Tuesday, July 15, 2014 – Fly to Austin

Via Phoenix, uneventful flight. Got a Jeep Wrangler as my Thrifty Wild Card choice, as it was raining and I like to be in a taller vehicle, particularly on a dark and stormy night, as this was. Brother Glenn had his motorhome cooled down and ready for me, went to bed shortly after arriving. Hot and steamy here in Austin!

Monday, July 14, 2014 – Odds and Ends

As I have to fly out for a job tomorrow, leaving Hubby behind to fend for himself, we spent the day getting things prepared for him. We got out the sump pump again, filled up both horse buckets and one of the rain barrels, plus topped off the RV, then I had to run into town to get him more gas and groceries and to email my completed project out. Another busy day, and the rest of the week will be equally so!

Sunday, July 13, 2014 – Second LONG Ride Day at Blackhawk

Today, I had mapped out the next smallest loop, about 7 miles, and headed south out of camp on the trail we SHOULD have come back on the other, but missed at the gate. Today, the trails were nice and dry, though a bit rockier in some places. We followed the loop to the trailhead by the campground turn-off, but then couldn't find where we were supposed to pick up the trail on the other side. Since I had seen a bevy of horse campers dry camping just up the road, I headed that way, then discovered the trail intersected behind the camp, so we picked it up there. That led us to some beautiful meadows which actually gave us the opportunity to get some cantering in, before turning back up to climb the mountain again. Fortunately there was a watering trough about halfway up the hill, this dry mountain air is very desiccating! We finally reached the road again, and again there was no indication where to pick up the trail on the other side, but we went around a cattle guard up to another dry camping area, where there was a gate that evidently went down to the trails. We went through the next gate, and there was a clear trail straight ahead and what seemed to be a lesser trail off to the left, so we went straight ahead. That turned out to be a mistake. Though it stayed nice for quite a ways, through meadows and woods and was very pleasant, eventually the trail started to get narrower and narrower, until it all but disappeared. We climbed through brush to the top of the mountain to see where we were, and realized we were way off, so we had to try to back track, which was a challenge as the "trail" we came up on, towards the end, wasn't a trail, and we couldn't find it, so we had to head downhill hoping we would cross it, and eventually we did. Paying more attention to my GPS, we ended all the way back at the gate by the road again, still not sure which way to go. I decided to try the trail that bore off to the left, which seemed like the right direction, but after a few hundred yards, I became less sure, and didn't want to go off on another tangent. Meanwhile, Apollo got pretty rankled when I tried to turn around yet again, he was obviously sure that was the right way. We went back to the intersection yet again, when I finally saw a brown trail sign with 084 on it laying on the grown, which was the right number, but it was almost impossible to see buried in the brush, plus it seem to be pointing up the original trail we had taken. I followed it again, thinking maybe we had just missed a turnoff, but couldn't find anything else, so out of frustration and lack of any more choices, I took the trail Apollo was so keen on and headed out. It rimmed the edge of the mountain, and the views were beautiful, but by now we were starting to get tired, as we had already passed the 2 ½ hours we had planned for the day. After about half a mile, though, my GPS finally confirmed we were on the right trail, and we breathed a sigh of relief and trooped onward. At last we rejoined the loop from which we began, and managed to struggle back into camp, four hours after we left. Now, I know, four hours isn't much for some people, but this trail was much steeper coming and going, so it got a bit uncomfortable, and we were using a lot of muscles we don't normally use, so it was very tiring. To make matters worse, our big dog Marina had a bout of diarrhea while we were gone, so we had a mess to clean up in the house before we could finally settle down. We just managed to get everyone settled in before we collapsed for the evening.

Saturday, July 12, 2014 – Rest and Work Day

Woke up at the crack of dawn thinking about the writing job I had ahead of me, so rather than lay there and think about it, I got up and started working on it. Four hours later, Hubby finally got out of bed, and I was almost finished. Spent the rest of the day mostly discussing, improving and finalizing the project. Went out once to check my email, but otherwise stayed close to home for a change.

Friday, July 11, 2014 – Ride Day at Blackhawk Camp

Having mapped out the smallest loop I could find, just over 6 miles, we got the horses saddled up and out of camp by about 10:30, heading north around the Blackhawk loop. The trail was mostly dirt with some rocks, and with all the rain over the last two days, some parts were pretty slippery, but was quickly drying as the day went on. It was a very nice trail, not too rough or steep, but enough to make it interesting. The views are just spectacular! It's fabulous to turn a corner and just be surrounded by gorgeous mountains, with some still sporting a bit of snow on top! Just gorgeous. Though the trails were fairly plain to see, the intersections weren't very well marked, and we had to depend on the GPS a lot. At one point, near the end of the loop, we came to a gate with no real marking, and we weren't sure whether we should go through it or not. We decided not, but to follow the fence, which almost immediately started taking us downhill. By the time we figured out we were going off track, we didn't want to climb back up, so we kept going, knowing eventually we'd find our way back. We soon realized we were following a pipeline that we had crossed earlier, so when we reached the original trail, we just headed back that way. It added a little bit to the trip, but at least we knew where we were, and besides, it left us that other trail for another day, meaning we wouldn't have to repeat any trails. Arrived back in camp after about 2.5 hours, having thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. And the horses seemed to have a good time, too! Ran down to a place up the road to get my email, finding one that presented me with considerable work to do tomorrow, so relaxed for the evening, as usual.

