the.com/hayride

means A wagon piled with hay and pulled by a tractor or horses, in which people ride for recreation rather than to haul anything.

from Straightforward compound of 'hay' (dried grass, feed for livestock, a word going back through Old English hieg/heg to a Germanic root meaning 'that which is cut') and 'ride.' The activity itself is the twist: hauling hay was ordinary farm work, but by the 1800s Americans started climbing into the hay wagon for fun — a courting and party custom, especially in autumn — turning a utilitarian cart into a rolling social occasion. The word just rode along with the practice.