Hiya Sweetie,
As usual, I spent the morning working on the computer and making phone calls, then I spent some time trimming both of the horses hooves, which took some time in the heat. We’ve been having very warm temps here lately, so I was sweating pretty good by the time I was finished. In the afternoon I needed to send a letter, so I decided to take the opportunity to continue conditioning Flash, and rode him down to the mailbox down in the Publix shopping center in front of the NAPA. It meant we had to cross Indiantown Rd. again, but he did it so well the other day, I was confident he could do it again, and there was no problem.. We came back on one of the canals, and averaged 5.6 mph for the whole trip, so we made it in good time. Once we got back, I gave him a nice bath again. I know you’ll understand when I say that I really appreciate the luxury of having time to do things like bathe the horses. I never seemed to have time before, but I’m glad now I do. You know I bought some special shampoo for white horses (though, oddly, it sprays out purple!), and I’ve used it the last couple of times, and now Flash is really starting to shine. I was glad that he didn’t run right out and roll in the dirt, but I imagine he will by tomorrow! It was so warm after that that I decided to take a quick swim, so I changed into my bathing suit and took a quick dip. The pool was cool after so many cold nights last week, but it’s been warm the last few days and nights, so it felt good to me. I took some time clearing out the pool using the net, and reconnected the vacuum, so it looked better, and will hopefully stay that way for a bit, though I’m going to start keeping the filters clean more often since Lola is carrying so much sand into the pool. We fetched for quite awhile today, too, so hopefully she’ll sleep well tonight. Took my shower early, and finally settled down for the evening. Ready for bed now, though! Good night, love!

Hi Darlin’,
Got kind of a late start today, first working on some computer stuff for OTL, finalizing the GPS files and an outgoing email summarizing everything the riders need to know, then just as I was getting ready to leave to mark some more trails, I got a call from Dolly. You remember her, it was her house where we got married, we knew her through the theatre where we met. Anyway, I had written her a letter to let her know about what happened, and we had a long chat. Funny, she didn’t recognize the name on the letter at first, but she said when she touched the letter she got an image of Alex in her mind, which got me thinking about an afterlife, and if your two spirits are meeting somewhere. In any event, she can’t make it to your Celebration of Life, but we’re planning on getting together sometime soon to get caught up. She said she’d be interested in seeing some of the videos of your performances. She working a lot at Delray Beach Playhouse, and runs some kind of acting class. Kind of wish we had hooked up with her earlier, I know you would have liked to be involved in something like that, when you were up to it. Anyway, we finally hung up and I got on the trail with Flash, stopping by Anita’s to pick up some more trail markers, then down to Riverbend to finish off the few sections of trail that weren’t done yet. Hoping it doesn’t create a problem, but I ran into one of the neighbors who started to make a fuss about it being a private road, and what kind of damage a bunch of horses might make, etc., etc., etc. Hope that doesn’t force us to change routes, though it wouldn’t really be a big deal, we’d just need to go all the way to the canal and then south on the main road for about a block. I just would prefer to stay off the sidewalk. We’ll see. Flash got a bit agitated toward the end with all the stopping and starting, but we did something today we’d never done before, cross Indiantown Road right by the Publix, in order to get into Cypress Creek without going all the way around the east end of Riverbend. There was a lot of traffic, but I managed to hit the crosswalk button, and we got across okay. Then I let him go as fast as he wanted the rest of the way home, he cantered for awhile, then largoed for a long time after that, and finally came down to a walk about three miles later. We did almost 18 miles in total again today, because I haven’t had as much time to get him in shape like I did last year, so I’m kind of trying to make up for it now. With less than two weeks to go, I need to do everything I can to condition him before the big event. Gave him a quick rinse off, threw the frisbee for Lola for a bit, then settled down for the evening. Time now for my shower and bed. Good night, my love!

