Another business trip scheduled, flew from Palm Beach to Reagan National in DC, rented a car and headed down to Richmond, VA for a job down there. Did a little shopping, grabbed a meal, then relaxed for the remainder of the day.

 It’s been weeks since Hubby has taken a ride, as most rides have been on Sundays with my brother, and once with his former step-daughter, so we decided to take the day and run out to Dupuis WMA near Indiantown, one of our favorite riding spots. It was a beautiful day, we got a little turned around on the trail we were heading for, I think because they changed some of the colors on the trails recently, but it was a very nice 5.25 mile ride. A bit short, but enough to get Hubby back in the swing of things, didn’t want to overdue it as he’s been off for so long. Always a good day when we’re on the back of our horses!

Spent the day running around in Okeechobee, picking up hay, stuff at Tractor Supply, a switch for the new satellite dish (which we turned out to not need because we had one already, but Hubby thought it was something else :- ), and had lunch at a rather strange restaurant called Lightseys. Everyone told us it was the best seafood in town, and it may have been, but the decor was odd and tacky, and the butcher case at the entrance was filled with rather dry, not-so-fresh looking fish. Undeterred, we ordered lunch, though I had asked for the Gator special, but they were out of gator, so I ended up with a rather pedestrian salad. Service was fair, but nothing to write home about. Too windy to sit outside, which would have made it more interesting on a nicer day. Not short of business though, a steady stream of customers while we were there. Just HAD to take a pic of Hubby with The Big Fish hanging outside! Highlight of the day!

Spent the whole darn day sorting out the connections between the TV, the new satellite dish, the audio tuner, and an extra DVD recorder, not to mention a connection for the old DVR so we can continue to clear it off. Hubby woke up feeling terrible today, dizzy and nauseous, could barely walk without looking like a drunk. Sat him down in his recliner, then to bed for a nap, to try to get his head back on straight. Finally finished the wiring around 6:00. He managed to feed the horses, though I put them away, had soup for dinner before settling down to an evening of recordings. Boring but necessary day.

Set the alarm early as we had a lot to do today. Arranged to pick up an new Dish antenna and receiver (free upgrade to HD, can’t pass that up now that we have an HDTV in the new RV), plus stops for breakfast at Burger King, fuel, Walmart, NAPA auto for a new part for the truck, and the RV Home Depot for odds and ends. Strange, after we left the BK, both Hubby and I started not feeling too well, and one of the dogs got a bit sick in the van after Hubby fed her some hash browns. Not saying there was a connection, but later in the day I felt a sore throat coming on, and Hubby said he wasn’t feeling too well either. May be just a bug, may be something else, no sense worrying about it now. Anyway, we got back to Jeff’s a little after 1:00, got settled in, tried to get the satellite dish set up but it was too late and we were too tired, so we abandoned it until tomorrow. Spend the evening watching stuff on the old DVR, something we’ve been doing for a couple of weeks now, to clear off all the recordings we’ve accumulated. Only about 35 hours left on it, but I suspect some of it will just be erased, not that exciting anyway. Bedtime came early after an early morning.

Had a good night’s sleep, then saddled up after breakfast to take our final, and hopefully, longest ride. Despite being ridden more in the last week than they have in the last few weeks, the horses were quite happy to get out again after their day off, at least once we got on to a new trail. After taking the usual half mile or so of Blue trail, we took the north Orange loop, doing lots of trotting and cantering (and even a short gallop!) until we came to the primitive camping area, which is pretty much in the middle of the park. There is a pavilion and a hand pump with a trough, plus an extra picnic table or two scattered around. There was also a ranger and his pickup truck there, spraying some unwanted foliage around. Hubby and I munched on a couple of chicken sandwiches I had made, gave the horses a couple of apples, and then two more riders came in. Two women, Pam was one of them, who had started on the west side of the park (we had come from the east), one of them apparently has some land over there, so they can reach the park directly from her stables. We chatted a bit before heading back out on the trail, this time taking the part of the Orange trail we had missed on Saturday, the south route as it were. We got a lot more trotting and cantering in, avoided some black snakes (I’ve seen a lot of them around here), and arrived back safe and sound around 4:00. Gave the horses a quick bath (their third since we’ve been here!), spent a little time getting ready to leave tomorrow, then settled in for the evening.