Thursday, July 10, 2014 – A Little More Running Around

Hubby decided the sump pump I got was too small, so I headed back into town to replace it, and to pick up a couple of 50 foot hoses. While we have plenty of length, we mostly have those collapsible hoses, which, unfortunately, need more pressure than a sump pump can provide to expand them, so we had to get more hoses to reach the RV. Found a little coffee shop and had a nice frozen hazelnut flavored drink while doing some more work on my computer, then back up the mountain again, where we once more worked on the water problem. After a few false starts, we managed to get it going, and filled up the water tank with no problem. I managed to do a couple of loads of laundry (long overdue), but then, since more and more people were coming into camp, Paul asked if we would ditch the sump pump, because he was afraid it would give too many people the wrong idea. Apparently the water supply is a spring, so they don’t want to pull too much out at once, and they used to have a problem with dry-campers coming and filling up with water, which is why they changed the spigots to ones without threads. Fine, we had enough for a while anyway. We had considered riding today, but with all the chores to be done, plus it has been raining off and on most of the day, we postponed it until tomorrow.

Wednesday, July 9, 2014 – Runaround Day

Spent the day going back down the mountain and doing a whole lot of running around. Upgraded my Verizon USB (which doesn’t seem to be working well after little Billy dragged it across the floor yesterday) for a new Jetpack, ordering an adapter to work with my old antenna, though even with that, I’m not going to pick up a signal at the campground, it’s just too deep behind the mountain. I did notice a signal in several places coming down, though, so next time I shouldn’t have to come all the way down into town to get a signal. Bought a sump pump so that we could pump water to solve our water problem more permanently (something we’ve been meaning to do for a while anyway), went grocery shopping and ran some more errands. Stopped at a Wendy’s for a small meal and to get some computer work done, before finally heading back up the mountain. A late start to our evening, but relaxing nevertheless.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014 – Travel Day to Blackhawk Horse Camp near Payson, UT

Got up just as day was breaking, managed to get on the road by just after 7:00. Thankfully, the drive was uneventful, just long. While the views in Colorado have been pretty great, there's nothing like the terrain in Utah to make one's eyes pop out. Doesn't seem to matter which way you go, there's always something miraculous to see. We crossed every imaginable terrain, and, because the best route was mostly off the freeway, we really got to see some remote places. Finally arrived in Payson at the road that headed up the mountain, and I let Hubby get in front of me, since all indications were there were some pretty tight hairpin turns, and I always like him in front of me letting me know when traffic is coming, in case I have to pull off the road a bit to let them pass. In the end, there were only a few places where passing was difficult, the road entirely paved all the way to the end, including the campground, and it was wide enough almost all the way, except a short stretch about a third of the way up paralleling a creek where it was pretty narrow. As we followed the signs to Loop E (for equestrian), we met up with Paul, the camp manager, and had a nice chat with him. We checked out the campground and finally settled on site 11, one of only three or four sites that I knew didn't have reservations for the upcoming weekend, and set about getting everything set up. According to the reservation webpage, they show that there is only one spigot in the campground, near group site 10, but that's not accurate. Actually, there are spigots every two or three sites. Unfortunately, those spigots have no threads, which presented us with a pretty big problem, how to fill up the RV, particularly since the spigot was downhill from us. Eventually, I managed to work out a solution (which I won't mention, as it might get someone in trouble : -), and by 5:00, we had everything set up. We put up a portable corral around a pretty good size space so the horses had room to move around, got the satellite dish up, and managed to settle down at about our usual time. Paul was even kind enough to let me copy of a couple of his maps so I could make a GPS route for ourselves for when we ride, always a good thing!

Monday, July 7, 2014 – Pack Up and Odds and Ends Day

Cows were a little quieter a little later in the morning today, so we got to sleep in a little bit longer, but we had a lot to do, so for not too long. Spent the day getting ready to go, packing up as much as we could. To bed early, because tomorrow is a particularly long drive.

Sunday, July 6, 2014 – Side Trip to Mesa Verde National Park

The cows were particularly noisy early this morning, with bulls growling like grizzlies, but they eventually quieted down and let us sleep in a bit later. Handwashed a few things before breakfast, then after finishing our morning shows, we decided to take a trip over to Mesa Verde National Park, the place where all the Pueblo cliff dwellers built their villages along the edges of the mesa and below. As it was only a 30 minute drive, we thought it would be a fairly easy day, but it turns out the only self-guided tour of the cliff-dwellings was at the far end of the park, some 20 miles in, but we had time, so we drove down to the museum, where we browsed a bit and watched the intro movie, then Hubby announced he was too hungry to go on, so we went to their Terrace cafe and split a Bison Brat and fries before heading down to the cliffs. Hubby knew he would have too hard a time climbing back up again, as his leg still hurt from wrestling with Apollo the other day, so he waited on a rock for me to make the 45 minutes hike. Afterward, we drove the two top loops, stopping to take many pix and videos along the way, admiring the gorgeous views, through some fire ravaged areas, but in particular Park Point, a short side trip that led to the highest point in the park, where the fire watchers could actually see four states fro the top. Beautiful! What a fantastic 360 degree view! Indescribeably gorgeous! Stopped in Mancos for gas and a few groceries, just enough so we wouldn't have to find a grocery store, as the next leg of our journey is going to be the longest, and the less stops we have to make, the better! Finally got back to camp after 7:00, got the horses fed, happy to see Apollo didn't seem to be dragging his foot at all anymore! The rest is obviously doing us all good! We finally settled in for the nice, with another dose of Icy Hot on our various bruises and strains, and off to bed!