Well, after all the rain yesterday, I expected the trails to be pretty sloppy today, and no surprise, they were! Nevertheless, today's the day I put aside to take Flash on the long perimeter ride out to Airplane rock and points east, and since the weather is forecast to only get hotter over the next few days, I figure this is my last chance. Saddled him up and headed out on my own down the orange trail, slipping, sliding and sucking hooves out of muck most of the way down. Once I got past some of the more used section of the trails, though, it did get a little better. I'm glad Phyllis told me about how all the old white trails either loop around or go out to a linear destination and dead end, it helped me not get lost today. On the old map, the orange trail was an entire loop, on the old map, the orange trail became a white trail at Airplane Rock, and on the ground it's still white, but then it turned to orange later, as if someone had started to change to markings and didn't finish or I missed an intersection somewhere. In any event, the ride took me along some really mucky areas, and then into some long stretches of gravel (though I didn't bring horse boots since I knew I'd lose them in the muck, or have to take them off and put them back on half a dozen times), but it didn't seem to bother Flash too much. The trail had it's highlights, though Airplane rock was kind of a disappointment. I'm not sure what I was expecting, maybe a rock suspended precariously on another rock or something, but this was essentially just a bluff with a view. Granted, the outcropping did look like the nose of an airplane when looking from the side, but the call the actually bluff it's "wings" seemed like a stretch. Of course, my house in on a bluff, and our view is much more expansive, so I guess I'm spoiled. Maybe it was the buildup to it. The trail led up to a area that was cordoned off, with a bunch of highlines stretched between trees and half a dozen picnic tables and even an outhouse. It made it seem like it would be something spectacular like Niagara Falls or something. Anyway, I did tie up Flash on the highline and walk down to the rock, taking pictures along the way. We rested a bit before moving out on what will be the orange trail going north, but is still the white trail for now. That actually turned out to be my favorite part of the trail once it went back into the woods after a stretch on a road. I think I passed Twin Falls and Chapel Cave, but I'm not sure because the trail seemed to go above it, not to it, but there was less much and gravel here, a truly nice section of trail. Eventually that took us down again, and we came to a creek with dubious markings again, but I managed to get on the right orange trail (there was a white trail leaving the creek as well) and before long we were back on the long stretch home. It was nearly 11 miles, less than 4 hours, so a good long ride for us both, which we needed. Flash didn't seem any worse for the wear, though the heat was pretty intense by the time we got back to camp. I gave him a nice cool bath and put him away, then boiled some eggs to make deviled eggs with later, then sat in my chair a dozed off for awhile. One of the campers up the road from me had invited me to his fish fry tonight, and as I went by on the way back to camp I confirmed the time as 6:00. I set my alarm for 5:00 so I would have time to finish off my deviled eggs for the fish fry, and wandered up about 10 minutes early, only to find everyone had already started eating. I joined in, ate, chatted with some folks, then about a half hour into it, it began to rain! This was NOT in the forecast, it was supposed to be clear for the next few days, and I had left my saddle and tack on the picnic table to dry after I came back from my ride! I waited around for a bit until the rain stopped, then made my departure back to my site, where I finished wiping down and putting away all my tack. It gave me a good excuse to wash my lambs wool seat cover, though, it needed it after all the mud we've been riding through! That took me the better part of an hour to get all that done, and I was exhausted by then, so I took a much needed shower and settled down for what was left of the evening.

