Archives for July 2023

Hi Babe!
A good night sleep, but first thing this morning, after breakfast, I ran down to Cadillac and did a bunch of shopping. Tractor Supply first for horse feed, fly spray and propane, then Walmart for fuel in the truck and a bunch of other essentials, and finally Meijers, for the things I couldn’t get at Walmart. A drive back to camp, put everything away, got my fridge going again with propane, then finally saddled up Flash for a ride. Apparently there was an endurance ride here last weekend, and after requesting a map on their Facebook group, one of the organizers posted their 25 mile route, so I used that to plan my trip today. Couldn’t find my GPS for a bit, then finally found it, and downloaded about the first 15 miles of the ride to follow. The route started out very nice, single track and forest, for about the first 100 yards, then it all became mostly sand roads, a lot of it through some clear cut areas, so it wasn’t very pretty. Eventually, on the last couple of miles, it got better, but it certainly wasn’t my typical type of riding. Flash was definitely on the go, go, go today, and Lola, who hasn’t been getting much exercise the last month, had a hard time keeping up, though that didn’t stop her from trying to goad me into throwing her a frisbee once we got into camp. It was a nice ride, about 15 miles, because any day on the back of my horse is a good day! It was fairly hot today, so I sponged him down, and since there was no one left in camp but us, I let him graze for a couple of hours before putting him back on the highline. Watch a Big Valley during dinner, then a movie which actually featured Pam Daly, who, you remember, we worked with back in Florida, and who came up to join us when we moved to Ohio. She’s doing a lot of training young actors now, and, evidently, getting some movie roles, too. She did a pretty nice job of playing a witchy Amish mother, glad to see her getting some higher profile acting work! Anyway, settled down for the evening, ready for early bed tonight. Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Pix to come!

Hiya Sweetie!
Last night after I got in bed at 9:00, one of the board members of the MTRA, Jimmy C., showed up on my doorstep! Apparently he is part of a group of about six trailers that showed up yesterday, and he parked right next to me! We chatted for a few minutes, and he invited me over to their campfire, but since I was already in bed, I declined, and promised to come the next night if they had one. After he left, I got to sleep pretty early, got up a little later since my arrangement with Heide was to meet at 10:00, which we did. We did another great 16+ mile ride, even going on another trail that’s been marked but we hadn’t GPSed it yet, though she says it’s the last one like that, hopefully. Flash did great, though he did seem a bit more sluggish today, not surprising since this is his fourth ride this week. It was funny, though, every time we came to an intersection, his nose was pointed toward the direction of camp, just like clockwork! And every time we actually turned in the direction toward camp, he’s speed up! We were laughing about it. Got back a little after 2:00, got him settled in and relaxed with computer games until dinnertime. She had given me a container of homemade broccoli cheese soup which I had for dinner, lovely! Watched a movie, and then took a quick walk to see if they were having a campfire, but only moments later a thunderstorm came in, followed some other, shorter spits of rain, until finally it was over. I wasn’t sure if they would bother, but sure enough, when I walked over after 9:00, they were all around a blazing fire. I sat with them until well past 10:30, still have my shower and bed to do! A late night for sure! Good night, darlin’! Love you!

Pix to come!

Hey Darlin’!
Woke up with the 7:00 alarm, since we decided to leave early, and met Sue at her campsite, then met Heide at the day parking area, and off we went! Not surprisingly, the forecast was wrong, and it was raining by 10:00, but only for a little bit. Heide took us to some interesting spots today, a memorial for a CCC camp, Camp Lunden, and also out to a little trout lake that was really nice, had to pass through some wetlands to get there. Very nice! Then, around 1:00, there was some storms threatening, and since no one really wanted to be out in the thunder and lightning, we decided to make a run for camp. Sue’s horse is a foxtrotter, but she generally rides with stock horses, so the whole day was quite an experience for her and her horse Sky, and the last five miles or so, at high speed, was a bit different from what she’s used to! We had to take a breather once or twice for the benefit of her horse, who, of course, is nowhere near in the condition of Flash or Heart (Heide’s horse), but they held up pretty well. Sue said that when she took the same route with her other friends it took 1 1/2 hours, but we did it in about 20 minutes, so she really had a chance to appreciate her gaited horse! Actually, they were doing a lot of cantering just to keep up! Anyway, it started to rain harder just as we got to camp, so we quickly exchanged contact information and went our separate ways. I put Flash under the awning (well, almost) to take off his tack, and got him put away. It wasn’t long afterward that the rain stopped, but I was glad to get back, since we’d done about 17.5 miles anyway. Relaxed during the afternoon, decided not to run out to check my email (it can wait until Monday!), had a nice dinner and a movie, heading to shower and bed! Good night, baby! Love you!

