Archives for April 2010

Out of the campground by 8:45, but then spent a good 20 minutes trying to pay at the ranger station. Whatever happened to just getting a price and paying for it? Now everyone wants your name, phone, address and every other piece of information just to pull a price out of the computer! It’s ridiculous, a huge waste of time. Anyway, we got on the road, and as we went, I found a battery place in Richmond, because we needed to replace the two golf cart batteries we use for auxiliary power. When we first bought the RV, we installed two excellent Trojan batteries, which lasted about 6 years. Then last April, we replaced them in Maryland with a brand the Battery Plus store swore would be just as good. A year later (actually, less than that, as they haven’t been holding a decent charge for months now – we’ve had to run the generator every day we haven’t been on electric this entire trip and before), they needed replacing. The good news (?) was that the place I called was another store of the same franchise, and they honored the warranty, so it didn’t cost us a dime. Just to thank them, of sorts, I noticed they replaced watch batteries, and as Hubby needed his replaced, I asked them to change it out. After a bit, they came back with the watch with the back still off. Apparently, they had the batteries for it, but not the equipment to put the back of the watch back in place (it’s a rather large watch). So they referred us to a place in a mall ten miles away, so we had to divert there to get it fixed. It was going to take them 20 minutes, so we discovered a creamery and treated ourselves to a nice little cup of delicious ice cream. Afterward, we hit the road and finally made it to Pohick Bay about 5:00, after some traffic delays. What was supposed to be a short driving day has turned out to be a long slog! Got set up, the horses on their highline, and ready to relax for the evening!

Packed up and got ready to go. Before we left, we had to change out the tire that Hubby had picked up earlier this week. Had a few problems with the levelers sinking into the ground, so we had to move down to the gravel to get it right, but it didn’t take long and we were soon on our way. A few brief stops on the way, then we arrived at Occoneechee just before 5:00. We’ve been here once before, but we’re not particularly fond of it. It’s nothing more than a large, unlevel gravel parking lot with electricity on each aisle (yes, they’re aisles like at Wal-Mart), but they have very nice stalls. No one else was there when we arrived, but another rig showed up a while later, though we never had a chance to speak to them, like two ships passing in the proverbial night. Uneventful, just tried to relax in the evening.

The weather was a bit cooler and cloudy this morning, with the forecast saying that rain would arrive around 2:00. We were out by 10:00, with plans to finish off the rest of the trails that we hadn’t been on yet, and to hopefully find a towel that Hubby had lost on the first ride. Started out on the blue trail again, and sure enough, we found the wayward towel. We took the yellow trail, then came back on the green connector, which had some very pretty sections. Actually, every trail had it’s own character, and ranged from sections that were quite narrow, to wide dirt roads.
Very little gravel, so we weren’t quite sure why there was a notice on the kiosk saying horses should be shod, because there really was very little to be concerned with. Also, I should note that it’s practically impossible to get lost here, as there is a placard at every intersection with a mall-like “You Are Here” map, probably one of the best marked trails ever. Also, there was a stockpile of maps at the entrance to the campground, which is more rare than you might expect.
At about noon, it began to rain (another excellent weather forecast :-). We pulled out the ponchos and carried on. The horses were particularly slow and ploddy today, even with the slightly cooler temps, but after the rain, they seemed to be a bit recovered. In fact, toward the end of the trip, there was a long fairly gentle climb up a dirt road. I decided to trot up, and set out at a moderate pace. Hubby’s mare decided she wanted to race, and cantered, then galloped by. Of course, my gelding (her son) wasn’t about to be left behind, so he chased after her. Both started to gallop faster and faster, until we were at breakneck speeds. There were berms every 10 yards or so, and every time we reached one I thought they would slow down, but instead they seemed to use it as a launching pad, getting ever faster all the way. It was incredibly exhilarating, but also a bit hair-raising, as these were speeds we’d never experienced like this before! We never expected that so late in the ride! Just goes to show what good shape the horses are in now! When they finally slowed down, I was just thrilled there were no crashes, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Whew!
Got back all in one piece, then started getting ready to leave tomorrow. We were hoping it would rain again, and a bit harder, to get rid of the thick layer of pollen that had collected over the week. It did a bit more later and overnight, which helped, but at some point, everything needs a bath!

