After my recent trip to Texas, I successfully doubled the amount of times I’ve ridden a horse. Yep, you guessed it – I’ve gone horseback riding a whopping two times now!

I took my first ride in the summer of 2012 with Dream A Horse in Wisconsin’s Kettle Moraine State Park. My guide took me on a one-hour trail ride, which involved some slopes that felt scarier than they should have and plenty of branches to scratch me up along the way.

Texas and horseback riding seemed to go hand-in-hand, so I was determined to “play cowgirl” when I set up camp down there for a couple weeks. There are a couple horseback riding options around Corpus Christi, but I settled on Horses on the Beach (clever name, right?). It was located near the Padre Island National Seashore, where I was camping, and it got decent customer reviews.

I called ahead to reserve my spot for a 1 1/2 hour sunset ride, which came with a $65 price tag. I mean, how do you NOT choose the “sunset ride” over the “sunshine ride?”

Apparently, I wasn’t the only person who thought it would be fun to ride ride a horse along the Texas coast in the setting sun. There were about 20 other aspiring cowboys and cowgirls in my tour group, all with varying degrees of skill and experience. I’ll just say my confidence level was on par with that of the 10-year-old first-timer riding next to me. Unsurprisingly, the operation was a bit touristy, but horses seemed to be treated well.

Based on my (lack of) experience and my height, I was paired up with a horse named Titus. While on the beach ride, I was amused to learn that Titus was famous. Our guide, Brennan Wells, told me how Titus was recently cast for a role in a local Western movie that was called something to the effect of “Red and Yellow to Kill a Fellow.”

Oddly enough, people are allowed to drive cars ON the beach in the most areas of the Padre Island National Seashore. This was a little disconcerting atop a horse.

On a somewhat related note, I run the blog for the adventure experience company, FunSherpa, and recently wrote an article about good places to go horseback riding and tips for first-timers. Now more than ever, I understand that I’ve got a lot to learn about horses before venturing to one of these destinations atop a horse. First of all, I need to learn how to relax, loosen my grip, and trust in the fact that people have been successfully getting around on these things for thousands of years.

But for now, I’m simply pleased with myself for not falling off of Titus and not causing a majorly embarrassing scene on the beach. Perhaps my next ride will be a little more relaxing and little less nerve-racking. Or perhaps a little more secluded and a little less crowded. But it’ll be hard to beat the sound of waves rolling into the shore and the sight of birds soaring high above the gulf.

So this post goes out to Titus: my second riding partner, my little movie star, and the horse who gave me one of the most beautiful and memorable sunsets I’ve ever experienced.