Archives for August 2020

Hey Sweetie!
What a lovely, long ride today! After a so-so night sleep, I got up, did my chores, had breakfast, then saddled up Flash for our group ride today. I left, with Lola in her newly-refashioned safety vest, about 10:15 for our meetup at 11:00 at Orange and J. Just as I crossed the road on to the orange trail, a rather large and noisy group turned in just behind me, so I picked up my pace to get out ahead of them, all downhill of course, so I ended up reaching J by about 10:45. They ended up being a few minutes late, but I had a nice chat with four fellas who are camping up on top of the hill in the state horse camp. Eventually my group came along and we headed out. Instead of Table Rock, though, we headed out to Indian Head, which I don’t remember ever going to before, then around and down to the Artesian well for lunch, then back out on the challenging pink trail, where one of our group decided to head back to camp before the turn (and who ended up getting lost anyway, then found again by our group when they finished the pink trail), and another girl’s horse got so tired she stumbled a few times and almost went down the hill, and could scarcely carry her even on the flat. My phone died part way through so I didn’t get a GPS of the whole ride, but when I went back and reconstructed it, it looked like about 13 miles, but it seemed a lot longer. And it may have been, with steep climbs and descents, the GPS is very often misleading. Once we completed the pink trail, I peeled off to climb back up to camp, while they headed east, then north, back to 3 Reasons farm. It was close for me, and Flash, after all that exercise, still decided to gait up that long hill most of the way! Lola was so tuckered she practically dropped onto her cushion in the screen room while I unsaddled Flash and gave him a wash and rubbed him down with some liniment. One of the older guys that I met this morning came by and chatted for a bit, then I got everyone put away, changed my clothes, then took the truck out to 3 Reasons for steak dinner with the gang. There was a thunderstorm in the vicinity and I didn’t want to leave Lola alone, you know how she panics when there’s a storm, so I helped her into the truck (she was so tired she couldn’t climb in on her own), and traveled the 10 minutes to the farm. A nice group, a great dinner, and, of course, I sang for my supper by doing Snowy River for them, with only one little bobble, but it was the largest group I’ve done so far, ten people, so I thought it went pretty well. As it started to get dark, I drove back to camp and settled down for the night. No TV, I barely have enough energy to type this blog! And tomorrow is likely going to be even longer for me, since Table Rock is on the other side of the park, plus they want to go down into the state park, with is another few miles south, so it’s going to be another long day for me, but I don’t mind, it was a beautiful and fun day! I just hope Flash is up for it, because this group is all gaited and Apollo would never keep up, plus it would be too long for him. But if Flash is gimpy, I may have no choice! I think he’ll be all right, though, he certainly seemed fine gaiting up the hill at the end of the day! Well, I’ve had my shower, and tonight, I’m going to be early, long day tomorrow! Good night, my love!

Hey Darlin’,
After getting to bed late, I slept well, gave Lola some satin balls with breakfast, planned a route to ride some trails that I missed when we were here last year, then saddled up Flash and headed out about noon. I’d forgotten how pretty this forest is, lots of escarpments and caves and creeks and waterfalls, though most weren’t flowing with water at this time of the year. I took one trail, the pink trail (though the markers looked more purple) which was marked challenging. I remember I took the easier part of it last year, but today I took the truly challenging section, which they mark by adding a black strip to the pink mark. There were a few dicey spots, not the worst I’ve seen (the North Dakota Badlands come to mind!), but still it was a good trial for Flash, and he did wonderfully! There was less mud than last year, but still plenty, and because of that I decided not to put his boots on, but, of course, that meant he was more tentative on the gravel sections, but it couldn’t be helped. I did NOT want to waste time searching for boots today, and with some of the sharp dropoffs so many of the trails have here, they were liable to go over the side, never to be seen again. But he handled it well, and there really wasn’t that much. I went out to Parachute Rock, past White Falls (no water that I could see), around Red Rock, and out to Crystal Falls (again, no water). All told it was just 10 miles when we got back to camp, just about 3 hours. It was a beautiful day, gorgeous weather with not a cloud in the sky, and cooler than it’s been. Supposed to get down in the low to mid-50′ tonight! Anyway, got back rinsed off Flash and Lola, who was equally muddy from flattening herself into every muddy puddle she came across, then settled down in the screen room for awhile. I decided to do a long overdue job, and spent some time refashioning one of the human safety vests into a Lola-sized vest. She’s been dragging the other one around, I thought I would custom fit one for her, and it seems to have worked, but I’ll know better after the next trail ride if it doesn’t fall off! That took some time. When I finished, I fed the horses, gave Lola dinner and a couple of satin balls (I gave her one as soon as we got back from the ride, and it encouraged her to finish her breakfast, which she had left from this morning), grilled a nice Angus burger for myself, and settled down to a couple more ST Voyagers. By now, as usual, it’s time for shower and bed! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Babe,
Another beautiful day here today! After doing some more planning, and making reservations at the hotel in Peach Springs, AZ for the rafting trip, I saddled up Flash for a ride. The one trail is pretty boring, so I decided to make today all about conditioning, and gaited him for almost the entire ride. We did the whole 8.5 miles in about 95 minutes, and that was stopping a couple of times to put boots back on! Not a bad pace, and he seemed quite capable of it, no complaints! I just wish they didn't have gravel in between the muddy spots here, during the last half mile his boots came off twice, I ended up taking them both off for the rest of the way back to camp. Gave him a nice rinse down before putting him away, did a little bit more work on the computer, then took the kayak down to the boat launch and spent a couple of hours on the lake. I paddle almost all the way to the north end, which was a nice marsh with lots of wildlife, lots of birds. Since the beach was busier, all the geese had moved up here, plus some herons and cormorants, too. I watched them for awhile. Naturally, the wind was against me when I paddled up, then died down to almost glasslike conditions for the last half of the paddle back. It was nice, though, nice to get some sun and pretty quiet, too. Got back to camp, fed the horses, took my shower and settled down for the evening. About time for bed now, so I'll say good night. Love you, babe!

