Everyone slept late this morning, with Hubby and I waking up to the sound of hearing our niece creeping into the RV. She did such a quiet job, neither one of our fearless watch dogs even moved! That was almost nine, so we got up right afterward. Breakfast soon followed, then a lesson in getting her horse ready to go (Hubby generously helped her get his Clio ready), then we finally headed north out of the camp, to explore the two loops that Hubby and I didn’t take on our Wednesday ride. More of the same wide gravel trails in deep woods, though not as many climbs or as steep grades, and no water crossings, which was probably good for a first day for her. There was a breeze from the north that chilled things a bit, and we both had to put on a long shirt over our t-shirts. Ended up doing about 4 miles, out under 90 minutes, which again, is a good ride for a novice. We don’t want to wear her out on her first day! Once we got back to camp, we tackled the job of setting up the high-line post, which didn’t take long, and seemed to work fairly well. We put the horses on it and watched for awhile, and all seemed well. A while later, the post got pulled down by Apollo because he wrapped himself around the end then tried to turn back toward his hay bag on the other side. We set it back up and tightened down some more, and we had no more trouble with that the rest of the day. Decided to have a rare campfire to cook bratwurst, but the wood was so wet it took quite a lot of doing in order to get it started, but we managed to do it, and to indulge on s’mores afterwards. It was a very nice evening, and delightful spending time with my niece. We watched a horsey movie until about 10, then everyone went off to bed.

Woke up at 4:00 in the morning with a possible solution to our problem, discussing it with Hubby once he woke up much later. Since the main problem seems to be the ranger worried about the trees, I figured, what if we created our own tree? If we could get a stand with a heavy bottom, a tall pole, and several guy wires, I figured we could built a structure that would hold the weight of the highline on one end, using one of the hitching rail posts on the other. The question was what to use, so I decided to leave early and go to Lowes to see what I could find. After doing a quick wash of the van and truck and a couple of the muddiest spots on the RV and horse trailer (all while also refilling the fresh water tank), I headed out, first to Rochester, where I found what might be the perfect solution, a heavy deck umbrella stand, and a pole that would fit into it. Just as I was leaving and heading to another store, the sky opened up with such a tremendous downpour that every parking lot turned into a river. After waiting for the rain to abate, and looking at the radar and seeing that more was on the way, I decided I’d better head out and get out of the storm. After a few miles, it started to lighten up, and by the time I was halfway to Minneapolis, the roads were dry and the sky was mostly sunny. Arrived just under an hour from my niece’s flight, got a gate pass from the airline so I could get through security and only had to wait a short while before her plane got in. She was one of the first off the plane, and we headed down to baggage claim where we had to wait over ten minutes for the bags, but they also came out nearly first, and off we went! Even though they had provided her some food on the airplane, I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so we stopped at McDonalds along the way for a burger and fries. We stopped again in Rochester to pick up groceries and a prescription for Hubby that I had phoned in earlier, and once more in Spring Valley to get gas. Arrived back in camp about 9:45, later than we had thought, but only shortly after it got completely dark. Hubby said it had rained heavy for better than 5 hours!! Some storm! We unloaded groceries, gave her the grand tour, chatted for a little bit, then she headed out to the tent to get set up and go to bed. We followed suit, watching a short half-hour Gunsmoke before we headed to bed.

After waking up early, I was out feeding the horses when the ranger came by to first tell me that one of my packages had arrived, and secondly to tell me we couldn’t highline the horses. Even though we had used tree saver straps, the rule is no high-lining (and, in his words, “I am the rule and it’s not open for discussion,”) because he claimed it caused too much damage. It was okay if we wanted to put up a portable electric fence around the hitching post, but otherwise the horses would have to stay tied to the hitching post. Can you imagine? If I tied horses to a hitching post for 10 days and nights in most places in the country, I could get arrested for animal abuse! Well, even though I kept a smile on my face the whole time, I was very annoyed, because the location of the hitching post was quite close to the tent, and even though there was little danger of the horses trampling the tent, it was certainly close enough for the proximity stray manure to be uncomfortably close, unless we tied them so tightly they couldn’t move around to the other side, in which case they’d hardly be able to move. We considered moving the tent, but there really wasn’t anyplace else as ideal, so we left it, trying to figure out an alternative. We’ve never had a portable fence, and even though there may have been a few places where it would have been handy, it never seemed worth the considerable investment and space to carry one. Nor am I convinced Apollo would stay inside it, he’s a Houdini when it comes to escaping from containment. Anyway, we decided to consider our options further later on. Meanwhile, in the afternoon we headed out for our first ride, anxious to see what the trails were like here. We decided to first go down the historic site of Forestville, since Hubby may not be able to ride again this week, and he was interested in seeing it. As we headed out the trails, we were happy to see that the gravel we had been warned about on the trails was mostly pea gravel on top, so the boots were sufficient to protect the horses’ front feet quite reasonably adequately. We rode about 5.2 miles in all, take the most direct route to Forestville from the campground, past the site of the old distillery (which closed down after the Civil War due to the imposition of an alcohol tax-typical government job destruction), then down to the town, or not really a town, just a store and a couple of out buildings. The sign said it’s only open from Thursday-Sunday, and I think I read where they have folks in pioneer costume doing pioneer things, so that might be fun over the weekend. I also read that they’re having a Civil War Encampment reenactment this weekend, so that will be interesting to come back again. Next we headed out to the south loop, making several water crossings, missing one turn, backtracking then climbing the hill to come back to the camp on the opposite end from where we left. We actually rode about 2/3 of the park, and were still only gone about 2 hours. Not as big a park as I thought, but will still serve the purpose quite nicely. The woods here are close and often eerie, but the trails are wide and very well traveled, with horse manure about every 10-20 yards for most of the journey, although we didn’t meet any other riders on the trail. Put the horses back up on the hitching rail, did our chores and settled down for the evening.

