Self-portrait In the Saddle"
(April 24th, 2020)
(April 24th, 2020)
Canyon, TX, U.S.A.
In April, I went hiking for a few days in Palo Duro Canyon State Park in Texas, the second largest canyon in North America. Reconnecting with Nature was for me a little escape from a heavily 'infected' big city of Dallas, TX where I live during the coronavirus pandemic. It cleared my mind, and made me feel good.
I stayed in Canyon, TX, in an equine facility called Rider's Roost. My host, Andrea was a volunteer saving horses from slautherhouses. This is how I met three most wonderful horses in the world: Rosie, Gus and Sassy, that made my days even more special. Being close to them felt like an equine-assisted theraphy. There was also Chief, a cuddly barn cat that assisted me almost at every single photo I was taking, thus he can appear partially or fully in the self-portraits I took there.
The state parks in Texas reopened on Monday, April 20th as a part of the first phase of reopening the economy with online purchase of limited number of passes for day-use only. I was lucky to get three passes for Thursday, Friday and Sunday in Palo Duro Canyon.
The first day was a long 4-hour hike. We chose The Litghhouse Trail leading to the icon Lighthouse, the most famous rock formation created by erosion in Palo Duro Canyon.
The second day hike, Juniper Riverside Trail, was much shorter and easier. It was so nice to see the river as we looked down. From the very begining, I felt that the air and the soil felt very dry in the canyon even though it was just early spring, but the flowing water allowed more water-loving plants growing there like cottonwood trees and maple leaf grapevines.
That afternoon I had little more time to spend with animals at the barn. I took a lot of photos of them as I love horses to death, and a few of me outdoors as well. The wind was quite strong that day though, so my work in self-portraiture was harder than usual, not to mention Chief, who was rubbing himself around the tripod helping the wind to make it eventually fall.
I have to mention that I really loved all the horse- related decorative elements at Rider's Roost, particularly a mirror in the bathroom in the shape of the saddle. The reflected self-portrait was just a must-do.