Hey Darlin’,
I made arrangements to record a PSA over at Tim’s in-house studio this morning, so I was up early enough to leave by about 10:00, riding Flash down to his house, which is a straight shot down the canal to the first crossover and just a few houses in. Flash stood quietly nuzzling Tim’s horses while I went in and knocked out the :30 PSA, which I now need to figure out how to distribute to local radio stations. After that, I headed toward Riverbend. I wanted to get accurate GPS readings on the incoming and outgoing trails so my final maps would be accurate. I’m going to send downloadable files to one of the OTL guys who is going to put it on the website so others can have them. I wasn’t going to mark the trails today, but I noticed they’d already done some marking, so I decided to finish it off anyway. We may lose a few markers over the next couple of weeks, but I’ll be able to replace them on the day of the ride anyway. Once Flash figured out we were heading home after we crossed under the Indiantown Rd. Bridge, of course, he decided to speed up, and we ended up gaiting fast for the next 5 or 6 miles! I slowed him down the last mile just to cool him off, but he would have been happy to keep going. Anyway, it was a long ride, almost 18.5 miles, so he was good and sweaty. I rinsed him down and let him loose. I made myself a meal and fell asleep watching TV right afterwards, I was so tired, plus I didn’t get a great night sleep last night for some reason. Did some computer work, but now I’m still hot and sweaty (it got to over 85 degrees today, but there’s a cold front moving in overnight), so I’m heading off the shower and bed. Love you, babe. Good night!

Hey Sweetie,
Had another good night sleep, then did a bunch of stuff online before feeding the horses, then getting Flash in the trailer and heading down to the Cypress Creek parking lot across from the Publix. I had a bag of markers I got from Anita, and headed due north up the OTL from there. I thought Anita had told me that another group had marked that part of the trail, but all I ever saw was a couple of markers WAY down near the Hobe Ditch, and they were way apart from each other on the linear trail, nothing at the intersections. Amazing. Anyway, Flash did a great job as we headed all the way through the cow pasture (and the herd was there, with lots of young ones kicking around), under the freeways, and finally through the Ditch. I kept going, too, because there had been reports that a certain section of the trail was going to be hard for horses to get through, where they put a bunch of concrete bags across it for drainage, but frankly, I don’t see why, it looks the same as it did last year. Plenty of room to get around if someone wants. Once we hit that spot we turned around, and that’s when Flash really wanted to kick it up a notch. We cantered and largoed all the way back to the Ditch, and in quite a few other places as well, until we reached the parking lot. Of course, the thought we were done, but not yet! I headed him east toward Riverbend, and marked all of that section, right to the south side of the critter crossing under Indiantown Rd. I must say, it will be hard to get lost this year! Hopefully, no one will mess with the markers, but even if they do, I’ll be out there on the day of to add more if necessary. It took us about 3 hours or so before we drove back. Flash was really dirty so I started giving him a bath, and a few minute later, Jeff came home, with his white van up on a tow truck. He thinks he might have thrown a rod, so you know that’s a major project. I was hoping his only major project for the next few weeks was going to be to move his junky camper over to the fence and out of the front yard, not sure if that’s going to happen now. Sigh… Finished bathing Flash, and hosing down Apollo who was standing there asking for it, then went in to fix some other problems. You know I bought a replacement GPS, but I haven’t been able to get it to work yet. It wouldn’t lock on to any satellites. I was afraid it was broken, but I finally trying reloading the updated software again, and that solved the problem. I think I might have turned it off while it was uploading before and that’s why it didn’t work. So now I do have a satellite-based GPS again, so hopefully that will help decrease my chances of getting lost, and allow me to map my routes beforehand so I can just follow the GPS. Settled down to a mini pizza and some more episodes of Suits for the evening. Took my shower earlier, so now I’m heading to bed. Love you, babe, good night!

