Monday, July 27, 2026

Where Did The Dumb Trail Lead?

 Friday last, I was asked "What's a dumb trail?" A dumb trail is usually a touristy thing to do. It usually entails a long ride to get there and then the emotion of "this is it?" It's the feeling you get when you go to see the world's largest ball of string. The term was coined by Teague and her Brother after the first time they felt the "this is it?" emotion.

With the Young One visiting this week, I wanted to do a few things that would get us out of the house. I searched around. I found something fun that I thought would be meaningful to her., but I warned her it was a Dumb Trail. She said she was game as it sounded intriguing.

With Himself chauffeuring, we took a drive, almost an hour because of afternoon traffic, to Lincoln, Massachusetts. We were close to the historical towns of Lexington and Concord. Did we visit Minuteman National Historical Park to see Concord's North Bridge, the "shot heard 'round the world" bridge? No. Did we visit Orchard House, the home of Louisa May Alcott where she wrote her novel Little Women? No. Did we go see the Bauhaus the home designed by architect, Walter Gropius? Nope.

Where did we end up? We drove down the Old Sudbury Road in Lincoln to a field. If you drive too fast down this country road, you will completely blow by:




According to articles I read, no one knows how or who started Ponyhenge. Just in this field, rocking horses of every shape and size started appearing. The ponies are usually arranged in the classic circular formation as Stonehenge in England. Sometimes the ponies are arranged as if they are racing as they were on one Kentucky Derby Day. One year, the ponies were arranged in orderly rows for the first day of school.

I thought the Young One would enjoy seeing the rocking horses. When she was 3 years old, Santa brought her a rocking horse for Christmas. He was dun colored with a blue "saddle blanket" The plastic blanket had a cross-hatch, diamond pattern. She named her horse, Diamond.


As we were crossing the road, I said to her, "Wouldn't it be cool if Diamond was here?"


and then she spotted him right out front!


He was a little faded from being out in the elements, missing the dowel to hold on while rocking, but it was him.

We wandered through the henge admiring all the beloved steeds.


Some wooden


some rusted and some had names like Poppy


This beauty was painted in the style of van Gogh's Starry Night


Thunder, eternally races across the plains


The Blaze Twins. The horse on the left was missing his right, rear leg


Another diamond, saddle blanket. I named this one Black Diamond


Some ponies had yarn manes


some were plush. A lot must have newly joined the herd as they barely looked touched  by the weather.

It took us longer to get there and to drive home than the amount of time we spent wandering around. The Young One said it was a wonderful, whimsical outing.


God-steed, Diamond

16 comments:

  1. How wonderful!!! I hope our Tuesday-host pops by, too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, wow!!! What a great place to visit!!! Whoever created this gets kudos. Magical and fantastic!

    ReplyDelete
  3. We have also visited Ponyhenge, but it was a couple of years ago, so there might be a return visit. Dumb Trail is a good way to describe a disappointing trip.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I thought it might be fun to go around Christmas time. in the inner circle there was an evergreen tree. I wondered if someone strung lights on it.

      Delete
  4. The puns.....I can't take the puns......🤣🤣🤣🤣

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think that's wonderful. I would love to visit it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe I can see if someone will go with me around Christmas. There's an evergreen tree in the center of the henge. I wonder if people put up solar string lights?

      Delete
  6. My daughter had a horse similar to your daughter's horse when she was 3 or 4... in Germany... somebody had set one out on the curb... she gave it new life.. I was so tickled to find it as i had one when i was little.. Hugs! deb

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As a little princess, I had a rocking swan. The body was a wooden swan cutout and painted. There was a bench to sit on in the swan and a place to put your feet to rock the swan

      Delete
  7. I'm in LUST!!! I want to bring all of them home with me. What a fabulous place to visit. I've never seen so many large rocking horses in one spot before. This puts MY collection of large horses to shame. THANK YOU, CJ. I love this post.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I forgot to ask. Did you count them? I guess from what I read, the number increases over time, so your count might be off in a month or so, anyway.

    ReplyDelete