Archives for 2012

Set the alarm for 5:25, just about the time the sun came up, though I actually was up a little before that. I heard the forest waking up about a half hour earlier, so I joined it. We had a quick bowl of fruit, then got the horses ready, were riding up the gravel road toward the trailhead at 7:00. It was still cool and lovely, and the hot sun hadn’t quite reached the tops of the trees when we turned west onto the River to River Trail. Fortunately we left the gravel behind when we did so, a nice dirt and grass footing most of the time we were on it. There was a long of growth on the trail, which made it feel almost like going through a tunnel, but there was a lot of low overhang which kept it challenging. At one point I even got down to walk under a limb, but Hubby managed to get under it without dismounting. Then we came down to a creekbed, and momentarily lost the trail, as there were orange arrows going one way, and we missed the blue painted marking going the other. Soon realized our mistake though, and managed to get back on track right away. This was a surprising nice trail once we got past the creekbed crossings and started to climb up some hills. After a few miles we came to a T, and the RTR trail was clearly marked to the left, but according to the map I had copied from the women yesterday, the road to the right should be a forest road that would form a smaller loop back to the camp, so we decided to take that rather than linear out and in. It was a forest road, but it’s been a really long time since any motorized vehicles have come this way, and I’m not sure they could make it all the way anyway, but it was great for horses. Mostly dirt and grass, a few rocky areas but not many, winding through mixed deciduous forest with a few pine stands along the way. Really lovely, though again, there were a few areas that had some pretty low overhanging branches. We came across a couple of trail markers, very old and faded, but sufficient to let us know we were on the right path back to the Camp. Eventually we landed at a family graveyard with several very large and nice stones, yet dating back to 1840-1910’s, and smaller ones even older. At that point, the trail turned back to gravel road, and we knew we were on the right road home. The horses didn’t like the gravel much (especially Clio, who was bootless this time, as she had lost one in KY last week), but fortunately it was less than a mile back and we made good time. GPS put us at about 7.34 miles, and we were back in camp by 9:40, just as the temps were starting to climb.

   Spent most of the day getting caught up on bookkeeping and blogging, as it was too hot to go riding today, mostly because we slept late and it was hot early. Hoping to get up earlier tomorrow to get a short ride in before it gets too hot. Nice to relax, though, even if we’re sweating in our recliners. The fans are going, and if it gets too bad, we can always pull out the second generator and run the A/C for awhile. I spent much of the day tending to some rashes I acquired in the last few days. I’ve never been allergic to anything before, and I’m not sure where this came from, but I suspect either I touched something poisonous when I was putting up a highline, and may our latest batch of hay had some poison ivy or something like that in there, as the rash has spread all the way up my arms along the inside, right where I would carry hay over to the horses. At least I have all of the remedies to hand, cold packs, calamine, Ivarest, Gold Bond (cream and powder), hydrocortisone, coal tar soap, aloe cream, our medicine cabinet is filled with anti-itching stuff, though it’s usually for Hubby, and it’s usually for bug bites. I’ve never had poison anything before, when I was a kid I could walk through poison ivy and never get a reaction, but I guess those days are gone! Disappointed to learn it may take as long as 3-4 weeks to clear up! Well, you can bet I’ll be on the lookout for those kinds of plants from now on! And to wear long-sleeved shirts when we ride narrow trails, though I hate to do that when it gets this hot. Better than these rashes, though, that’s for sure!

