In keeping with my plan to get Flash and myself conditioned for endurance riding, I headed south along the canal across Indiantown Road, passing a couple of playful otters on the way, turned east into the Jupiter Farms neighborhood and followed the canal all the way to Jupiter Farms Road and beyond. I had hoped to find a back entrance to Riverbend Park, but unfortunately there isn't one, so we had to stay on the bike path all the way up to the west entrance to the trail, which is just south of Indiantown Road anyway. Then we took the perimeter trail inside Riverbend Park, enjoying may long cordos and canters the entire time. This horse just loves to move!! We went under the tunnel to join the OTL trail, then straight west on the Cypress Creek Trail and finally, home, a fabulous almost twenty mile ride. Love this horse! Grabbed a quick lunch, changed clothes, and off to dialysis with us! Love this life!

Since I've decided to train Flash up for endurance riding, I've been extending my trips to condition both him and me, and I thought a good event to practice on would be the Ocean to Lake Ride that takes place in the area at the end of February. It's a 60+ mile ride over three days, from Dupuis WMA to JW Corbett WMA on Day One, then on to Riverbend Park on Day Two, then the final leg to Jonathon Dickinson State Park on Day Three. Hubby and I did the third day once back in 2012 and thoroughly enjoyed it, though Hubby could never do a 20 mile ride any more, but I think it will be a perfect goal for me and Flash. The event organizers have scheduled a "warm up" to a place called Rood Lake, which is about halfway between Riverbend and JDSP this Saturday, but since I already had plans for the weekend, I decided that I would try to find Rood Lake on my own today. Unfortunately, no map shows Rood Lake on it, so I had to guess a little bit. I did read they had recently put in a couple of picnic tables and a covered shelter, so I figured it wouldn't be that hard to find. All I knew was that it was supposedly about 100 yards off the OTL trail, but that wasn't much help. So off we went, with nothing more than a general idea in mind. As we headed out the Cypress Creek trail, I happened upon a worker for Cypress Creek, and questioned him as to the whereabouts of Rood Lake, and he had no idea, but he was nice enough to call back to his office for some help from there, and eventually I learned the one piece of critical information I was missing, that Rood Lake was east of the highway tunnel under the Turnpike and I-95. So off I went, heading through the old orchards and cattle fields to the tunnel, after which I turned right along the highway, but soon realized that wasn't right, so I went back and carried on for a bit until I found a much more likely road which I followed all the way around one lake until it turned back north between another lake, at which point I soon intersected with another trail that, when I looked east, I could see the shelter and picnic tables. I found it! We turned down there and I dismounted to take a break, but Flash wasn't interested, he pranced around, anxious to keep going. After a few minutes, I remounted and headed out, this time in a slightly more direct line, though honestly, I wasn't far off the mark to begin with, fortunately. Flash was still ready to run, so I let him pick the pace for the way home, so it went pretty quick. The round trip ended up being about 17.5 miles in just under four hours, which I thought was pretty good considering we haven't been training that long. Flash is just so much fun to ride, he just loves to run and run! Spent a relaxing evening, a lovely way to spend the day!

I had ordered some folding shelf brackets and picked up a white shelf board from a local home improvement store, so this morning I installed a small folding shelf by my recliner, a welcome addition, as up to now, I haven't had any place convenient to set down a drink, or plate, or computer, and now I do! Really starting to feel like we're getting our new home in order, looking forward to many happy years here. Being Sunday again, I saddled up both horses, and once again took a couple of short rides around the neighborhood. Today, Hubby and I went out to the pagoda in the Hungryland WMA, which is a perfect one hour ride, then swapped out with brother Jeff again, and went out to the neighborhood west of this one, which I had forgotten you could get to, so it was a pleasant day all around!

Spent the morning doing a repair on my Hubby's recliner (this time, without brother Karl's help), then took Flash for a 10+ mile ride. This time we headed out through Cypress Trails, then north from the parking area just to see where that road went, and discovered it was (as I suspected) part of the Ocean To Lake Trail. After such a late start this afternoon, I couldn't go any farther without risking not getting back before dark, so I headed back, with plans to explore further on another day!

After a good night sleep, I hooked up with my other brother Karl as I was out feeding the horses. We sat by the pool for a bit while I played fetch with Lola, getting caught up on both our activities since we last spoke some time ago. Before long, Hubby was up and about, and we had already decided to go for a ride this morning if he was feeling up to it, and he was, so I saddled up both horses and went off for a short 3 mile ride around the neighborhood. We figured out that it's better if he's in the lead on Flash, with me following on my fat and slow Apollo. That was, Flash's walk forces Apollo to at least jog to keep up, so he's getting some much needed exercise. Once we got home, Jeff hopped on to Flash, although he though he was going to be riding Apollo after all my comments about how much Flash likes to run, but he did just fine. Flash is so responsive and gentle I'm not sure it matters who is on him, so long as they're gentle on his quite sensitive mouth. We headed out for another short hour-long ride, and everybody was happy to get a ride in, and even Flash didn't seem to mind the short rides after his long ride yesterday. Because of the holiday, it was time to take Hubby to his in-center dialysis. We started going to the local Fresenius in Stuart, FL, both as an experiment, and to give me a break. We wanted to see if a 3-day schedule would be easier for his system to take than 5 days at home, plus I'm hoping that the extra days off will both give him more time to recover, and me more free time to get all the things done that are on my list (not to mention training Flash up for possible endurance rides). He just started last Wednesday, and so far, so good, though it's kind of hard to tell after just two sessions, and particularly with the holiday schedule, which changes the days around a little bit. Time will tell!