Amazingly, Hubby felt well enough to ride again today, so happy he's feeling better! I think this new dialysis schedule of one day on, on day off is doing him a world of good. We just have to hope his blood is getting clean enough, which we should know soon from the labs we drew last week. Anyway, We had breakfast, and then I got the horses saddled, and again, Hubby rode Apollo. We decided to take a loop that was less than three miles, and that hopefully was a bit more gradual on the downhill grade than the orange trail. The start of that trail was up the road just a bit, but we decided to take Lola with us today, she's been feeling a bit left out lately, especially having to be on a leash so much of the time here. We found the trailhead with no problem, but just as we crossed the road, Hubby lost a fastener on his slobber strap, so I had to stop and jury-rig it with a spare piece of leather string I had strapped to my saddle. Once that was done, we continued on our way, and it was quite a nice ride, except that there was a couple of trees down, one that required us to climb quite a ways up a hill to get around, and Hubby got a little stuck for a few minutes (he had to rest from the exertion), but eventually he got around it with only one small scrape on his arm. After a few more rests along the way, we managed to reach the orange trail with it's upward climb, and were back in camp in no time. Another great ride for Hubby!! Yay!!! No trouble dismounting, and he made it back to his comfy gravity chair, where he planned to stay most of the rest of the day, reading. I unsaddled Apollo and put him away, but I still wanted to take a longer ride, though I realized it wouldn't be the long ride I had planned yesterday, but another ride was still possible. So I headed back out the orange trail, which is about the main trail that most other trails end up on at one time or another, and based on some suggestions from Phyllis, turned left at Marker M, which led me to a fence, turned right there, and right again when I came to the next "T." This took me on a trail that was marked white on the trees (which, evidently, is how practically every single side trail is marked, including all directions at every intersection, so it's not very helpful), but on the map it's marked in purple. The story I got from Phyllis was that evidently all the trail markers are sitting around somewhere waiting to be put up, but the powers-that-be didn't want the trail markers to go up until the maps were printed and ready for distribution. Well, they were distributed last Monday, but since the trail markers aren't up yet, it's very confusing to someone who doesn't know their way around, like me. The route that Phyllis recommended, she said wasn't even on the map! How crazy is that? Anyway, I did follow her instructions, and it was quite a lovely ride, weaving along edges of bluffs and and through the woods. Most of the footing was pretty good, with only a few really sloppy spots. Fortunately, there weren't any other trees down along that route, so we had no more detour troubles. When we turned onto the orange trail for the final leg home, I let Flash pick and choose his own way, trying to get him to use his mind a bit more. In the woods, I still have to steer him around practically every tree or he starts heading off the trail, but when I let him choose his own way on the orange trail, I think he finally started to get the idea that he could make his own decisions, and that seemed like a new idea to him. I think he's always been kept under a tight rein, never having to think for himself, but I really need to get him like Apollo, where he can just be put on a loose rein and he'll know to follow the trail himself without constant supervision. A work in progress, for sure! When I got back and downloaded the route to MapMyHike,which was just over 4.5 miles, then opened it in Google Earth and overlaid it on the trail map, it turned out that trail was on the map after all! It was just colored purple when the trail markers were white, so I guess that must have been confusing to even an old hand like Phyllis! Anyway, it was after 4:00 by the time I got back, so I quickly got everyone and everything put away and settled down for the evening. Was delighted to see our neighbors with the generator had packed up and left, so I'm looking forward to a quiet night and a good night sleep tonight!

Didn't have the best night sleep last night, not sure why, but slept a little late because of it. Got up about 8:30 to hungry horses, had breakfast with Hubby, then decided to get in a ride before his dialysis session. There was rain in the forecast for this afternoon, and considering how muddy so many of the trails are already, I figured I better get a ride in before they get any worse. I saddled up Flash and headed out, having planned to do the purple trail to the orange trail in a loop. Of course, I got lost at the first intersection. I thought I left on a red trail, but when I got to the bottom, the trees were blazed in white. I couldn't quite figure out how that happened, but at the creek there was a sign that said I was at Marker B. From there I was supposed to take the red trail that I thought I was on straight to the purple trail, but since I believed I was on the white trail, and there were two red trails and two white trails marked at the intersection, I couldn't figure out which red trail I was supposed to take. Eeeny, meeny, miney, moe, I picked a red trail, which was a nice trail, but never ran into the purple trail, and in fact, came out at the entrance to the day parking area at the camp! What