Archives for September 2013

Woke up to a cool morning and overcast skies. It had been windy during the night, but with very little rain, but as the morning progressed, the clouds built up and the rain came in. I had put every bucket and rain barrel I could around the RV to collect as much water as possible, and after a couple of hours of rain, we had collected enough to last us the weekend without having to go fetch more, thank goodness. Spent the day working on the computer, with Hubby mostly reading, a nice relaxing day, a perfect activity for a cool, rainy day.

Slept late through a fabulously quiet morning, had a late breakfast, got some work done before finally saddling up and heading out at about 1:30. It was a hot day, with temps in the low 90’s, which was a nice change after some of the cool weather we’ve been having. Headed out on a Google-made map I drew, past a windmill with a stock tank where I spent a few minutes schooling Apollo, as the tank was odd-looking by his standards, then continued onward, until were stopped by a gate and a trail that seemed to peter out, so we rode the fenceline for a while, before coming to a trail that took us to another windmill, which was actually back on the original trail I had drawn, but way at the end of it, so we changed tactics, heading for the forest road south of here, which was the original track, then headed east to 212, the road that the campground is on. We ended up back at camp pretty quickly, after only a short hour ride or so, watering the horses at the big stock tank there before putting them away. Hubby commented that he preferred rides that went through woods, even though we got in several very nice canters over the prairie, so I promised the next ride would go east toward the man-made forest that makes up the Bessey Ranger District. Did some more work for the rest of the afternoon before settling down for the evening.

Enjoyed a very quiet night, no neighbors and no sound whatsoever! Still woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep, probably from eating so late last night. After breakfast and helping Hubby get the satellite dish up, I headed out to pick up a package at the post office, and to find a few bales of hay, as I only bought a few the last time because the quality was pretty bad. I started at the Ranger’s office, believing that since Weed-free certified hay was required, they would know where to get some. Of course, that didn’t turn out to be the case, they had no clue! Well, except for one source, maybe, in Grand Island, 135 miles away!! I called the local 4-H club organizer, she only had one source and he only did large round bales. I went to the post office and asked the woman there, and she gave me a name, but wasn’t sure. I looked up his number and left a message. Then I headed for the next nearest town of Thedford, stopped at a farm equipment store, they gave me another name, whom I called and left a message. I continued on to the post office in Thedford, and there was a woman there who gave me a number of a woman who had some square bales for her own horses, but that she might sell me a few. That turned out to be my source, I managed to reach her right away, she met me in a matter of minutes, took me over to her barn and sold me 5 light bales at $8 each. I was grateful to get them, but they were pretty darn expensive, and the quality is only what I’d call fair, apparently she had a friend with a meadow who square bales for her, but she’s the only one around, everyone else does large round bales, which doesn’t help me. Hopefully I can find a source for square bales before our next stop, I really need to get some GOOD hay, and get a full load! Finally made it back to camp, settled down to do some computer work (fortunately, there is just enough of a signal here to get on the internet with my antenna booster, though I can’t make a phone call), and had a lovely quiet evening.

Woke up good and early, knowing we had several stops today and wanting to still get to Halsey reasonably early, so we were on the road by 8:00. Stopped at Ft. Robinson to dump, then on to Chadron where we went to the Country Kitchen for breakfast while I did some quick work on my computer, and Hubby Skyped his sister in England to wish her birthday greetings, all of which took more than an hour. We then ran down to a farm supply store and Walmart before heading out of town. We stopped again in the town of Alliance to pick up fuel and propane, then finally arrived at the Bessey Ranger Station much later than we anticipated, right at 5:00. Fortunately, I had called ahead to confirm where spigot water was available, and when we arrived we headed straight there (next to the Rec building before entering the main campground). We filled the RV and both portable water barrels, as we have another 8 miles to Natick and we didn’t know what kind of water situation was there, other than a hand pump. Those 8 miles turned out to be painstakingly slow in an effort to not spill any more water than possible, and the roads, though mostly paved, would have been better off being gravel, they were so rough. Fifty minutes later, we arrived at the camp. On the left were a row of wooden, seemingly dilapidated corrals and a windmill with a large stock tank of water. On the right was a camping area. At first, we thought that was the entire campground, which didn’t make sense, but as I walked up the road I found the main entrance to the campground loop, which had a much nicer selection of sites. We drove in, and Hubby reconnoitered the area, deciding that site 15 was the best one for our purposes. It was a large site, and about 20 yards behind it was another row of pipe corrals, mostly shaded, but with a line of site that was clear for a satellite signal. We got moved in as quickly as we could (though we didn’t bother with the satellite dish, as we were now in Central Time and it was getting dark by the time we finished setting up) and finally got settled in. We had a late dinner, watched a movie and headed to bed, exhausted.

After yesterday’s long ride, we were ready for a rest day, so we spent the day reading, watching the “Manning Bowl” on TV, and generally relaxing as much as possible, as tomorrow is a travel!

