Horses by the Bay -- Jen Doktorski

This is a picture of the 5th Avenue Pier in Seaside Park, New Jersey. Over the years, we've spent a lot of time here crabbing, as in catching crabs. I rarely do the other kind of crabbing when I'm this close to Barnegat Bay or the Atlantic Ocean.

My family spends summers in Seaside Park and we visit almost monthly throughout the year. Shopping local in Seaside on Black Friday has become a tradition. This past Thanksgiving weekend, during our annual visit, we walked over to the bay beach and discovered two women, dressed for a Renaissance fair -- at least that's what it looked like. They were with two horses. Not something you see on the bay beach every day. My daughter asked if she could pet them, to which the ladies replied "sure!" When they saw she had a camera, they invited her to take some pictures. This is one of them.

I have no idea why the women and the horses were there. I have no idea why we never thought to ask them. It was one of those surreal moments that you don't question. Before we knew it, we were watching the ladies drive away in the pick up, horse trailer in tow. They honked the horn as we stood waving.

Why were their horses by the bay? Any ideas? I thought this would make a good writing prompt for a writers' group I help to run at my local library.