Hi Darlin’,
I had a GREAT night sleep last night, woke up refreshed and raring to go! After chores and breakfast, I saddled up Flash and headed down to Buckskin Canyon, one of the few trails left I haven’t done. I put his boots on before leaving this time, since there are a lot less muddy patches on that side of the forest, but still a bit of gravel, and I knew that part of this trail was actually along a road, some of which had gravel. We got through the first part okay, but I missed the turn into the southern unit of the park (I forgot that my neighbor Opal had told me to look for a chain link fence. I got distracted because a nasty little dog was making a fuss the whole length of the yard!), but I had put it into my GPS so it didn’t take me long to find it. There were a bunch of cars blocking the entrance but I managed to get around them, and I met all the drivers hiking up the trail, they were apparently associated with the park somehow. We chatted a few minutes before we went our opposite ways. There is a red loop and a white loop, so I took the white loop as the first part of a figure eight I planned to do. It was obvious no one’s been on the trail for quite a while, lots of undergrowth and not much sign of horse traffic. When I got back to the red trail to do, I ended up at an intersection with arrows in three directions, but the map wasn’t very clear on where they went, especially since it was right on the fold I had made, but it looked like one went down the mountain and stopped and the other one looped around. I tried to take the loop but there were a lot of trees down, and it quickly began to look like it was going to be cross-country through the woods for a ways, and I wasn’t willing to do that, so I abandoned it and turned around and came back a slightly different way. We were about a mile out when we heard a thunderstorm coming our way, so we picked up the pace, coming up that long stretch on the white trail where it’s not too steep, but a long incline, and gaited most of the way up there until we had to dip back into the woods. We managed to get back in time, though, I was able to get him unsaddled and everything put away before the rain hit. I didn’t have time, nor did I feel I needed to bother rinsing him down, since the rain did a fine job of that. It didn’t last long, and soon the sun was back out, but it only made it steamier. It’s been getting hotter the last few days, but there’s rain coming in the next few days, and it will be cooler after that. Once it passed through, I headed out to get some hay from a woman I had messaged earlier, she had some grass hay for $5 a bale. The bales were a lot lighter than I’ve been used to, so they won’t last as long as the ones I have now, but they’ll get me halfway through my next camp, which will be plenty good enough. Fortunately, the rain had passed through there before I got the hay, so everything will stay dry. Headed out to Tractor Supply to pick up a little horse feed, then Walmart for some shopping, then back to camp, where I had dinner, a nice Angus burger on the grill. While I’ve had neighborly interaction with Opal and her friends, I hadn’t really chatted with them at length, so I went over and spent some time with them. They all wanted to see the inside of the trailer so I brought them up for the grand tour, then we went back to her trailer and I asked them if they would be one of my preview audiences for my Snowy River production, and they agreed, so I performed that for them, which they seemed to thoroughly enjoy. We chatted till well past dark, until the mosquitoes got to be too much, then said good night. They’re riding in the morning, but they all want to buy a book, so I’ll see them again in the morning. Settled down late, of course, but got in one Voyager and a shower, now I’m ready for bed. So good night, babe! Love you!

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!