Archives for January 2019

In keeping with my plan to get Flash and myself conditioned for endurance riding, I headed south along the canal across Indiantown Road, passing a couple of playful otters on the way, turned east into the Jupiter Farms neighborhood and followed the canal all the way to Jupiter Farms Road and beyond. I had hoped to find a back entrance to Riverbend Park, but unfortunately there isn't one, so we had to stay on the bike path all the way up to the west entrance to the trail, which is just south of Indiantown Road anyway. Then we took the perimeter trail inside Riverbend Park, enjoying may long cordos and canters the entire time. This horse just loves to move!! We went under the tunnel to join the OTL trail, then straight west on the Cypress Creek Trail and finally, home, a fabulous almost twenty mile ride. Love this horse! Grabbed a quick lunch, changed clothes, and off to dialysis with us! Love this life!

Since I've decided to train Flash up for endurance riding, I've been extending my trips to condition both him and me, and I thought a good event to practice on would be the Ocean to Lake Ride that takes place in the area at the end of February. It's a 60+ mile ride over three days, from Dupuis WMA to JW Corbett WMA on Day One, then on to Riverbend Park on Day Two, then the final leg to Jonathon Dickinson State Park on Day Three. Hubby and I did the third day once back in 2012 and thoroughly enjoyed it, though Hubby could never do a 20 mile ride any more, but I think it will be a perfect goal for me and Flash. The event organizers have scheduled a "warm up" to a place called Rood Lake, which is about halfway between Riverbend and JDSP this Saturday, but since I already had plans for the weekend, I decided that I would try to find Rood Lake on my own today. Unfortunately, no map shows Rood Lake on it, so I had to guess a little bit. I did read they had recently put in a couple of picnic tables and a covered shelter, so I figured it wouldn't be that hard to find. All I knew was that it was supposedly about 100 yards off the OTL trail, but that wasn't much help. So off we went, with nothing more than a general idea in mind. As we headed out the Cypress Creek trail, I happened upon a worker for Cypress Creek, and questioned him as to the whereabouts of Rood Lake, and he had no idea, but he was nice enough to call back to his office for some help from there, and eventually I learned the one piece of critical information I was missing, that Rood Lake was east of the highway tunnel under the Turnpike and I-95. So off I went, heading through the old orchards and cattle fields to the tunnel, after which I turned right along the highway, but soon realized that wasn't right, so I went back and carried on for a bit until I found a much more likely road which I followed all the way around one lake until it turned back north between another lake, at which point I soon intersected with another trail that, when I looked east, I could see the shelter and picnic tables. I found it! We turned down there and I dismounted to take a break, but Flash wasn't interested, he pranced around, anxious to keep going. After a few minutes, I remounted and headed out, this time in a slightly more direct line, though honestly, I wasn't far off the mark to begin with, fortunately. Flash was still ready to run, so I let him pick the pace for the way home, so it went pretty quick. The round trip ended up being about 17.5 miles in just under four hours, which I thought was pretty good considering we haven't been training that long. Flash is just so much fun to ride, he just loves to run and run! Spent a relaxing evening, a lovely way to spend the day!

I had ordered some folding shelf brackets and picked up a white shelf board from a local home improvement store, so this morning I installed a small folding shelf by my recliner, a welcome addition, as up to now, I haven't had any place convenient to set down a drink, or plate, or computer, and now I do! Really starting to feel like we're getting our new home in order, looking forward to many happy years here. Being Sunday again, I saddled up both horses, and once again took a couple of short rides around the neighborhood. Today, Hubby and I went out to the pagoda in the Hungryland WMA, which is a perfect one hour ride, then swapped out with brother Jeff again, and went out to the neighborhood west of this one, which I had forgotten you could get to, so it was a pleasant day all around!

Spent the morning doing a repair on my Hubby's recliner (this time, without brother Karl's help), then took Flash for a 10+ mile ride. This time we headed out through Cypress Trails, then north from the parking area just to see where that road went, and discovered it was (as I suspected) part of the Ocean To Lake Trail. After such a late start this afternoon, I couldn't go any farther without risking not getting back before dark, so I headed back, with plans to explore further on another day!