After breakfast this morning, we decided to do what we could about straightening out the horse trailer, at least enough to get the tack door open and closed more easily. Hubby had a great idea to use a homemade hoof stand we had, on it’s side, with a car jack, to push out the dent from the inside of the tack box. As I stepped outside the RV, I noticed everything had a fine coating of green pollen on it. Then when I looked into the woods, I saw what looked like a fine mist of green. It was pollen coming down so heavy it was turning the air green! Good thing neither of us have allergies, or we’d be miserable! Anyway, we tried to make Hubby’s idea worked before we made a discovery; hydraulic jacks don’t work on their side. Who’d’ve thunk? Anyway, we resorted to using a 3 pound hammer Hubby had picked up at the hardware store. Just before I crawled into the tack box to start pounding, I noticed a swarm of insects on a tree stump. They were emerging from between the bark and the stump, gathering at the top, then lifting off into the wind in a steady stream. They looked like regular brown ants with wings, but they might have been young termites, maybe they turn white later on. Anyway, the wave continued for about 10 minutes, then they were gone, like it never happened. A truly amazing birth of an insect nation! After the parade, I got into the trailer and start banging away, and after about half an hour, we managed to get the door to swing freely and the dent slightly less pronounced, albeit it now it looked like it had been hit with a mini hailstorm…
Afterward, I got back to work, closing in on finishing our taxes, while Hubby spent the afternoon reading.

Decided to get up early, before it got too hot, to ride. Up at 7:00, out by 9:15. Headed out the purple connector trail, then went counterclockwise around the yellow loop. Very nice trails here, mostly easy to moderate, with just an occasional climb, lots of varying scenery, from pine and mixed deciduous to the occasional field of grass. The horses were much better behaved today, no silliness, but plenty of controlled energy. I think they really enjoyed themselves as much as we did, it was truly a lovely ride. Got home about 12:15, just as it was starting to get opppressively hot. Spent the afternoon on…TAXES…while Hubby did a little housekeeping and some chores.

Called the tire shop in Chester to make sure our tire had come in, then Hubby headed out with the pickup and horse trailer. As he backed out of the campsite, he jacknifed the trailer and made a rather large dent in the front end of the trailer, and made it so the tack door wouldn’t open or close properly (usually I do all of the backing up of trailers, but he said he could manage…;-). Anyway, he managed to slam the door shut eventually, then headed out to take care of business, which now had expanded into trying to see how to fix the trailer. I spent the day on taxes again, while he ran around town, picking up the tire, some oats, some groceries, and some tools to try to bend the trailer back into place. Meanwhile, I spent the day on….TAXES!

We decided that today we would go for a ride. Everyone (except me) has had time to relax, and we really didn’t want to let the horses go any longer without getting under saddle. It’s been almost a month, after all. Well, they have obviously been feeling their oats, so I put a lead on them, found a clear spot at a nearby campsite, and ran them around in circles for about 20 minutes each, getting some of their excess energy out of the way. It was a good job I did that, because they were both really frisky once we got under way. We managed to keep them in a controlled walk for the first mile or so, then came up on a hill that they just insisted on running up, so we let them, knowing that would help release some of their pent up adrenaline. After doing that a few times, they settled down to their old selves again. Passed two other groups of riders on the trail, and they behaved themselves well enough, even though one group had rather curious dogs. After awhile, fortunately, everything seemed to be back to normal, though Hubby’s mare seemed friskier than she’d ever been, which he rather likes anyway. A lovely day, though not exactly the “day off” I had anticipated, and I guess I got enough relaxation to feel better afterwards. At least I wasn’t hovering over a hot computer all day!

I am so sick of trying to make heads or tails out of our tax code! Even with Turbo Tax, it seems incomprehensible! Made worse because I didn’t have an e-file backup of last year’s return to import, so I’m having to start from scratch on all my assets and depreciations! Arrrrgh! We need to chuck the whole thing and go for a flat tax, the same rate for everyone, and I mean EVERYONE!! If a welfare recipient can live on $20,000, he/she can live on $18K, and send 10% to the government. By the same token, the government should learn to live on that 10%! If our government wants to quintuple the productivity of small business, all they have to do is get rid of the tax code as it is, and have a flat income tax instead. Not the FAIR tax, which has too many ways to get around (you want to see the start of the biggest peacetime black market on the planet?), but a flat income tax for EVERYONE. A post card for your return, no deductions to track, no hours of bookkeeping to do, only to find out you STILL haven’t broken it down enough to make Uncle Sam happy! I mean, come on! Isn’t vehicle maintenance expense enough? I have to separate out Oil, and Tires, and whatever else they decide they want to know? It’s ridiculous. Well, enough of my rant, tomorrow, I’m taking the day OFF!!!