the heck! Whatever. I decided to do the trail in reverse since that was closer, so I headed south on the orange trail and followed that until I got to a place where the orange trail seemed to fork. Hmmm, not on the map. I finally figured out that one fork went to a kiosk and the other along the road. I couldn't find any markings, except that it appeared that the orange trail continued past the kiosk. Purple had to be along the road, but I went down a hundred yards, didn't see any markings, turned around because I thought I must be wrong, and THEN, FINALLY, saw a purple blaze on a tree going in the opposite direction. Guess I was on the right track after all. Since we were going on a gravel road, though, I stopped to put on Flash's boots, then headed down that way for a while. Then we came to more purple blazes that went into a deep wood, so the trails were particularly mucky, and what appeared to be a trail along the utility line that paralleled it, which was mostly dry. We opted for the dry route, hoping it wouldn't get too far from the purple mud. Fortunately, it didn't, it crossed over purple again later. When we reacquired the purple trail, it was sloppy downhill for quite a ways, and of course, Flash lost a boot, so we had to stop on the hill and I had to go back and retrieve it. He was a little antsy, but not as much as usual, and I left both boots off and kept going. That ended up on a road that went through a neighborhood of log cabins. I hadn't realized the trail would become road, but the blazes were still there, so I kept following it. Eventually, back on the trail again, we ended up back at the same Marker B at the creek. Since I remembered which trail we came down, and which trail we took up the wrong way, it was easy to get back to camp, using the shortest distance, which was the one we came down, of course. A bit longer, later and muddier than I had planned, but we made it, nine miles! There was a line of other people washing down their horses at the one spigot that you connect a hose to, so I had to wait awhile before I could get Flash washed down, but he was soon on his highline and I was soon getting ready for Hubby's dialysis. The session went well, we started watching an old John Wayne film neither of us could remember seeing before, and then the storms moved in. Boy, did it storm! Rain, wind, even hail for awhile was knocking on the roof and awning! Fortunately this awning with the weight of the screen room doesn't seem to be bothered much by the wind, so other than rain running off the awning and under the grass carpet, we had no problems. The electric flashed out for a moment, but I had already put the inverter on, so it transferred immediately and we had no loss of power at all, thank goodness, though I did have to restart the washer and dryer, as I was doing laundry today, too. Busy day! Had dinner, Hubby went to bed early, and I did some writing on my blog, though I can't upload it right away, as evidently the cell phone tower doesn't have power or has some other mechanical problem, as there is now zero cell phone reception at the moment. Now all I can do is take a quick shower and head off to bed! Good, though tiring, day!!

Hubby had been telling me for days now that he intended to ride once we arrived here, but I didn't realize he meant that he wanted to do that even before I had a chance to explore the trails! But I'm not going to deprive him, if he's feeling up to it, then we go! After breakfast I got the horses saddled up, and we had decided in a previous conversation that he might be better suited to ride Apollo than Flash. Since I hadn't ridden Flash in more than a week, and he still needed constant guidance on the trails (i.e. He needed to be steered around practically every tree because he still hasn't engaged the thinking side of his brain), and Apollo had reminded me last week of how beautifully well-behaved he was on the trails, we just agreed it was a better fit, even though his height made it a bit more challenging. But with the picnic tables in our campsite, Hubby was able to climb up on the bench of the table, and from there, with just a little help from me, he was able to climb on while Apollo stood as still as a stone (another advantage over Flash, we're still working on the standing still part of the equation). Upon the suggestion of our neighbors, we headed south on the orange trail, crossing the quiet road we came in on and before long, we found ourselves heading downhill for quite a long while. The footing was quite muddy, and there was some slipping going on, and unfortunately, going downhill is the most painful position for Hubby and his weak legs and back, so we only went about a mile before he said he's had enough and we turned around and went back uphill, which fortunately, doesn't hurt him anywhere near as much, so he was okay by the time we got back to camp. Apollo jogged and even cantered a couple of steps, so it was a good ride (albeit short) for Hubby's first day out since April. He even managed to dismount straight to the ground without hardly any help from me! It was a little less than an hour, but it was a great first step, and one we can build on. After all, his muscles have atrophied so much in the last year, it's bound to take some time to get stronger again. Once I put the horses back on their highline, I got all the supplies for his dialysis, and we spent the afternoon dialyzing and watching old movies. This place has full bars of 4G on Verizon, so Prime and Netflix are a breeze this week! Yay! Had a nice salad for dinner and we settled down to our usual evening activities.