Once again, planned a route on Google Earth and downloaded it to my GPS, and once again, it was so far off from what was on the ground we ended up going WAY in the wrong direction. For starters, the map has the trails on it, but evidently doesn’t bother to include the forest service roads, so when we headed out through the gate on the north end of the campground area, we headed along what we thought was Trooper Trail, but we found out later was an unmapped service road (even though it was obviously the main dirt road through the park). My GPS indicated we should be traveling the same path, only about a quarter mile south. We made several attempts to go south to try to pick it up, only to be stopped by the creek (which we crossed more times than I bothered to count) and a row of bluffs that were impossible to climb. We learned later that in order to find the trailhead of Trooper Trail, we needed to turn south IMMEDIATELY after going through the gate, but there were no visible signs there, of either a trail or of signs pointing to a trail, so we totally missed it. After several false starts, we finally just kept going on the dirt road (after all, the point was to ride, not which trail we rode on, right?) but eventually we passed the west intersection of Boots and Saddles, one of the two main trails here. We turned south on that, thinking it might take us to Trooper Trail, but the trail seemed to peter out, and when we came to a gate, we abandoned it and went back to the main road. We continued west, hoping to run into the original trail I had planned on, but then we came to another gate, and didn’t feel very confident about carrying on any further. Naturally, the road was boring, so we decided to return to the intersection of Boots and Saddles and take the north loop of that back to camp, as that had been an alternative to begin with. We started climbing, and the trail did get a lot more interesting, and was well marked with posts all along the way, weaving around the edges of some serious bluffs, lots of down and dead trees leftover from the fire in ’89, a bit treacherous in a few spots, and longer than we had hoped, but we took a break in a place with spectacular views, of which there were many others, and treated the horses with a couple of apples, taking a nice rest there. Eventually we made it back down to camp, though Hubby’s back was starting to give him trouble on the way down. It seems it’s steep declines that give him the most trouble. We got settled in as quickly as we could, had dinner, invited the ladies next door in for another Bond movie, and had another quiet evening.

Had to get up during the night a pull the main awning in a bit because of the wind, even though we had a few bouts of light rain which we were afraid were going to ruin the bale of hay we had put under the awning before I took the truck out yesterday. It didn’t, fortunately, because it didn’t rain that hard, but it looked like it was going to be a rainy, cool, blustery day. We actually slept later than we have in a long, thankfully, then got up and took care of the horses. There’s been some very serious flooding in next door Colorado, and that storm is heading in our direction, so it looks like today is another day we won’t ride. Good time to get caught up on my blog and bookkeeping! Spent some time chatting with our neighbors, two sisters named Fran and Patty who were from Colorado, and so were interested in hearing about the flooding back home. We invited them in to have hot cocoa with us, and later to watch an old James Bond movie, since their horse trailer wasn’t quite as comfy-cozy as our big RV, and they certainly didn’t have any TV. They cuddled up on big dog bed with Billy, and spent the evening with us. A very pleasant end to the day!

Made arrangements yesterday to pick up some hay nearby today, and arrived there at 10:00. Was somewhat disappointed to see that the hay was sitting outside, so naturally the whole top layer was gray and useless. A gentleman named Russ, and local farmer, met me there, apparently he’s trying to help the owner of this farm (who was not a farmer, which was evident), and we had a long talk about all kinds of things, an interesting guy. Anyway, there were a few good bales underneath that had a little alfalfa in it, and though I usually don’t go for alfalfa, the rest of the grass was pretty poor, so I figured we needed it for the nutritional value. I only took 8 bales, though, because I thought it might be a bit stalky for Clio, she’s been pretty fussy lately. I gave Russ a check of $4.50/bale, though he said if it was his hay, he wouldn’t charge more than $4, but the owner had said $4.50 to 6.00, so I figured that was fair. Anyway, I soon headed back to town, dropped some mail off at the Post Office, answered some email and stopped at the local grocery story before heading over to Fort Robinson, where I filled up a rain barrel with water. After arriving on Monday, we quickly were down to 2/3 of a tank because we didn’t fully fill it, so I had drained the first barrel into the RV to top it off, leaving us low on horse water, but it didn’t take long at all to fill it up at the campground in Fort Robinson. Then back to camp, though by now it was too late to take a ride (which had been our plan), and we read and did more work during the afternoon, till it was once again time to settle in. At dusk, yet another couple of livestock trailers and a group of younger riders arrived, starting to look like Grand Central out here!

Disconnected the truck and ran out the road about 1 1/2 miles until I got a great 3-bar signal, and spent most of the afternoon doing logistics for work. Our next job in DC has been confirmed for October, so flights, hotels, boarding, etc., plus making arrangements to pick up hay tomorrow, were all on my busy agenda. Hubby stayed home and did some chores and read till I returned, then we settled down again for the evening. There were some day riders that came in for a few hours, again surprising us that this is turning out to be quite a busier place than we thought it would be!