First job of the day after breakfast was to get the satellite dish up and running, which didn’t take long at all, as we had a clear view from the end of our driveway. After having so many places without electricity or access to easy water, it was time to do laundry here! We combined the exercise with also trying to discover at what point the fresh water tank stopped siphoning, so I did a load of laundry, then we checked the meter level, which still registered Full, then Hubby dropped the hoses that we had connected to the vent and overflow of the tank, but they immediately began siphoning water, so he put them above the tank again, and I did another load of laundry. After the second load, the meter still showed full, hoses still siphoned, so I did another load, and another! It was halfway through the fifth load when the meter finally registered less than full, but by then I had started worrying that the tank might be imploding, so I went out a blew air into the vent pipe, and it FINALLY broke through. When I checked the meter again, it had dropped to 1/3, so obviously we need to be careful with that! Once the laundry was all hanging out, we tackled the job of putting up the new tent I had bought as an extra bedroom, just a little two-man that would do the job perfectly. Didn’t take long, a very simple construction project, followed by getting out the air mattress and pump. Even though we didn’t exactly have the right fitting, we managed to fill it, much faster than I thought we could, and before we knew it, job done! Settled in for the evening in the usual time and manner. get the satellite dish up and running, which didn’t take long at all, as we had a clear view from the end of our driveway. After having so many places without electricity or access to easy water, it was time to do laundry here! We combined the exercise with also trying to discover at what point the fresh water tank stopped siphoning, so I did a load of laundry, then we checked the meter level, which still registered Full, then Hubby dropped the hoses that we had connected to the vent and overflow of the tank, but they immediately began siphoning water, so he put them above the tank again, and I did another load of laundry. After the second load, the meter still showed full, hoses still siphoned, so I did another load, and another! It was halfway through the fifth load when the meter finally registered less than full, but by then I had started worrying that the tank might be imploding, so I went out a blew air into the vent pipe, and it FINALLY broke through. When I checked the meter again, it had dropped to 1/3, so obviously we need to be careful with that! Once the laundry was all hanging out, we tackled the job of putting up the new tent I had bought as an extra bedroom, just a little two-man that would do the job perfectly. Didn’t take long, a very simple construction project, followed by getting out the air mattress and pump. Even though we didn’t exactly have the right fitting, we managed to fill it, much faster than I thought we could, and before we knew it, job done! Settled in for the evening in the usual time and manner.

Woke up early, packed up, flushed out the tanks at the dump and hit the road by 8:30. Dropped mail off at Spring Valley, got an electrical adapter Hubby needed for the generator at an RV store north of Rochester, had stops at Walmart, Tractor Supply and for fuel before arriving at the park, having gotten misdirected by my GPS and essentially circling the entire park before finding the main entrance. It was a bit disconcerting, as at the end of the road they have a sign that there is a bridge out ahead, but nothing to indicate whether it’s before or after the park. I quickly called and confirmed we could get through, and soon got to the office, where we got all signed up and registered for the next ten days. Fortunately, the site we had picked out on the campground map and Google Earth turned out to be just as good as we had hoped, and was available, so we’ve found ourselves a nice private site completely surrounded by trees, with a very long pad so there’s easily room for all our vehicles. Unfortunately, MN is another state that thinks you can put horses at a hitching post for days at a time, but we did find a couple of trees to set up a highline with only minimal interference with the fire grill. Although we have electric here, water is limited to just a few spigots, one of which is across the road from us, so we ran out almost every hose we had to reach it and started filling up our tanks. Meanwhile, a thunderstorm popped up, so while we were trying to solve our siphoning problem (we had bought the hose we needed at Tractor Supply), we managed to get pretty wet in the process. Frankly, I didn’t mind, it had gotten pretty hot just before the storm, and the cold front brought fabulous relief! Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be much cell phone signal here, though I did manage enough to get online to check my email, but not enough to make a phone call. I was hoping to change my neice’s reservations from the St. Paul airport to the Rochester airport, but I ended up driving out of the campground several miles to get a good enough signal, only to be put on hold for 20 minutes, then immediately transferred to another department that started with a recording saying the wait time could be as much as an hour! Didn’t have the battery life for that, so I ended up getting back to the camp at 7 empty-handed. Meanwhile, Hubby had put up the highline and fed everyone, though he hadn’t put up the satellite dish because I had it with me in the van (plus it really takes two to do it properly). So we settled in for the evening using the DVR as our entertainment, knowing that most of the news would probably be all about the new prince that was just born in England today, to Kate and William anyway.

