childhood dreams. Yes, this was the ride of my life!!!! My new buddy Erin, was a trip… like me, totally appreciating the rarity of this horse experience, she was also a childhood rider without current opportunity to ride and she was totally egging me on…
Both of our horses were raring to go … I spent all my time pulling mine back to a meduim fast canter/lope when I would have preferred a slow canter and he would have preferred a full-out gallop!! I am not kidding, his ears were pricked forward in excitement to run at every semi-open area, and so were my buddy Erin’s “READY???!!!” She would say, and then take OFF!!!!! My horse eager to join and hopefully win that race. I apologized to my horse all day long for not being able to keep up with him. I spent so much time holding him back to a medium and occasionally a lovely slow canter/lope from what he wanted to do which was a mad hard fast canter and even a gallop (no doubt in my mind… I felt him step into this twice that day at our fastest moments…)

On the way back, my out-of-shape-thighs involuntarily relaxed, which immediately caused my butt to bounce on the saddle (at that high canter speed) and started severely jarring my back, which made me grip tighter than I would have thought possible with my legs, just to keep my back from jarring so hard…

So, after this 2 hour, 6 mile, ride-of-my-life….
immediately the inner side of my legs were bruised from my mid-calves to my upper-mid thighs…..first sighted by Youngest (17-years): Mom! What is wrong with your legs???!
That was the first day ‘s pool embarrassment.

That afternoon I went zip lining over the rain forest canopy with my family…

my back, my thighs, my legs were in SO MUCH PAIN (and swelling was increasing) that I refrained from all the remaining dive trips except the final climactic one: the dolphoin dive. So I dutifully donned the equipment and sunk myself to the ocean shelf at 60 feet and watched the show. I was not lifting/swimming/ANYTHING at that point.

The next day, we are sitting in the airport to go home. I am wearing my last clean outfit, and it is a skort, which is a good thing, as it has a shorts aspect to it. My upper thigh aera/ lower groin area on both sides are now swollen (and painful) to the point where they are like having 2 uninvited canelopes just inside your legs. Youngest scolds me in the airport, “Mom”, put your knees together!” … My response: “I CAN’T!!” After we get home I ask my physician (pediatric) husband “What is wrong with my legs up here???” The answer is that I severely sprained my muscles just in between my thighs… just like as if I had sprained my ankle and it had swollen, so that is what my canelopes next to my crotch were all about. So for the next week I walked bow-legged, and my back is still not ok in spite of several visits to my trusted chiropractor. She did mention that my femers were actually bowed out from my gripping so hard to try to protect my back….

I don’t really care. I got to fly down the beach on horseback, while fussing in spanish at the dogs who came to chase us. I have learned from my walks on the local trails (at my home in texas) how to speak to dogs that come to bother me, and I tried to do it in spanish to those dogs that chased my horse’s legs. On the way home our guide corrected my spanish (just the tense tweak I needed to sound real to the dogs I had never met) and my new friend Erin was so impressed as all the way home I commanded all the dogs that came after us to GO BACK TO THE HOUSE!!! and it really worked!

I still cannot bend over properly, but that ride, THE RIDE OF MY LIFE was so very very worth all the pain I now feel!!!