It seemed cooler to me this morning, so I decided to take a short ride on Apollo before the heat of the day built up. There was a very short loop, just over two miles that I wanted to try, because I thought it might be a good one for Hubby if we come back here some time. Turned out to be quite perfect for that, most of the grades were quite manageable, most of the trail was dirt and mud, though it did come out on the road (with no signage as to which way to turn, except in 50 feet a sign that said "No Horses, $100 fine." Obviously I turned around when I saw that, and quickly realized that I was just beyond the entrance to the horse camp, so I headed back there on the road. Less than an hour, but when I got back to camp there were 4 or 5 livestock trailers with riders saddling up to get out on the trail. Lola was busy training one of the kids how to throw for her, but I let her be while I put Apollo away (he was brilliant again today, of course!) We started Hubby early on dialysis so we could enjoy an earlier evening, and I'm happy to say it all went pretty well today, with only a little bit of low blood pressure problems, which is our biggest concern. I packed up a few things in preparation for our departure tomorrow (as much as I could stand in the heat), and we kept the air conditioning going most of the evening, since we knew we had enough propane to last the night. Looking forward to moving north, though, as we are in search of 70 degrees, not 90. Unfortunately, we left home about a month too late this year because of all the work we had to do on the house to get it ready for sale. Not going to happen again!!!

I decided that I didn't want to leave here without getting at least one ride in, so I decided to saddle up Apollo early today and do a nice 7 miles loop, part of which is on the Sheltowee Trace Trail. Poor Apollo has been so neglected I decided he needed a change of pace, and he seemed absolutely delighted to get back on the trail again! He practically at the bit right out of my hand he was so eager to go! Even though the temps were already over 80 by the time we left, it dropped as soon as we hit the shade of the woods, and dropped some more as we headed up the long gradual climb to the top of the ridge. What a lovely ride! Some of the trail had a bit of gravel, mostly pea-size, but a lot was just dirt and a few areas of mud because of the afternoon thundershowers we've been having this week. Apollo behaved brilliantly! I had put his boots on, and he shook them off a couple of times, until I finally just took them off and hung them from my saddle, as they were surplus to requirement anyway. The Trace went right along the summit ridge line, which was about 10 yards wide most of the time, so the hillside dropped away from the trail on both sides, creating lovely views on both sides of the mountain. It was a long gradual climb and descent, nothing too dramatic, fortunately, and the whole ride was delightful. So glad I decided to take Apollo, he absolutely loved it! Out for a bit more than 2 hours, covering nearly 7 miles, so relaxing on him. I'd almost forgotten how relaxed I am when I ride him, no drama, just a loose rein and off he goes, following the trail without any guidance at all. With Flash, I still have to practically steer him around every turn. He just hasn't quite got the knack of trail riding yet, but I'm sure he will! Got back, got cooled off, had a quick breakfast, then got Hubby ready for another attempt at dialysis today. This one went much better, got better needle insertion and mostly better numbers, though he started feeling poorly toward the end, but managed to hang on until the appointed time. While we were dialyzing, though, I managed to get a good enough signal to watch an old classic on Amazon Prime, where we chose a movie about Daniel Boone, seeing that we're in his neck of the woods, and it was there we learned that Sheltowee was actually the Indian name that Daniel Boone had been given by the Shawnee Chief Blackfish, meaning Big Turtle. The whole trail actually runs 323 miles from Big South Fork in Tennessee up to Rowan County, KY. Well, at least I can say a did a few miles on it! We finally got settled down for the evening, sitting out in the screen room waiting for it to cool down, which it didn't until the middle of the night. Sorry to say that one of our neighbors had a big generator out last night, that they left on all night, and I'm guessing the same thing will happen tonight, darn it. Well, that's the beauty of living on the road, if you don't like what your neighbor is doing, you can either get up and leave or wait for them to do the same! I don't expect this group to stay much longer anyway, so I guess we'll wait them out. Hope it's a bit cooler tomorrow, but not counting on it!

