After a nice slow start to the day, we saddled up again, and also put on boots, since my previous notes described our planned route as having some stony sections, before heading out at around 1:00. We headed out past the bathhouse to the aptly named Shady Trail, which was absolutely beautiful, then on to Independence River Trail, where eventually it did get rocky, then down Hiawatha trail till we finally reached Confusion Flats and the Blue Jog Road home. The dogs were brilliant again, with Lola even waiting for us at a road crossing, and Billy doing a fine job of keeping up, though we did have to slow down a bit after our several canters to allow him to catch up. Absolutely gorgeous day, temps in upper 70's, so a little cooler in the shade, just PERFECT! These are definitely perfect days, we couldn't ask for anything more. Despite all the rain in the area this spring and summer, there were only a few muddy spots, and the mud here is so different than down in Watkins Glen, the sand base makes it crumble under the horses' feet, rather than suck it in and hold onto it. Didn't lose any boots, thank goodness, and truly enjoyed the day. Could not have asked for more! Perfect trails, perfect weather, perfect horses, perfect companions, everything just perfect! I love this place! Definitely in my top 10, maybe even my top 5! Love it! Got back about 3:30, then settled down to watch a couple of movies for the afternoon and evening. Life is good!

Well, everything I remember about this place from our last trip here is true. The trails are wonderful! Hubby just wanted to take a short ride today, so I planned a loop about 5.25 miles long, and we took the dogs with us. The roads that I remember being sandy were still sandy, but with all the rain, it was pretty well packed, so we weren't sinking anywhere near as deep as I remember we had before. Once on the trails, despite the rain, the dirt was hardly muddy at all, and even in the few places where it was, it was never more than half a hoof deep, so it was wonderful! We got lots of trots and canters in when we were on the wider trails and roads, and some lovely walks and jogs on the narrow trails, of which there were many. Gorgeous! Mostly pine forest, with a few areas that deciduous and some were more open. Really enjoyed it! The dogs came along as well, and they just keep getting better and better. Lola listened to me as we approached the one road we had to cross, and we made it all safe and sound to the other side. Got back before 2:30, had a light lunch, and spent the afternoon reading (Hubby) and writing (me) and napping (the dogs, and Hubby). Fish for dinner tonight, freshly caught two days ago!

Another gorgeous day, and we had decided that this was our last chance to ride to lunch, so we headed out about mid-day straight down Maple Lane, passing the Road Closed sign meant for motorized vehicles, and made a beeline for the restaurant. It was more of a road than a trail, but much less of a road than what we've been riding on the past week, so we were quite happy. Debated whether to take the dogs along with us, and did bring them in the end. They were brilliant the whole way! Even though it was over 10.5 miles total, with a lunch break in between, little Billy managed to keep up and everyone enjoyed themselves tremendously! When we arrived, we found several other horses tied on the property, so we tied the horses to a couple of posts at the back of the property, and the dogs as well, and went in. We chatted with both the help and the other three riders that were there, and enjoyed a nice lunch before heading back to camp. The only thing about being on Sugar Hill is that it's always a long climb to get back home, and this route had several long slogs, but we had been gradually working up to this long ride all week, and it went without a hitch. Had a wonderfully relaxing evening, as most of the campers had left by the time we got back, so it was much quieter than it has been, to be expected, of course. Chatted again with the folks we met at lunch for a while, then settled in for the evening.

After our earlier ride, and additional rain, we knew the trails would be a mess, and didn't want a repeat of spending so much time looking for lost boots, so we decided to stay on the road as much as possible, since the road isn't too bad a ride anyway. We headed down Maple Lane until we reached the road closed sign, then swung east, missing our turn and running into the paved road, so we turned around and found the turn we missed, which was along a little used road, but the footing was still good, and that led us to the crossover on Mohawk, which meant we had to climb a bit, and I only lost a boot once, until we finally got back to Maple Road for the journey home. Not an exciting ride, but at least we didn't have any unnecessary drama, and got a few trots and canters in, which is always a good thing! The dogs behaved beautifully, too, with Billy doing a grand job of keeping up, despite his stubby little legs!

After the best night sleep we've had in awhile, with perfect sleeping temps in the mid-50s, Hubby, who's been feeling better in the last few days than he has in a long, long time, was ready to go for a good ride today, even though we had traveled yesterday, so after breakfast and a quick hoof trim, we saddled up and hit the trail just before noon, taking the dogs along with us. Lola is learning to be quite a good trail dog, though she's young and still doesn't always come when she's called, especially when she's almost back to camp, but most of the time is really good. Little Billy somehow manages to keep up, despite his little legs, and he stayed with us for the whole 4+ miles. We started out on the road west out of camp, then cut over onto C trail, turned a bit early as we made our way down to B trail, then got onto Mohawk trail, which is usually one of our favorites, but with all the rain, it was very muddy. In fact, for the first time since I've been using them, I kept losing my Cavallo horse boots. Hubby had no problem, so I think it had more to do with maybe the fresh trim I did on Apollo's feet before we left, I might have trimmed a bit too much, but the mud here was really heavy and pulled them right off on several occasions. Once it was so deep in the mud I couldn't even see it, and walked back about a quarter mile just trying to find it, only to finally discover it feet away from where I first noticed it missing. It was a miracle I could even find it, it was so deep in the mud! I gave up on boots at that point, tying them to my saddle for the rest of the trip home, which fortunately, didn't include too many stony areas. It was a great ride though, although Apollo was feeling a bit restless and evidently frustrated at the footing, and Clio got a bit frustrated, too. The last stretch home was all on the road, though, so they were settled down by the time we got back to camp. I did a couple of loads of laundry, figuring I better get it done while the sun was shining, because the forecast is rain for the rest of the weekend. Helped some neighbors get their awning down, then just settled down for the day. A great ride, and we feel right at home here, with perfect temps and a beautiful day. It doesn't get much better than this!

Though it rained for a while in the morning, further making everything soggy (if that's even possible at this point!), the sky started to clear up by late morning, and I determined we were going for a ride, period. Hubby was feeling the best he's felt in a while, so with ponchos secure in our saddle bags (as always), we headed up the road. With all the rain, we figured the side trails would be really sloppy, so we initially stayed on the road, following it back to where it turned from pavement to gravel, then turned around and headed back. We decided to try the same trail I walked yesterday in reverse, just to make the ride a bit more interesting, which, with all the mud and slipperiness, you could say we succeeded. Not deep mud, fortunately, but slippery nonetheless. We stopped briefly at a little peninsula into the lake that had a couple of highlines, and let Lola go for a swim. We finally make it back, finding the sections of horse trail that I missed on my walk yesterday, with lots of dirt on everybody, so I got a bucket of water and sponged everyone down. Just as we finished putting the horses back on their anchors and got back into the RV, we had another tremendous downpour! I thought we were done with rain for the day, but no such luck. Glad we missed it on the trail, though! Not the most interesting ride, but definitely good for the horses, dogs and us, great to be back in the saddle again! No drama, just a great ride, and even little Billy managed to keep up, though we did have to slow down for him a couple of times after some canters on the road. After yesterday's walk and today's ride, this old boy is certainly getting his exercise! The dogs even behaved beautifully when a group of riders passed on the road, for which we were very grateful! A small tree had fallen during the day, but someone from the other group pulled it out of the way, so I guess they got out all right. Settled down for a peaceful night, since all our neighbors for the weekend were long gone. A nice, peaceful but rainy night!

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!