Set the alarm so that we could meet some friends in Naples for brunch at the Dock restaurant. We had decided to take the truck, since it was the vehicle that was disconnected from a trailer, because Hubby had to readjust the height of the trailer hitch the other day. Anyway, jumped in and cranked it up, it started, then died, then wouldn’t start again. Since we didn’t have time to mess with it, we quickly unhooked the van from the horse trailer and ran out, just making our 10:30 meeting with Jane and Bob. Enjoyed a nice brunch on the waterfront for a few hours of respite before returning back to camp. Fortunately, when we went to seek out the problem with the truck, it only took about a half hour to figure out that it was the bleed valve on the fuel filter. Hubby had changed the fuel filter just before we left to come here, and the wrench he used to tighten it had too many slots in it, so it started rounding the plastic vent valve and not tightening it enough. After finding a more hexagonal wrench, he was able to tighten it a bit more, and that solved the problem. Now all we need to do is to get a replacement valve, which is only about $2.50 at an auto parts store, and that will give us a permanent fix to the problem, though all seems to be working now. While sitting in the truck when Hubby was working, I took the opportunity to read the owner’s manual about how to work the radio, and learned a whole bunch of fascinating things about what my radio could do that I never knew, even though we’ve had the truck over two years. Can’t wait to give it a try on our next trip! Anyway, had a relaxing afternoon, caught up on a few more series episodes of Vegas and some others during the evening, before getting to bed at a reasonable time, and under more quieter circumstance. We had had a neighbor the last two nights who had run their very loud generator most of the evening, but they left this afternoon, so we had a very quiet evening. One bit of good news, we’ve discovered that it takes only about 2 hours of running the generator to completely recharge the batteries, enough to last the entire evening and the following morning, which should end up saving us a bunch on gas, not to mention providing us with a lot more quiet hours! Some things are working out well with the RV, thank goodness. One of these days I’m going to write a pros and cons list about our new RV, “Things I Love and Things I Hate about it our Open Range Journeyer.” Should make some interesting reading for anyone looking for a new trailer! Anyway, off to bed, planning on a nice long ride tomorrow!

Had a reasonably good night sleep, though not quite as good as yesterday. Got up around 9:00, did chores and had breakfast, got on the trail by about noon, later than we hoped but still not too bad. The horses seemed eager, which was a good sign we didn’t overwork them yesterday (could hardly do that only being out an hour!), and we headed out with a plan to do most of the Orange Trail, about 8 miles worth. Headed out the Blue Trail to get there, and the first part of that is mostly an old tarmac road, then eventually turned into some really nice Florida-style trails, with pines intermingled with short palms. Lost our way once, when we headed up a trail that turned into a dead end at some private property, so we doubled back and saw that the “official” trail had signage of being a “designated” trail, and we got back on track. Went a bit further, and came across another split in the road, and took the one that seemed to have the “designated” sign, but that actually took us off the path we had originally planned, but it didn’t really make any difference, as long as we were riding! We soon came to an intersection, and ran across two women who had lost their horses. They were on the ground at the time, and something spooked the animals and they took off, running (the women hoped) all the way back to camp. We gave them a bottle of G2 and told them if we round their horses we’d pony them back to them, or if we got all the way back to camp we’d send out the troops to pick them up. Then we abandoned our plans of the Orange trail and headed straight back to camp on the blue trail, which was almost four miles back to camp anyway. We did a lot of trotting and cantering, which was wonderful, our horses were simply brilliant the entire way (although my Apollo was a bit spooky most of the day, so we did a lot of sudden side-stepping), until we finally reached camp. There we discovered that two Rangers and a sheriff’s deputy were already on the case. Apparently a driver along I-75 had spotted a rider-less horse running along the easement and called it in, so by the time we arrived back in camp, one horse had already been caught. The other was caught moments later, and someone had been sent out to retrieve the two women who had been left behind. So our trip wasn’t for nothing, but it didn’t change our plans considerable. We’ll just have to pick up the trails we missed on Monday, for tomorrow we have plans to meet some friends for brunch in Naples. Truly enjoyed the trails, though, they were a very nice mix of palms and pines, sand and grass and occasional tarmac, with lots of opportunities for trotting and cantering. Though it was a shorter ride than we had anticipate, the fact that so much of it was at a faster pace than usual meant everyone got a much needed workout! Got back by 2:30, gave the horses another bath (having finished trimming Apollo’s feet this morning), got them settled in, and had an early, relaxing evening, catching up on our PVR’s episodes of Vegas, before finally retiring about 11:00.