After another good night sleep and a leisurely morning, I finally saddled up Flash around 11:00 and headed out on the trail to do a long loop I had originally planned earlier in our stay here at Honey Creek. Heading out on the trail to St. Helen, we enjoyed a lovely trail most of the way, except that one little rocky section going down to Gun Rock, and went several miles on single and double track trails until we got to the #3 intersection, when we turned right and headed down to Groom's Branch. That's when we started heading down hill, and the trail got more and more rocky. It wasn't terribly steep, but it did seem to last a long, long time, and at one point Flash planted his feet and wouldn't go any further for a while. I let him rest, as I'm sure it's just as tough for him to go downhill on that kind of terrain as it is uphill, and eventually we got going again. Before long we reached the bottom, and the ford across the river. I thought Flash might give me a hard time, but he walked right in, took a drink, and when he started to turn around, I managed to easily divert him into the stream and we crossed with no problem! Thankful for that, he was quite willing. On the other side, we went down a long, wide dirt road that followed the river, that went on for quite some time, until we reached Coyle's Branch, where things got a little confusing. The only signs were for Cumberland Trailhead, which I couldn't even find on my map, one trail said 10 miles to it, and the one we just came in on said 5.8 miles to it, and nothing else that corresponded to anything on my map. After a couple of false starts, I finally figured out which way to go (thank goodness it was clear skies today, it was purely astronomical reckoning that put me on the right track) and we followed that section of the river for a while, until we came to the turnoff that would take us up to the Panther Creek loop, which we took the other day. Well, it turned out that the trail was really a creekbed, large rocks and practically straight up! Not a happy camper with that trail! We started up, and Flash started trying to go faster, as horses do when they're climbing, and after a bit, I was thinking to myself, now this is a good reason to have a martingale. Of course, I didn't have one, and just a moment later, my saddle slipped so far back toward his rump that when he leapt over a rock, the saddle turned sideways, and there was no stopping it. Grrrr! He was antsy, so I had to tie him to a tree on this steep slope with rocky footing, undo his saddle and resaddle him. Not an easy task under the circumstances! When I finally got that done, and struggled to mount because he wouldn't stand still, we finally started back up the "trail." We didn't get far when the saddle slid again. It was so steep and his saddle pad was now soaking wet with sweat, and it didn't seem to matter how tight I made his girth, it simply slipped again. I got down and moved it and tightened it again, climbed back up, and still only managed to get a short ways before the saddle was back on his rump. I must have saddled him half a dozen times going up that hill, until we finally reached the top. There I tied him up again, loosened his saddle so he could breathe, and rested for a bit while we both recovered. Eventually, we got on our way again, this time the trail was more moderate as we were now on top of the plateau. I followed Panther Creek around to the overlook and decided to take a run out there. I'm still trying to find a trail I think Hubby can handle in his weakened state, but so far, even the best trail has some sections that I would worry about with him, so it's looking like he may not get a ride in here. Anyway, we arrived at the overlook, but I had to tie Flash up about 20 or 30 yards away and go on foot the rest of the way. It's a nice overlook, but for someone who has a spectacular view right off their own bluff, I wasn't overly impressed. I managed to climb back on Flash without too much trouble, and we headed off again. We eventually came to an area where they had clearcut the forest, so it was very hot in the sun, and we came around to the trail that led directly back to camp, which was the one I had avoided the other day because I thought it would be too hard on Flash, but after the rough stuff he tackled coming up the mountain today, it seemed a lot easier. The only other choice was to climb up the logging road another quarter mile to the "new" trail, which would have been a lot longer, but by this time, we had been out over four hours, so I figured shorter was better. We made it back to camp about 3:30, and all I had the energy for was to take off Flash's saddle and bridle and tie him to the trailer while I crashed in my lounger with a beer. Once I rested a bit, I was able to put Flash and all the gear away, but I was quite exhausted by then. I made burritos for dinner and we crashed watching a couple of old classic movies, which did much to rejuvenate me. I love happy endings! Tomorrow will be busy, I need to start packing, Hubby needs to be dialyzed, and I would really like to take Apollo out for a short loop, he's been missing out on all the fun. Then, it's all hands on deck to get ready to leave on Monday, heading for our next stop, White Sulphur Horse Camp in the Daniel Boone National Forest! Off to bed, I need plenty of rest for tomorrow!