I spent the morning Friday calling every tire place in a 30 mile radius, but no one had any in stock, so I ended up ordering one for Monday delivery. Then I spent the day working on taxes, while Hubby more or less crashed because of all the exertion he’d been putting in (he is 76, after all)! We did manage to get the satellite dish up and running, so he could watch some news and tape a few movies for later. Worked until dinner, then spent a quiet evening recuperating.

We decided on trying out a new horse camp rather than one we’d been to before, so we headed south to Woods Ferry National Recreation Area, part of the Sumter National Forest just outside of Leeds, SC. It was mostly freeway, and looked pretty straightforward, and Gracie (my phone GPS) estimated it to be just over 3 and a half hours. Since it had been such a long day, we decided to forgo our usual 7:00 wakeup call, and slept till about 9:00. We packed up, headed out to the stables, picked put the horses and were on our way before noon, in plenty of time (we foolishly thought). This was the warmest day we had experienced, with temps well into the 80’s, and some of the roads were very rough. At once point I had to pull off once to cool down the van after a long climb. About two hours or so into the trip, BOOM! A tire blew out on the RV, the one I had repaired at Pohick Bay. We pulled over and went to work. We’ve had so much experience changing tires, we’ve got it down pat, plus this time we tried something new. We used some leveler pads we started using at crooked campsites, and rolled right up onto is, leaving the flat tire just high enough off the ground to only have to use the jack as a backup. It worked beautifully, and no pumping! I pulled out the generator, Hubby got out the electric lug wrench, I started the generator and began to remove the lug nuts, while he got out the spare tire out from the undercarriage. In less than 15 minutes, we were done. Gracie helped me find a nearby tire store in Spartanburg just a few miles away. We drove there, and discovered that it was more than just a blown plug, it was a broken bead around the edge, so we’d have to replace it. Unfortunately that particular store didn’t have what we needed, so I got on the phone and called around, finally finding a place less than 10 miles away, but killed a half hour doing it. So we hurried off, trying not to lose too much time. The guys at Master Tire were great! We would have had to wait for them to change the tire out, so we just had them mount it, then we drove off to a nearby Cracker Barrel parking lot, did our little tire routine again, and were ready to go in about another 15 minutes. Hit some more rough patches (Interstate 26 is a real MESS in that part of the western Carolinas!), then about a half hour later, BOOM! Another tire blows out on the RV, on the other side! I pulled off at once, fortunately it was right before an exit, so I pulled forward enough to get us on the shoulder on the exit rather than the highway, and went at it again. Fifteen minutes later, we were on the road and I was on the phone trying to find another tire. Of course, now it was getting late, and no one had one in stock, they’d all have to order one, and we’d already passed the largest towns where they might possibly have one, so we decided we could make it to the campground and sort it out once we got there. I didn’t have exact directions, for some reason the National Forest website, which is usually pretty good about such things, had no directions on it, so we were hoping for signage. Not much was to be seen, but I kept following my Google Earth map of where I THOUGHT it was, and kept going. We finally turned off on a road that looked like it was the place, but I didn’t want to take any chances on getting to a dead end with no turnaround, so I send Hubby ahead of me to check it out. His walkie-talkie was just about out of range when he told me to follow the road. He wasn’t at the campground yet, but he seemed to think we were going in the right direction. I followed him, losing touch on several occasions, the sun was just about down and things were looking bleak. At last he called back to say he was at the campground entrance, so I raced along as best I could to catch up to him. We met up at the entrance to loop A, and we walked around trying to select a good spot, then drove around loop B just to make sure. Loop B had several campsites that looked, once again, like they were being occupied by the homeless (at least they had a car and tents to sleep in), but no horse corrals. So back at loop A, we picked a spot that was very long, not terribly level, and closer to the road than I like, but I was in no mood to quibble. By the time I was backing up into it, I couldn’t see a thing, and had to maneuver between two stumps with only Hubby giving me guidance. At last, we were in! Got the horses settled, the animals fed, and poured a nice strong cocktail for us as we celebrated the end of an incredibly hellish day! Somehow, it was grossly appropriate that it was April Fools, but this was no fooling!