With the sun peeping out from partly cloudy skies, and a bit more of a breeze than we've seen since we arrived, we had a quick breakfast and saddled up the horses, for just a short, test ride to see how Hubby does, as well as Lola. We decided to really experiment today and take little Billy with us. When he was younger, he was kind of a pain on the trail, because he would bark at the horses whenever we stopped moving, and it would agitate the horses. Now, at about eleven years old, we figured he wouldn't be able to keep up with us on the trail, but as this was just 3.5 miles, we decided to give him a chance and see how he does. Turns out, he was perfect! In fact, everything went great, no drama at all! The only worrisom part was when we had to cross an FM road, which didn't have too much traffic, but the traffic it did have was moving VERY fast, including large trucks, so when we got near it, I jumped down off Apollo and grabbed Lola by the collar and walked her across. She had begun to get close to the road, and is still not listening to me completely yet, so I wanted to to be safe rather than squashed. Once we crossed the road I let her free, and did the same when we got close the road crossing back again. The trail was pretty soft and muddy in spots, understandable considering the weather we've been having, but under the mud it was fairly firm, so no one went in deeper than the top of the hoof. No knee-deep anything, thank goodness. One creek had spilled over its banks, making for a valiant swim for Billy, which he did with great aplomb, although swimming isn't anything he's shown a great propensity for. He did walk through every puddle, though, to cool off I guess. Anyway, it was a wonderful ride, Lola mostly staying close, which is good news, and Billy making it all the way back to camp easily, better than I could hope for! I had thoughts of having to pick him up and carrying him towards the end, but he trotted along the whole way like a trooper! And Hubby, well, Hubby made it just fine, and his blood pressure was even down after we got back! Nothing better than the outside of a horse for the inside of a man! A great day!

After getting up early to a cloudy and somewhat breezy day, we had the horses loaded up and heading north by about 10:00, arriving at the Muleshoe Recreation Area, along the edge of Lake Travis. As we were signing in at the honor box, we noticed a lot of traffic coming in, and one lady asked me, "Is this where the wildflowers are?" I had heard this was a good park for that, but I had no idea it was this big! We drove in a short ways to the entrance to the Multi-use trail, where it looked like a new parking lot has just been carved out. We got the horses saddled up and ready to go, and finally let Lola out of the van. We left Billy at home because we were afraid the van would get too hot, and we knew he wouldn't be able to keep up, and we heard him uncharacteristically howling when we left! Lola jumped out and sniffed around a bit, then as soon as we headed up the trail she ran out front a ways, and fell into our pace almost instantly. You'd have thought she had been a trail dog all her life, instead of this being her first "real" trail trip! She was brilliant, never getting too far ahead, never going too far off the trail, just perfect! The trail was a bit rocky at first going through the woods, but soon opened up to a field between the woods and the lake. Not long after that, we began to see the Blue Bonnets, a Texas staple. At first we saw a few clumps, then we turned a corner and saw some larger clumps, then as we progressed, they became more and more thick until, before we knew it, we were completely surrounded, and stretched as far as the eye could see! The smell was tremendous, absolutely gorgeous, reminding me a lot of the Lilac Festival they have every May in my home town of Rochester, NY. The horses were brilliant today, too, paying almost no attention to Lola at all, likely because I've been spending a lot of time throwing balls into the pasture and having Lola retrieve them, getting the horses used to her running around near them. She stayed out from under their feet, didn't nip at their heels (precisely why we didn't want a herding dog!) and mostly stayed out front and to the side. The horses behaved well, and we got a few trots and canters in on the long stretches of road, with Blue Bonnets on each side of us. What a beautiful day, beautiful ride, absolutely perfect! And Lola behaved brilliantly as well, enjoying herself tremendously! We get the impression she's never had so much space and freedom, and is having the time of her life! We rode for a good two hours, reaching one short dead-end, but mostly everything was wide open. We had to follow the road back to the parking lot, not knowing the area well enough to find another way, but it was quick, and everyone slowed down for us. When we got home and got everyone put away, Lola and I did some more swimming practice. When we first got her, she got very panicky whenever I tried to get her off the first step. After a few days, I was finally able to get her to swim back by herself when I carried her into deep water, and a couple of days ago, she left the top step herself in pursuit of a frisbee, and learned she could swim back safely on her own. Next step will be to get her to learn where the various other steps around the pool are, then, if all goes well, to actually jump in from the side, I'm hoping to accomplish that before we leave the pool in a couple of weeks. What a great day!

After another week of uneventful living, Hubby and I packed up the horses and trailered over the nearby Pedernales State Park. Though not our favorite place, we were combining it with another activity nearby, so off we went. Rather than argue with the rangers about where we could park, and since we wanted to explore the nicer trails on the southern end of the park, we parked on a nice open corner across the street from the entrance to the park. Booted and saddled, we headed across the road and headed east along the utility line to the little used horse camp, then north around the hills and trees on a trail we had done before, but didn't enjoy nearly as much, because last time we had been forced to park miles to the north, and were exhausted by the time we reached this point, much less by the time we finally got back that time. Anyway, we took a "short loop" around the south end, which did end us up along the long and boring fenceline on the west, but at least the majority of the ride was in more interesting territory. At least this was a more comfortable 6.88 miles, rather than the required 12 miles if we had had to park at the "required" parking lot. In any event, it was an enjoyable ride on a beautiful day, which is all we can ever ask! Arrived back at the trailer still safely parked on the corner, got the horses packed up and off we went! Another nice ride day!

Having had two weeks of typical, mundane living, and after doing some research, I found a new park called Onion Creek that boasts some horse trails, and it's quite close, so we packed up the horses and headed out. Parking was along the edge of a wide street, which gave us a very urban feel, but we were soon saddled up and heading to the park entrance a short half block away. We passed by a playground, following a trail through a sort of neighborhood, which we learned later was really not the right way : -), but finally took a trail on the left that led us to the main trail we should have been on. The trail followed the river, and there was a fork in the trail fairly early. I tried to follow a rather dubious map, taking the trail to the right, as the left crossed the creek and my map didn't indicate anything there. Before long, we reach the right river crossing, where the water was fairly low and quiet, though the trail up the bank on the other side was a good grade up a switchback. It was obvious that most people used the trail just to get to the creek and back, mostly to walk dogs, because most of the tracks ended at the creek, leaving the south side open for an unadulterated horse experience! The trails weren't marked, and that, combined with my dubious map, kept us guessing most of the ride, but with a general understanding where the crossing was, and the limited park area before we ran into neighborhoods kept it fairly straightforward. One time we followed the road to a gate that went into a horse ranch, so we had to turn around and take another fork. Another time, we ended up at the end of a dead end street when the trail ran out, so another turn around. Nevertheless, we thoroughly enjoyed the ride. The trail was mostly sand with only a little gravel, so we probably could have gone without boots, though we had them on as a precaution. We tried to do a perimeter around the edge of the park, but several trails on the map didn't exist, or at least weren't meant for horses, so we ended up doing some cross-country riding as well. There were a number of others trails we didn't get to, even though we covered 7.2 miles in the end, crossing back over the creek in the same place (though the map indicated several other crossings), and were back to the trailer, this time finding the right trail back, with a nice canter along the last stretch on the trail, though it was cut short by the large number of hikers and dog walkers that were on the trail. A popular park, even during the mnid-week, but we ran into no one on the far side of the creek. A gorgeous day, a gorgeous ride, perfect!