Had another great night sleep, we're really starting to get in the groove of life on the road again! Did a few chores before finally saddling up Flash and heading off into the woods. I had originally planned on going to one of the overlooks, then took another trail instead, the one marked to Mt. Helen, and once I saw how that correlated on the map, I decided to head to White Oak Overlook, just past the Park Rd. Parking area. Just as I arrived there, two horse trailers came in, and one of them stopped and asked how the trails were. Much better, I was happy to say, only a few areas of mud, but most of it had dried out pretty well. I was very happy that trail was mostly dirt, too, with only one stretch of rocks about 15 yards or so leading down into and out of a place called Gun Rock, an overhang over a creek we had to cross. I carried on to the overlook, which I quickly realized was a place where you had to park and walk over to, no room for horses and no place to turn around at the actual overlook, thank goodness I noticed in time! I tied up Flash and walked down, it was a nice vista. Of course, Flash was a pain when I tried to remount, his blood was up and he was ready to go, with or without me, but I finally managed to get him still long enough to mount. Heading back, of course, he doubled his speed, and he was cordo-ing a big part of the way, hopping over branches and rocks just for the fun of it. By the time we got back to the parking lot, the other riders had all saddled up and gone, though I didn't know which direction they took. It wasn't long before we caught up with them, though, and we heard them a long time before we reached them, they were a rather noisy bunch of men, women, and a girl who liked to scream a lot. The last horse was slower than Clio used to be, and was a good 30 or 40 feet behind the pack anyway. We chatted for a few minutes, but the trail was so narrow there was no place to pass until we got back to Gun Rock. I wasn't sure if Flash had wanted to catch up to them or just wanted to get back to camp, but once we passed, he had no qualms about speeding away from that pack! He raced up the hill to the main road, and with a quick canter and largo, we were back in camp lickety-split! A much more enjoyable ride that Sunday, the fact that the trails were much drier made me a happier camper, and other than the mounting problem, Flash was more in control and more relaxed than before as well. Again, not surprising considering all his time off. I'm glad we took this trail, though, because it confirmed for me the big loop I'm hoping to take another day, one that will cross the river at the bottom of the scenic view I was overlooking and carry on across the other side for a while. Got back and put up Flash, had a few more irritating phone conversations about out supply delivery tomorrow, and finally got Hubby on his dialysis machine, late again, I'm sorry to say. Didn't finish up till about 8:00! Got food, finished a movie we had started (why can't filmmakers make a movie that doesn't end with someone dying in order to resolve it?), and finally headed to bed.

Though the morning started out cool, the bright sun quickly warmed things up a lot, and I was looking forward to my last ride on Flash here at this beautiful park. I had planned a long ride on a lot of the sections of blue trail that I had missed the other day, and wouldn't you know, I got turned around again somehow. Nevertheless, I managed to get in most of my plan, even though it wasn't exactly in the same direction or the same order that I had planned it! What's the difference, it was a beautiful ride! I was glad to see this section of blue trail was quite a bit wider, or at least the trees weren't so close on the trail that it was a knee-knocker. Still mostly single-track, and one part took me to an overlook that was just spectacular. You could see the lake and the regular campground on it's shore, maybe a half mile or more away, beautiful. After standing around in the cold and rain (though I had put their rain sheets on Friday night), Flash was quite ready for the ride, no hesitation and willing all the way. He's taken to hopping over downed logs, and even did a full-on jump over one. I've never actually done any jumping, but when I realized what he intended, I just grabbed a handful of main, leaned forward like I always see the Olympians do, and did my best to stay balance, and it ended perfectly! So proud of him, and myself for surviving it! Just glad he didn't go sideways at the last minute or anything, that would have been trouble... Anyway, it was a great ride, 9.39 miles according to MapMyRide, at just about 3 hours. This is SO how I want to spend as much of my time as I can! Spectacular! After we got back and I put up Flash (and, of course, the campground was mostly empty by now), I got busy dialyzing Hubby and packing up what I could for our departure tomorrow. What a great week! We will come back here!