 Set the alarm early, and managed to get out at a decent hour. As the site was a full hookup, we were able to do all our dumping right on the spot, and we were out by 8:00. We had an important phone call to make at 8:30, so we found a nice little restaurant in Dawson Springs for breakfast, had a cup of coffee before the call, then had breakfast afterwards before heading out on our short trip just 70 miles north. We had a straight shot on a back road, with a delightful ferry ride across the Ohio River (no fee!) to Cave In Rock, then a short 14 mile drive to Camp Cadiz. This is apparently a little used camp, but when we arrived, there was obviously a lot of work that had been done recently. The area had a lovely lawn, most of the 11 sites had recently had a new gravel parking pad applied to each campsite, and it looked very pleasant, and it was easy to get to. The only real drawback was that there is only one water spigot, but since the place was empty, we took the spot nearest the water, which also happened to be perfect for the satellite dish. We had a leisurely afternoon getting set up, letting the horses graze awhile on some long grass across the driveway before they came looking for a drink when we started getting the highline up. At one point a couple of women in a pickup truck came by, scouting the location. Apparently one of them has a cabin on the other side of the park and they’re looking for new trails to explore. They had a trail map of the area, and were kind enough to let me take a copy of it, just in case what I already have is insufficient. Doesn’t look like there’s a lot of choice, just the linear River to River Trail (which is over 100 miles long, stretching from the Ohio to the Missouri River), and some forest roads which the ladies didn’t know anything about, though it looks like one can make a fairly decent, shorter loop. Only problem we foresee is that the forecast is for temps near 100 degrees!! Not what you’d expect for Memorial Day weekend in Illinois! It’s actually cooler in Florida than what they’re calling for here. Seldom seem to be in the right place weather-wise, no matter what we do! Always seem to be breaking some record somewhere. Oh, well, small complaint compared to how fortunate we are in every other aspect of our life!

One more trail to do here, the Orange Trail, and as it turned out, it became our favorite! Much more “trail” than road, though not really much better marked than the rest, again, mostly at the intersections. One waypoint of interest was the Hamby Cemetery, a small family plot dating back to births before the Revolutionary War, 1774 pre-USA! We stopped there for a snack, a rest and a horse apple break before pressing on. This was a great trail. Again, though, when we hit a forest road, it was again poorly marked. The map indicated we should go directly across the road, but there was nothing there, a right turn up the road didn’t seem to take us anywhere, so we turned left, knowing that was at least in the right direction toward the center of the park, and thus would cross other trails. Fifty yards or so up we saw an opening for a trail on the right, though it wasn’t marked orange, we took it anyway, just to get off the road. A short ways in we realized Clio had lost one of her Easyboots (Hubby had made a repair to it a few days ago, but it was obviously too far gone), so we turned back a bit to try to find it, but then decided it was too far to go just to retrieve a boot that was probably beyond repair anyway (so if you see that boot on the east side of the Orange Loop, help yourself!) Got a little turned around at one spot, again, but managed to find ourselves back on the right track, and got back to camp safe and sound, delighted that we have found a trail as good as that one here, especially after our slow start on the Blue Trail. Once we got back to camp, we started packing up for our departure tomorrow.

Saddled up in marginally cooler temps, and set off to explore the Yellow Trail. This time we knew the trailhead was by the field with the barns, so we took the camp connector down there and picked up the yellow trail, which followed a gravel road to the main highway. At the main highway, there was a tiny, vague little arrow indicating what seemed to mean cross the road, kind of to the right, but there were no markers on the other side of the road, so once again, we had to consult the map, which indicated the trail went straight across the road. It did not. We crossed anyway, and went to the right as indicated, and just before we were to cross another tarmac highway, we saw a tiny opening into the woods. As we approached, it finally became apparent that it was, indeed, the trail. We turned onto it, and about 50 yards deep into the woods, we saw our first marker, which has been typical of most of the trails here so far. The good news is that most of the Yellow Trail was more wooded than the Blue Trail had been, and more of it was like a “trail” than a road, but there were still some sections that were gravel/dirt road. We thought we got lost a few times (again, always at poorly marked intersections), but overall it was very enjoyable. Near the end, rather than take the combined Yellow/Blue section back the HQ, we managed to find the Camp Trail on the east side of the main highway, a much lesser used trail, but still passable. There were some sections throughout the trail system that need a lot more maintenance, as there is lots of windrow (leftover wood from fallen trees) on the trails, and a number of trees down over the road, possibly left to discourage motor vehicles, which we applaud, but so high off the ground you need a jumper or to follow sometimes rather treacherous detours around them. With a bit more TLC, this place would give Land Between the Lakes a run for their money!