Hello Darlin’,
Got up with my alarm this morning, picked up Anita from OTL and headed out to Dupuis to start marking the trail for the OTL. They’ve instigated a whole new bunch of rules out here, and the gate is now locked at all times! You have to get online and sign up for a free permit in order to get the gate code, then the latch on the gate is so cumbersome, it’s very difficult to work it. Crazy! You’d think a public facility would want to have the public be able to get in and out easily, but that’s not the case out here anymore! Anyway, I managed to set up and account and get the code, so we eventually made it in. We got the horses saddled up and headed out on the trail on a beautiful morning. You remember I got so turned around in there last year, and it became pretty clear why, when even Anita got lost in the first 10 minutes of the ride! We managed to get back on track, but I realized that a lot of these folks don’t ride out here much, which surprises me considering how great the trails are out here, and that they’re sponsoring an event that starts from here! Anyway, we managed to get on track, though, of course, Flash was outpacing her pokey Arab for a while, then suddenly Flash decided to get behind him, and kept his head literally at his hindquarters, which got a little scary because I don’t think the Arab liked it that much. We followed the trail all the way down to the first water stop, which was at the south end of Dupuis (and over 5 miles in), then headed back at a much quicker pace. The plan now is for me to leave camp each day during the event ahead of the pack, and fill in any markers that may have been lost or missing, or that I think need to be added to insure clarity. I still feel like they’re not putting enough markers out, but that’s just me, and I’ll fix it when the time comes. Anyway, it was a very nice ride, and I made it back home by about 2:00. Jeff was working on scrapping in the back, and I gave him a hand with it for a while, but then he didn’t really need me, so I decided to start moving that pile of cement blocks that have been bugging me for so long. I got the tractor going and starting moving them and stacking them underneath his big Mayflower trailer. I didn’t quite get it finished, but I certainly got most of it done, so I figure I’ll finish it off tomorrow. I’d love to get all that junk moved and then bush hog over that area, it should open that whole section up quite a bit. I’ve been bugging Jeff about moving that line of units right in front of the house, and scrapping or moving the Skeeter mobile away from the house as well. If we can get that done, it will make a huge difference to the look of the yard in front of his house. Any improvement would be nice, frankly. Anyway, that took us until horse feeding time, after which I settled down for the night. Tired from all the physical activity, so heading off to bed now. Good night, my love!

Hi Babe,
Got a pretty good night sleep last night, up until I heard Jeff drive by and pick up the garbage for pickup today, but that was late enough for me to say I got a full night for a change. After a quick breakfast, I hooked up the horse trailer, loaded up Flash, and headed out to Corbett again. I wanted to check out an alternate route to the one we had marked, because it seemed like it might be a bit drier, though in the end, that didn’t turn out to be the case. First, of course, I got turned around looking for the trailhead I wanted, and did a nice loop around the swamp that ended up being in the wrong direction. When I came finally came across our markers and realized where I was I managed to figure out where I went wrong, and soon found the alternate route, but that was mostly underwater, too, though it was shallower. So if it stays dry enough, it might drain off enough to be better, but there’s no way to know for a few weeks. I didn’t get any pictures in worth printing, because Flash was being too jumpy today, what with all the water and the stopping and starting while I was trying to figure out where we were and what direction to go in. I suggested to the organizers it might be best if I leave camp every day about an hour before each day so that I can confirm the trail markers are there and legible, and I think that’s what will happen. They’ve been working on a place to have a different overnight stop on Saturday night, and that seems to be working out. I’m meeting Tim in the morning at a farm that’s offered to house the campers overnight for free, and it looks like it’s only a block off the Riverbend trail, right there by the lake, so I think it’s going to work our perfectly. Anyway, got back from Corbett to find the package with the shore power connector and already come, so once I got everyone settled in, I fixed that. It looked like it would work perfectly, but Jeff had me unplugged to use the dryer, so I didn’t know for sure until after 8:00 when he finally plugged me back in, and yes, it worked perfectly. Had a little dinner and settled down for the evening before taking my usual shower and heading to bed. So off I go! Love you, Babe! Good night!