I love horses. I love riding. I love water. I love roses. I love red. Mix that all together and you have another perfect evening spent in SL. Oftentimes the only thing that soothes my soul is the sound of hooves beating on the ground. Wind through my hair. Water splashing underfoot.
When Moonsorrow invited me to come for a ride I jumped into the saddle. *grin* Moon always claims that the rider needs to beware: that Moon will roll them, toss them, bounce them. It’s all a myth. Moonsorrow has an extremely smooth gait and is ALWAYS considerate of riders. Moon, Shenlei, Tyr and I went for a run through Carriage Trade. 
Stolas joined us for a bit as well as we toured. CT has begun a role-playing area and we took a look there. There’s been a lot of redevelopment and renovation since my last visit (which was WAY too long ago). It was fun to see the new shops, including the travel agency. *grin* Be sure to book a trip to visit CT.
I love the shadows in SL. I have a graphics card that can render them without crashing (that is, not TOO much – unless I try to take lots of pictures, in which case I do ultimately confuse the heck out of the graphics card and the screen goes black. I gather this is an SL bug.). So as we raced across hill and stream, our shadows flowed with us. 
Notice the shadow on the water! I was having a wonderful time trying to capture the shadows and the details, all of which add to the sense of really being there. I love how my brain can fool my body into believing we are somewhere we are not.
The cross-country course has been redesigned as well. I’d spent some time here when it first opened. Fidget was kind enough to take me through. The course is now longer and more complicated and includes ten more jumps for a total of thirty hurdles. Moon did beautifully, only nicking a few of the larger jumps. I did my best to keep a light hand on the reins and let her take the lead. I know which of us knows how to do this best. *grin* I’ve included a photo from the time Fidget and I did the course. Not really the best angle perhaps for either of us, but I wanted to show the comparison of shadows on and shadows off.
The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse’s ears. ~Arabian Proverb
There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man. ~Winston Churchill
There is something about time spent with horses that is good for the soul of Ahuva.
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