 Hot again today, but it’s always cooler in the shade of the woods, so we weren’t too worried. Can’t be any hotter than we’ve seen in Florida, anyway. Headed south out of the campground on what we learned was the “camp trail,” though there were no markings to indicate that. In fact, we learned there were few markings to indicate many of the trails. It started out as a pretty nice dirt trail with a few stones, narrow and surrounded by heavy woods, just the way we like it. Then we came to the first T intersection, where there were no indications of any of the trails, red, blue or yellow, just one sign pointing to the right for the lake overlook. According to the map, though, it looked like we were supposed to go left, so we did, and the trail widened into a dirt, gravel and grass road. That soon led us to what was marked on the map as the “Forest HQ”, but all we saw were several maintenance buildings, which we circled around look for the yet again unmarked trail. Not finding anything, we headed down the driveway toward the road looking for signs, finally noticed a path that went around the gate. From there, there was nothing. There was a large field and some barns across the road, and a few horse trailers parked in it, but it looked like a farm. After reviewing the map, we decided to head down the road to the right, and about a quarter mile down the road we finally found a blue marker. The next several miles was on a gravel and dirt forest service road, our least favorite kind of horse trail. FINALLY, the trail turned off to a real trail that suddenly went from easy to challenging, a very narrow trail that had obviously not been very well-maintained, lots of downed trees and branches, steeper inclines until we reached a creek, which the trail followed for a while before climbing back up again. Trail turned back to a road. Somewhere along the way we found waypoint markers that indicated we were going in completely the wrong direction than we thought, going counter-clockwise on the loop rather than clockwise. Eventually the road reached the main highway, and paralleled that for a ways, until we finally opened up into a large field that turned out to be the field we saw earlier with the barns and horse trailers! I read somewhere that the trails were well-marked, and they kind of are once you’re ON the trail, but every intersection was a mystery! Though we started out in the woods so the heat wasn’t too bad, many of the roads were open to the sun, and the heat became really debilitating pretty quickly. Nevertheless, it was a pretty good ride, we did manage to get quite a few canters and trots in on the straight-aways. Gave the horses a bath when we got back to cool them down a bit, then crashed ourselves, wiped out from the heat. It shouldn’t be this hot here in May! Hope it cools off soon!

Crack of dawn wake up call today, got out in less than an hour. We were planning on getting breakfast on the road, but the only fast food joint had a line a mile long, so Hubby skipped it. Meanwhile I spent a half hour at the vet’s office waiting to get the horses’ new Coggins and health certificates (despite repeated assurances they would be ready, they weren’t), until we finally hit the road hungry. We didn’t get a meal until after Hubby’s doctor’s appointment (fortunately we got in and out in under an hour there), but we were too late for breakfast, so a Burger King Whopper was the best we could do (though Hubby had fish). Still managed to arrive at Pennyrile State Forest by just after 2:00, and we quickly settled into a full hookup in a very nice horse camp with a park-like setting (as opposed to wilderness), except, being in KY again, we were faced with look for alternatives to the dumbest highline system every created by a bureacracy. I don’t know what it is about KY, but we’ve seen this before. Whoever does designs the KY horse camps obviously doesn’t know a thing about horses, or maybe they hate horses, because the system they’ve designed is everything that a horse hates. They’s put up two heavy posts with a crossbar. The cross bar has a metal plate across it, no doubt the keep the horses from chewing on it (a habit know as cribbing, for the uninitiated), which they tend to do when they’re bored. The cross bar keeps them from being able to move like they would with a decent highline, instead it confines them to a very small area. To make matters worse, the footing is gravel. I don’t know what genius thinks gravel is a good surface for horses (or any mammal) to stand on, but it’s just plain dumb. So, not surpisingly, not a lot of people in the camp actually use the system, and we certainly didn’t. Instead, we found two trees on our site, put on our tree-saver straps, strung a REAL highline, and let the horses move about freely, completely ignoring the park-provided “dumbline.” We figured that if anyone really objected, we’d discuss it then, but meanwhile, I’m doing what I know is best for my animals, bureacracy be damned. Anyway, we got settled in, early than usual, and we crashed early from all our energies over the last few days.