Spent most of the day reading, just relaxing, other than getting ready to move again tomorrow. We’re going to have a busy week the next two weeks, so we’re catching up now while we have the chance!

Woke up early after a wonderful and cool night’s sleep! So grateful for this cold front, the whole country is suffering from a heat wave, and we’re one of the first places to get relief. Finally in the right place at the right time! After breakfast we saddled up and headed out, with plans to ride as many of the trails as possible in this relatively small park. Headed out clockwise on the Campground loop, starting with crossing the road and quickly heading into some really nice deep dark woods before reaching the head of the loop. Nice trails, mostly single file dirt track, almost no mud despite the recent rain. Halfway around, we cut over to the Lousy Creek trail and onto the NN trail, which took us to a parking area with a nice view of the dam. John Creek Loop was closed, so we complete the NN trail, went back up the Lousy Creek trail to finish the Campground Loop, except we missed a turn and ended up in the Northwest Day Use Area parking lot. Then we got on some nice but steep trails that I discovered later weren’t even on the map and got turned around somehow. Confused by the map, we headed up the road, thinking it would lead us back toward the campground, but when we started seeing private mailboxes, we realized we had gone wrong somewhere. Headed back to the parking lot, where we asked a couple of people for help, one had no idea, a horse guy was able to get us back on track. As we were stopped at the creek that runs by there, there were a couple of ladies on their horses bareback in the river, washing them down, and then a tractor pulling a hay wagon full of city kids came by, and I let them pet Apollo for a few minutes, he was wonderful with the kids. He always loves attention! What a ham! We took an apple and rest break for a bit, then finally getting back on track again, and when we came to the intersection we missed, it was easy to see how we missed it, as it cut back sharply from the trail with minimal markings. No matter, we wanted to try to ride as many trails as we could, right? We arrived back at camp having done every trail (and then some) except the Prairie Loop, which was essentially just a open field anyway, just a half mile of looping around there wouldn’t have added much to our already very enjoyable ride. We were out about four hours in all, a very nice ride! We actually ran into several groups of other riders, and there were several trailers in the Day Use parking lot, so obviously it’s a pretty popular place for the locals, even if it’s not that extensive. When we got back, we decided to jump in the shower for a quick rinse off, and, unexpectedly ran out of water. We had recently had problems with our water tank, i.e. we would fill it up and it would get empty really fast, and we had just figured out that for some reason, it seems the overflow on the tank has a hose inside the tank, rather than just out of the top or side of the tank, so when we fill it up, it sometimes starts a siphoning effect, which then drains a lot of water out of the tank. We’d had the problem a couple of times before, though not to this degree! I mean, we had filled it up when we arrived on Thursday, and there’s no way we could have gone through 85 gallons of water, even though I did do one load of laundry! Anyway, we ended up having to move the RV back down to the pump house and fill it up again, being much more observant when it started to overflow and what we had to do to stop it. We’ve now figured out a system we think we can try to prevent it from happening again, but it will require the purchase of a cheap hose we can cut up and use to clamp to the overflow pipe and then raise the other end above the level of the tank, thus stopping that siphon effect. What a dumb design! I don’t know what they’re teaching in engineering schools these days, but it sure seems like they’re missing obvious stuff, like venting and overflows and siphoning! Anyway, at last we settled down for the evening confident we’ll have enough water to last at least one more day!

After an uncomfortably hot evening, a cold front finally managed to head in this direction, creating a thunderstorm at about 3:30 in the morning, which presented a little relief (though it did keep us awake for awhile, and I did get up to open some windows for the nice cool breeze afterward.) It didn’t turn cool right away, but throughout the day, the temps gradually moderated, only getting up the mid-80’s which seemed like a huge difference compared to yesterday’s upper 90’s (the forecast called for 92, while the actual temp was 97, according to NOAA). We have a terrific cell-phone signal here, and since I’ve been behind on so much work, I spent the day getting caught up on a lot of things. After looking at the trail map, and seeing that we could ride practically every trail they have here in just a few hours, we decided to wait until tomorrow, when the weather is supposed to be REALLY nice, and knock them all out then. So I worked on the computer, and Hubby fixed the side market on the horse trailer (he had found a replacement at Blains) and a few other chores, before our settling down at our usual time to our usual routine.