Hey Sweetie,
Had a great night sleep, yay, but got off to a slow start this morning handling a bunch of computer work, mostly trying to plan for the next couple of months of travel, trying to figure out where to go and when. Got some preliminary decisions made, found a stable for when I have to fly out to Vegas (finally got the dates settled for that!), so I'm well on my way on my planning. I finally got Apollo saddled and we headed out with Lola, going in the opposite direction on the trail today. Once, on a hill, I even managed to get Apollo into a canter! I can't remember how long it's been since I've been able to get him to do that, the fat slug! Of course, as soon as we got to the top, I realized he'd lost one of his boots (typical, right?), and I spent 20 minutes trying to find it. Oddly, though he lost his right boot, so naturally I was looking all along the right side of the road, and finally found it, on the LEFT side of the road! Weird, but I remember that time when he lost a boot once when you were riding him in Pennsylvania, and it did the same thing, ended up on the opposite side of the trail, which is why I decided to look there, and viola! Found it! I had a group of three women pass me while I was looking, but they didn't see it either. Then I passed a woman, leading a mule, evidently her farrier had trimmed her mule's hoofs to short and the gravel was bothering him, he was limping a bit. She still had a long way to go back to the day parking area, but fortunately I had an extra bottle of water that I gave her, but there's wasn't much else I could do, so I carried on. Then I passed the three ladies again when they stopped at a picnic area, stopping for a brief chat, then Apollo lost his boot again, but his time I saw it before it even quit rolling. We finally got back to camp around 4:30, and I was debating whether I wanted to go for a kayak ride so late, but then the three ladies arrived in camp, and they came over to socialize for awhile, and one of them even bought a copy of my book! After they left, I started thinking about my schedule again, and also about whether I wanted to try to take a vacation this winter, when it suddenly occurred to me. One thing on our bucket list that we never did was to take the mule train down the Grand Canyon to the bottom. Yes, we rode our own horses down the Bright Angel trail a ways, but never to the bottom, so I decided, since I was going to be in Vegas in early October, I'd check to see if they had any openings. Well, it seemed according to the website, that they were booked solid until summer next year, but then I called and spoke to Adrian, who informed me that yes, indeed, I might be able to accomplish it! So we went back and forth on the phone for quite some time before figuring out how to do it. It means I will miss the Skymont ride this year, because that was the only thing that worked in the schedule, but I'll be riding down just one week before the 10th anniversary of when we rode down on our own two horses! We had gorgeous weather then, I hope for the same this year! So I'm still working out the logistics, and I'm trying to figure out a way to also do a whitewater rafting trip while I'm there, too, but that's complicating things as well, but you know me, I'll find a way! I knew there was a reason I kept putting off the last camping reservation I needed to make in Indiana, because now all those plans for that week will change! Anyway, when I finally got off the phone it was after 8:00, so I took my shower, made dinner, settled in for a mere hour of television, and now I'm off to bed! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hi Babe!
Had trouble getting to sleep last night, and ended up waking up fairly early as well, so I got up to start a busy day. After my usual chores and breakfast, I got out the kayak and inflated it because I want to use it later. I timed it, it only took me 10 minutes to get it completely set up! Then I ran into town to post some mail and to pick up fuel in the truck so I won't have to worry about getting any on the road to the next stop. Just about the time I got back, the guys next door were leaving, so now I have the place all to myself. I saddled up Flash and we headed out on the trail. We were about a half a mile out of camp, and just crossing a nice creek, when I suddenly heard the sound of a very familiar whinny... Apollo somehow escaped the fence and followed us! Evidently I forgot to turn the power back on after I got Flash out, and he usually respects the fence anyway so I wasn't worried, but somehow the tape came off one post and dropped enough for him to get out. I didn't want to risk having him follow me the whole 9 miles, so I headed back to camp with him following and put him back inside the fence, strengthening the wire and putting the electric on, when we headed out again. It was a nice ride, nothing spectacular or special, just a nice 2 ½ hours on the trail. There was more mud than I expected, and some patches of gravel the guys had warned me about, so I had put boots on Flash before we left. Some areas had a few hills and some nice outcroppings in the forest, the rest was just going along next to fields and more in the open. Like I said, a nice ride, but nothing special. I was relieved to find Apollo safe and sound back in camp, I was afraid that he might try to escape, but he was fine. While I was taking off Flash's bridle, he started to move away before I got his halter on, and I grabbed his head to steer him back to the trailer, but I accidentally touched his eye and he flung his head up, hitting me right next to MY eye, and a great bump came up almost immediately. I got an ice pack on it right away, which helped the bump go down, but it's turning blue, looks like I'm going to have a shiner out of it! After I got him pushed away, I changed into some swim gear and headed over to the boat launch, then paddled around the lake for awhile. It's a small lake, very quiet, there was only a couple of small flat boats, mostly fishing, no other kayaks or paddle boats out at all. Lots of Canadian Geese at the beach, but hardly any people, just two women chattering away (well, one was doing most of the chattering, the other hardly got a word in edgewise). She was going on and on about how God thinks this and God does that, quite the expert in proselytizing, but I had to laugh, because a seagull started picking at a pile of her stuff and she yelled a blue streak of sailor talk at it. I was thinking, I hope God puts all the folks that swear that bad in a different section in the afterlife, I'd hate for anyone to have to listen to that for eternity! Anyway, got back, fed the horses, had a shower, and settled down for the evening. I'm going to bed early tonight, feeling quite tired after all that activity! So good night, darlin'! Love you!