Although I was all for it, I was a bit concerned that other folks wouldn't be interested in our hay ride. I mean, I'm interested in horses and wagons and driving, but how interested would your average 2nd Use shopper be in taking a five to eight minue ride in the back of a small-ish wagon, sitting on bales of hay, taking a not-so-scenic walk/trot tour through the bland industrial complex in which 2nd Use is located? Oh well, it sounded like fun for me anyway, and it's always good to expose Luna to as many new and unusual situations as possible.

We loaded the wagon in our new-used gooseneck stock trailer and dropped the trailer off at 2nd Use the day before the event. The morning of the event I bathed Luna, dried her off and loaded her into our little two-horse-or-one-draft trailer and brought her over to Seattle. Harnessed her up and took a couple of laps in the parking lot around the corner from the store, to settle all the straps and see how Luna was taking it.

She was a little high-headed and swivel-eared on the first pass, but seemed attentive enough, so we went to meet the customers.

As we rounded the corner into the alley behind the store, Luna's head rose another couple of inches as she took in the sight of all the people, balloons, kids, signs, stacks of lumber, billowing tablecloths and countless other details that I'm sure gave her pause but never even registered on my consciousness. I spoke a couple of bolstering words to her and we both relaxed. Plus, she noticed the abundance of little kids, for which she has an inexplicable fondness.

Kids came swarming up to see Luna and be lifted into the wagon by their parents. Adults came up to grin at Luna and the excited kids, ask questions, admire the wagon. We got our first load of folks settled and the tailgate closed.

And off we went!

The industrial park is mostly dormant on a Saturday, so the parking lots and spaces between and behind buildings was peaceful and empty. Large metal and concrete warehouses, dumpsters, loading docks and orphaned semi trailers was about all there was to see for half the ride. The other half of the ride was alongside a fairly quiet street, although what traffic we saw was generally large and noisy, being across from the bus barn and around the corner from the city waste transfer station. Several adults who rode in the wagon that day voiced concern about whether the traffic would alarm Luna.

In general, non-horse-people only take note of potential horse spooking situations when it involves things that people know to be harmful to themselves. Luna was far more wary of the dumpster with the propped-open lid than she was of the giant rumbling and hissing semi and trailer that belched past us on the street. I doubt even one person thought that their kid's handfull of bobbing helium balloons was a potential source of alarm for the horse. Of course not - since people would never consider balloons to be a menace. I reassured the worriers that Luna has been deliberately and systematically introduced to every manner of bogey-man I have access to, including skateboards, semi trucks, freight trains, barking dogs and fireworks. We came back from our first circuit and swapped one load of folks for another.

We looked pretty out of place. Folks who passed us on the street gaped, smiled, waved, and generally just slowed down to gawk.

In the photo below, see the guy on the left with the white t-shirt? See the little girl in front of him, in a gray button-up sweater and jeans? She's fixing to climb aboard for her second ride. She was a very excited little girl.

An all-little-girl batch of passengers:

This one's a little out of focus, but I think it's my favorite. Even Luna is wearing a horsey smile. She likes to drive and she likes kids. Hauling a load of kids around sure puts a spring in her step.

This load had a couple of 2nd Use employees...

So long! See you in California!

An unfortunately blurry shot of another all-girl load of passengers with an alarmingly high ratio of pink shirts.

After that batch of brightly-colored girls unloaded, they all wanted to visit with Luna, about whom they had asked a hundred questions during the course of the ride. I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Luna loves little kids. When they all swarmed to visit her, she lowered her head down into their midst and let them all pet her face and nose and ears and mane. A mom came over and supervised the visitation for the mob. One little girl came up and shyly asked if she could feed Luna the rest of her apple. I said yes and Luna - who normally devours fist-sized apples in a single bite and all larger apples in two bites, nibbled daintily at the apple, taking several polite bites to finish it off.

Things were winding down and folks were going home. This very excited little girl got a whole wagon all to herself.

This pair of siblings was my last load of passengers. It warms my heart to think that one day the little sister will likely say to her brother, "Remember the time we rode in that wagon? There was a big gray horse pulling it. Wasn't that neat? That horse must have been twenty feet tall. You had to help me get into the wagon, it was so high up."

I would like to do this a lot more.