Got up early again, just to get on the road before the head got too bad, managed to get out before 8:00. We had a pretty straight-forward trip, with a stop for fuel at a Centex gas station, which, oddly, charge 10 cents more a gallon for regular than it did for Super! Another stop at Blain’s Farm and Fleet in Eau Galle, a great farm supply store where we FINALLY found a heavy-duty tarp, far superior to those cheap and nasty ones that don’t last for five minutes once they start flapping in the wind. We also got some more fly spray, a heavier duty brand we want to try. We like the Bronco, but we wanted to try one that claims to be longer lasting, so we picked up some Zonk It! 35, to see if that works better. Last stop at Walmart in Menominee before heading out to the campground. Missed one sign, and my GPS (naturally), died from overheating just before we reached out destination, so we had to turn around once, although it was easy to find once we made the turn. Took a quick trip to the dump before coming back to the equestrian campground, which is the first campground you see when you turn into the park. A wide open space with almost no shade, though there were trees around the outer edge. The grass was manicured, surprising for a Corps of Engineers location, and all the sites had a pretty good long gravel pad, though the horse containment was a silly pipe rail “hitching post” with a cable stretched across the top of it. I surely don’t understand the rational behind using a hitching post rather than a highline. It might be more convenient for the rider, but it certainly isn’t a comfortable alternative for the horse! I managed to put up a highline (against the rules, but I’m going to do what’s right for my horses, regardless of what some urban bureaucrat says about it!), stretching it between one of the hitching post rails and a nearby tree (using a tree-saver strap, of course!). We put the horses on anchors for awhile, though we wrapped them around another hitching post so they couldn’t wander off (the main road runs right along the campground). There was a pump house with a couple of spigots on the outside, so we filled up the RV, the newly repaired tank in the horse trailer, and the portable barrel, which should get us through the weekend. Another incredibly hot day, we tried to survive with just fans, but it was too uncomfortable, so we eventually got out both generators and ran the AC for awhile. Hubby had no problem getting a good satellite signal (no trees), and we settled down for the hot evening.

Can you say “overgrown”? After getting up at the crack of dawn to ride today, and a quick liquid breakfast, we headed east on the mostly linear trail here. We had originally planned on going west, but we ended up going east because there seemed to be at least one loop option, and we prefer those whenever we can, and west didn’t offer one. Also, there was a bridge apparently out along the trail, and though it looked far enough away to not interfere with the length of ride we wanted, we still preferred the loop. Off we went out the trailhead which ran out of the back of Site #9 right next to us. We had a short stretch of gravel road before we reached the actual trail, which had nice footing, but was so overgrown we were getting slapped by stuff left, right and center. The first section was in mostly new forest, small trees that didn’t provide any shade of note, then we crossed to road to another section that had larger trees, and many that were down and required us to go around them. Actually, they looked like they’d been down for years, because the trail around them was certainly well-established, but it was even MORE overgrown, making the going a bit tough. We finally came to the beginning of the loop, which, even though it was a two-track forest road, it was STILL overgrown to the point of being uncomfortable. Here there were a number of stretches that would have been perfect for trotting or cantering, but the grass was so high you couldn’t see what lay underneath it, and we were worried about twisting an ankle or worse, so the best we did were short stretches of slow trots. The road weaved along the river at the north end, which was pretty enough, but heading south was narrower and more overgrown again. We ended up hitting the motorized gravel road at the south end of the loop, and deciding to just take the road the rest of the way back, just so we could have a little open space. Just for fun, we crosses the covered bridge (which took a brief moment of persuasion) just to see what the west trail looked like, and although it looked like it MIGHT have been a bit more traveled, it was still WAY overgrown. Pity, too, because I suspect if they did a bit more mowing of the trails, it would help considerably with the bug problem. That said, the campground was pristinely mowed, and in fact, they came to mow it yesterday, and it looked like a state park, but they obviously don’t think much about the trails. One ranger actually asked me to drop a note in the box if there were any trees down along the trail! Too lazy to go look for himself, I guess, and considering there were more than half a dozen that had looked like they’d been there for years, not much care is being taken by management to remedy it, judging by all the well-worn bypasses. Amazing what a difference management priorities make! Anyway, we were back by 11:00, and before the heat settled in too badly, though it was already above 90, and spend the rest of the day in cool air conditioning, at least until the evening when we started running low on generator gas and had to cut back to fans. Incredible, without AC one 5-gallon tank of gas lasts a week, while with AC we went through 5 gallons in less than two days! Good lesson though. Sweated our way through the evening, glad we decided to only stay here half a week.