Time Machine

One of my favorite jokes of all time was performed by Demetri Martin, a clever comedian who I was lucky enough to watch live in NYC back when travel was more of a thing. In one of his bits he had a cardboard box with TIME MACHINE written on it in black magic marker. He looked at the box, and then the audience, and explained that it worked just fine but, "only went forward at regular speed."

If a cardboard box can be a time machine than so can the saddle and light pack of a mountain pony. This is where I go not when I want to move forward or back in time, but when I want to escape it all together. A good horse, a sack lunch, a favorite novel or my Kobo tucked into the panniers with a halter and tie off rope and I am set for the afternoon of lost hours. It doesn't happen often, and may not happen again until post-haying of June. But when it does and I trot my horse up the mountain trails that lead us to grassy hidden mountain fields by streams and sunlight... You won't find me wondering about the time. I'll be lost in the stories of Clan Mackenzie with Mr. Stirling, or with Jamie Fraser, or maybe reading up on a whole new epic I have yet to discover. But hooves and books are what will take me there. It's not a box with magic marker, but the results carry me just the same.