While my plan was to ride Flash today, I had no real route planned out, just that I wanted to take a different route to keep him (and me) from getting bored, so I headed up 134th Way N., crossing Indiantown Road and following the canal back along the WMA area. There's a new crossover into the neighborhood at the first turn, but I decided to wait to explore that on another day. I continued following the canal until I was going along the north end of Loxahatchee Slough. I had planned to do about 12-14 miles today, and when I saw a sign saying the actual Slough was only another 2.5 miles, after I'd only done about 4 miles, I decided to at least reach there. Then when I got there, I decided to go into the trails there, just for variety. Then I decided I didn't want to come back the way I came, so I headed east, then north along the main canal until I reached Riverbend Park! By now, I had gone more than the 14 miles I had planned, and still had another 5-6 miles home. I followed the shortest trail to the underpass under Indiantown Rd., and followed the trail back to Cypress Trails, and eventually home. All told, we went over 21 miles! Longest ride on Flash so far! He took it all in stride, keeping up his pace even when I didn't ask him to, and I even had to hold him back so as not to overexert himself. One time, he evidently decided he wanted to take a roll, and started to lay down on a slope. I jumped off, and then I think he realized he couldn't roll uphill, so he just sat there for about 20 seconds, then got right back up on his feet, apparently ready to keep going. I let him walk behind me for a while to give him a breather, and he walked very patiently and calmly behind me, which was great, as he usually tries to run past me. Eventually, though, I climbed back aboard and we carried on. By the time we reached the tunnel, he was too tired to react much, fortunately, and the rest of the ride was uneventful. What a fabulous horse! No complaints, no resistance! I even had trouble getting him to stand still when I tried to rest him, he insisted on keeping going. This horse loves to move! We finally made it home after five plus hours. He was ready for a nice rinse-off, and I gave him some extra hay for all his work. Frankly, I'm surprised I'm not more sore than I am, as I'm trying to condition myself for endurance as well. What a great day!

Well, after a week of clearing out the area by the barn, we finally managed to get our monster trailer back there, a challenging process to pass through a narrow area that still had some objects a bit too close by, but we made it! We discovered the electric was on a 15 amp breaker, so we had to do some serious utility management until Jeff could put in a bigger breaker arrangement for us in his spare time (which meant it could take a while! 🙂 Today, though, I was determined to get a ride in with Flash, who hasn't been under saddle since we did the Withlacoochee Trail more than two weeks ago. I got him saddled up, and he was quite willing, probably bored already with doing nothing more than just graze in the yard! We headed out into the neighborhood until we reached the canal crossover, then headed down to the west entrance to Cypress Creek WMA on Mack Dairy Rd. We followed the main trail for the most part, then did a short detour on a trail that was marked "foot traffic only" which usually means no wheeled vehicles, and that was a nice diversion, but when I came back to the main road, it kind of looked like maybe it was meant only for hikers. Not sure, but decided to stay on the main trail anyway, which, like Withlacoochee, is essentially one long straight line, with just a couple of squiggles along the way. We went all the way down to the main parking area across from Jupiter Farms Rd., a little over four miles, a total of 8.46 miles by the time we got back. It took us about an hour to get to the parking lot, then I let him do whatever pace he wanted on the way back, and that turned out to be either a really fast gait or a canter, and we reached Mack Dairy in about 15 minutes! Then he stumbled for a moment, so he slowed down the rest of the way, though he kept wanting to pick up the pace again. This horse does love to run! It was a great first workout here, and I can't wait to get some more in. Only problem is that most of the trails are long and straight and flat, so not very interesting, but Flash is doing his best to keep my on my toes! We didn't have to dialyze today, so Hubby and I just relaxed for the rest of the day, glad to have a day off!

After a day off from dialysis, Hubby's legs were a bit stronger, so today I once again saddled up both horses, and this time, he was able to get on. We had decided to change saddles, as the Aussie saddle I've been using has kind of a high cantle, which made it hard for him to get his leg over last time, so I added a thick pad and used his old Abetta cordura saddle from Clio on him, and he had a much easier time getting his leg up over it. Up and running, and praying thet Apollo didn't explode any more and Flash would stay calm and not get too excited, we headed off to the trailhead that would wind us down to the Withlacoochee River. I had been trying to do the blue trail in reverse to get to the Fish Camp, but hadn't succeeded, but today we did it! We mostly kept Apollo in front to keep the pace slow, and Flash did a great job of staying slow and overall behaving himself the entire way. It's almost as if he knows Hubby needs special care and accommodates him accordingly. More likely he was just tired after two days of pretty hard riding, though he didn't behave as though he was the least bit tired. He never does, which is why I think this horse will be great for endurance, if I can keep up his conditioning. We were out for nearly four miles, which is a good ride for Hubby at the moment, and we were both pleased at the whole day. After getting the horses and Hubby settled in to his dialysis, I started doing some packing for our departure tomorrow. The rest of the day was just another ordinary day on the road!