I took the kids on a Western Adventure today. It was one of those adventures I asked them about, they agreed to, and then they didn’t really want to go to. We managed to get there without much crying or carrying on, but it was a challenge at times. It didn’t help that we were there early.

The ‘establishment’ we arrived at was a glorified mobile rest stop in a dirt parking lot. If I hadn’t been watching the signs and ignoring the GPS, we would have missed it. We arrived about 25 minutes before we were due. The sun was on the warm side. The allergies were creeping up. The teens were restless.

Just as I was about to second guess my reservation making skills and call the place to confirm, our mighty steeds arrived. The fact that our Segways were being delivered by and elderly gang of trouble-makers caused my teens to give me weird, worried looks that said, “This might be really lame.”

In spite of the facts that the sun was hot, the idea sounded a bit lame, and their mom had actually picked the activity, my kids were troopers and put their happy faces on. Guess what? They fell in love with Segway-ing! My youngest informed me that he was never walking again and I must buy him one off Amazon the minute we arrived home.

This was the only off-road segway tour in the country. At least that is what Cassidy and Don Le Mancho (not their real names) told us as we did our training. I had done a segway tour with my dad and sisters back in November in the city and it was a blast. Doing it off-road was even better. There are really shocks on these two-wheeled beasts, so my bones got jarred a bit as I hit those rocks they told me to avoid, but I didn’t fly off and I didn’t break it.

As soon as we started out onto the trail, the amazing Spring clouds came up and gave us a beautiful shade. The weather couldn’t have been better. Our tour guides told us all about the Indian Reservation we were on, the wildlife, history of the area, and even torched a small jumping cactus to show us how to eat it. I learned that those holes you see in the ground…you know,the ones you always thought belonged to snakes? Well, they aren’t snake holes. If they go down at a diagonal, they are rodent holes. If they go straight down, they are spider holes. How would a snake make a hole? Hmm….never thought about that.

Our guide was nice enough to tell us these interesting facts as we stood looking at a nice, straight downward hole, near the path. Youngest voiced my thoughts when he turned to me and said, “Now, I didn’t need to hear that. Here comes my arachnophobia creeping up on me.” You and me both dude. The guide waited patiently, hoping the owner of the hole would emerge. He said ‘she’ was pretty old, that these creatures lived to be 25 years old as females, and only 10 as males. Such good information!

So, the day was a total success. When the tour was over, youngest did some parking lot runs for a few minutes, not wanting to get off. I felt his pain. It is totally easy, fun, and addicting. I highly recommend segway-ing to everyone. And if, for some reason, you don’t have enough people to go with you, I know two to four people ready to jump on an opportunity to get back in that saddle.

Cause I said so.

Photo credit: http://www.visionarywild.com