If you ever want to come someplace where you truly feel like you’re all alone in the wilderness, this is the place! From this campground, you can’t see a single structure other than the two vault toilets and the corrals, for as far as the eye can see! I even got out the binoculars and could just barely make out some kind of farm many miles away, not viewable with the naked eye. It was so quiet last night, it was hard to get used to after being in so many places where you could hear traffic noise, or tourists driving by. No one would ever come out here by accident, not subjecting themselves to 6 miles of bad road to get here, that’s for sure! After a leisurely breakfast, we saddled up the horses and headed out on what I had planned to be a short, five mile or so loop around the western part of Ft. Robinson State Park. We crossed the water crossing and started heading up through the grasslands, until we reached a gate. According to my GPS (which was a map based on the printed map from the BLM), if we went through the gate, we’d be going in the wrong direction, even though that’s the way the white trail markers went. Instead, we followed a fenceline that seemed to take us in the right direction, but soon my GPS was showing we were going way off track. Instead of turning around, we decided to continue along the fenceline until it met up with the back half of the loop, then follow it backwards. At least then we wouldn’t have to follow the road at the end of the trip, which was our original plan. When we reached the intersection, we saw the trail clearly straight in front of us (though, it turned out that we should have headed left at a lesser marked intersection) and climbed up a long grade to the top of the bluff, where we were met with some simply spectacular views! All 360 degrees around us were incredible, the kind of view that just can’t be done justice by a few pictures or a verbal description. Absolutely stunning! We continue to follow along the well-marked trail for a while, passing several markers laying on the ground, but it seemed to be heading along just fine. Then we came to a place where there was a picnic table and what looked like a collapsed shelter, and just beyond that, we came across a small herd of more than a dozen horses! I doubt they were wild, someone likely just had them grazing out there, but they were definitely related to each other, and they were beautiful! Several red roans with gorgeous faces, a couple of rare blue roans, some grays and whites, and two sorrels, one that looked a lot like my Apollo, though with a larger blaze than his perfect diamond. Well naturally, my guy got a bit excited by that, and we had a few scary moments while we tried to pass them, though they were planted right at a marker, but we saw the next marker and made a beeline there. Curious, the horses kind of followed us, which made my guy more antsy, but eventually we got around them to where the next marker was. That led to a gate, which was next to a pasture with some cows in it. After just one short startled moment when he spotted the cows, Apollo was very good about ignoring them, for which I was grateful. Quite a change from just a few months ago! Well, after all, we’ve conquered buffalo in the wild, right? What’s a couple of cows anymore? We went through the gate, and after a short bit, I checked my GPS, which confirmed what I had already suspected, we were going WAY off track, in exactly the opposite direction we needed to go to get back to camp. The problem here is that there are no markers except white diamonds, and white diamonds are used on EVERY trail! So, unfortunately, we had to turn around, deal with the gate, the cows and the horses once again, past the picnic table, until just beyond that we came to a marker that was on the ground. We had seen it before, but what we hadn’t seen was that in addition to the marker that was directly in front of us (and the one we followed), there was an additional marker to our sharp left (which was now almost directly in front of us on the return.) So we got back on track there, and followed that trail, which fortunately at least was in the same general vicinity as the GPS said it would be. This trail basically followed the ridgeline, so the views were universally spectacular, with every curve providing another view of distant horizons. We could even see what looked like the Black Hills from here! Fantastic! Another mile or so on and we ran into yet ANOTHER small herd of horses, mostly white and gray, a couple of which were huge draft horses, and a burro with paint coloring, which I’d never seen before. Of course, they were right in the middle of the trail, and we did our best to skirt them, and managed to get by with only one scary moment when Apollo had the urge to back himself toward the group, which I saw as an invitation to a kicking match, but I managed to get him out of there before any excitement began. The rest of the trip was uneventful, though there were a few rather steep rocky sections coming down that way. For the most part, we probably didn’t need boots, but for those areas where we did, we were very glad to have them. Got back to camp and got everyone settled, then anxiously downloaded my GPS info onto my computer, since this seemed to be a classic case of what the maps says and what’s on the ground as completely different from each other. It turned out that our 5 mile trip ended up being 8.25 miles, and less than half of it was on trails that I had designated as our path. I learned that we missed one intersection completely, and that the GPS trail made from the hard copy map didn’t seem to have much in common. I can’t say I was too surprised, because when I tried to line up the overlay on Google Earth, it didn’t seem to match up very well, even on the highly visible landmarks like roads! Well, still, it was a great ride, we saw fabulous views, everyone got home safe and sound, and ultimately, that’s the important thing. Not long after getting back, another horse trailer pulled in next to us, surprising us a bit, as we were beginning to think we were alone in the universe out here! Two sisters, maybe my age or a little older, set up camp, corralled their horses, and settled in along side us. I visited with Pat and Fran and their mother’s dog Hoot for a while, though for some reason, Hoot kept growling at my guys, who were behaving beautifully. Usually it’s Billy that starts growling, but this time he let the other dog do it, and he just kept making the rounds, getting lots of attention from the ladies. Eventually we settled down for the night, having now ridden in our 45th State!