Pix tocome!

Hey Sweetie!
Had another good night sleep, did chores and breakfast, and had Flash all saddled and ready to go at ten. Heide was a bit late, but just as I was heading to the day parking area to see if she arrived, she was riding down the road towards me, so it was all good! We headed out on the trail, this time covering even more of her freshly-made blue tagged trails, some of which seemed almost like we were just going across country through the woods! Challenging, but a lot of fun! We did over eighteen miles today, but she says she’s covered pretty much all of the trails she’s been marking, so I should have the makings of a decent map by now. We got back to camp by 3:30, said our good-byes at day parking, then I rushed back, put Flash away, and headed out to check my emails and do other quick computer work. That took me past 4:45, so I got back to camp, then rushed up the hill to where the other folks were camping, and we ended up having a lovely evening. Her Garmin cord didn’t work on my computer, so we just arranged for her to email her GPX files of this place, and combined with what I have, we should have most everything we need. They were nice enough to invite me to supper, and we chatted to nearly 7:30. I actually had a bit of cell signal on that side of camp, I’m going to try to put my booster in the truck and see if it’s enough to do what I need to do tomorrow, and save me a six mile trip up the road. Ready to settle down for the evening, shower and bed soon. Good night, babe! Love you!

Pix to come!

Hi Babe!
Had a great night sleep (probably because I drank a little too much bourbon last night 🙂 ), but woke up refreshed and ready to go this morning. Once I got my chores and breakfast done, I went out in search of a cell phone signal sufficient to do a long list of things that have been waiting too long to be done, and ended up have to go six miles, four of those on washboard dirt road, till I could find two bars and a place to pull over, which was really just off the road, since there didn’t seem to be anything but private driveways along the way. Spent about two hours trying to get as caught up on as many things as I could, particularly the time sensitive ones. My text messaging program seems to be on the fritz, I had a hard time sending anything, and was receiving the same text message from Heide about 20 times. Anyway, I ran out of time and headed back to camp, and was saddling up Flash when Heide got there a few minutes early. No worries, we were out on the trail in no time. One of the things about Big Oaks, if you only read the website and look at the map provided by DNR, it only shows about 15 miles of trails, and all of those are clearly dirt/sand/gravel roads. In reality, there are dozens more miles of trails when you include old forest roads and some of the new trails that have been ingeniously created here, many of which Heide guided me on today. Flash and her Rocky mare turned out to be very compatible, and we average well over four mph most of the day. We ended up doing nearly 18 miles, and went through some really beautiful sections. They’ve only been allowed to flag mark them, since they’ve not been officially designated, but apparently it’s open riding here, so horses can go on any of the other trails and roads. The biggest challenge for someone visiting here is the lack of a comprehensive map, but I’ve promised Heide I would help her with that. We got an extra boost in that direction when we stopped off at a campsite with some folks from the Michigan Back Country group, who have some gps files that will certainly help with that! Heide has a lot of that on Ramblr, but isn’t technologically astute enough to figure out how to share it (something we’ll work on this week), so hopefully by the time I leave here, I’ll have all the data I need to help create a map, and the ability to spread it where it needs to go to encourage campers to come here. The campground is pretty nice, right on the edge of the lake (though there’s a dropoff, so not easy to get to, except from site 16), the pump is now solar powered, and most sites are shaded and lovely. The trails today were a mixture of single and double trails through the woods, with the occasional short section on the “official” trails/dirt roads. At one point, the trail was so new it almost felt like going cross country, which didn’t bother us a bit, and there was a long stretch along a very hilly power line that was a fun challenge as well. A very good ride! Having left at 1:00, we got back in camp around 5:30, stopped and chatted with the BCH folks, then got back to my site, where we agreed to start tomorrow at 10:00. Got Flash settled in, had dinner, settled in for the evening, ready for shower and bed! Good night, my darlin’! Love you!