Hi Babe,
I don’t know what the heck is going on with my sleep patterns, but it just keeps taking hours to fall asleep after I go to bed. Then I wake up tired and stay tired all day, grrrr! To make matters worse, I had a horrible nightmare and I literally woke myself up screaming, and not a little scream either. I hope that doesn’t happen when I have neighbors this weekend, especially considering all the windows are open! Then I woke up early, and started working on some stuff that needs resolving. The friend I was going to stay with in Michigan has decided to stay in Florida the whole summer, so I had to start looking for someplace else near Lansing to stay where I could board the horses. I don’t have anything confirmed yet. I also had to find another campground in between, and decided on Potato Creek, which is near enough to Elkhart for me to run in and have them fix the exterior paneling issue before going into camp. I’ve heard it’s pretty nice there, and all the sites have electric, albeit only 30 amp, but it would be nice to be able to run some AC, I’m getting tired of sweating! Once I put out some feelers for a boarding place, I headed into town, mostly to get propane but also some horse feed and a few grocery items. Plus I stopped at a mechanic shop to see if they would run a quick diagnostic to see if any engine codes have come up that might account for my slow starting (though it’s been better the last few times I started the truck, so it may be nothing). Would you believe they wanted $90 just to check the codes?! I went to Autozone and they did it for free. Granted, it wasn’t an in-depth scan, but the only thing that came up is the same one that’s been coming up for a year, about the glow plugs. I don’t see how that could be the problem, but I’ll keep checking. Meanwhile, I bought supplies for an oil change, so I have to put that on the schedule sometime while I’m here, as well as a few other chores I’ve let pile up, like replacing the screen on the door, Lola’s managed to claw her way through it again, and some sealant for around the sinks. Nothing major, just regular maintenance. It was hot again, but we finally had a storm come through and it’s cooled it down wonderfully, but, of course, with no sun, I had to run the generator a bit more to charge the batteries to get through the evening. I had a little soup for dinner, watched a couple of DS9’s, and now it’s time for my shower and bed. I’m hoping I can finally get a decent night sleep, and maybe get back my rhythm again, can’t figure out what’s going on! Planning on taking my first ride here tomorrow, if all goes well and the weather holds out. Good night, darlin’! Love you!

Hey Sweetheart,
Not a great night sleep last night, either, read late, than woke up early, though I read in bed and may have dozed off. Fed the horses then got them out on their anchors, several DNR trucks have gone by and no one’s said a word about the horses being not tied to the hitching post, thank goodness. My estimate of where to put the solar panel last night was dead on, it was getting full sun when I looked out first thing. Last night when I went to bed the inverter was registering 11.6v, and it was up to 12v by the time I got out of bed, enough to easily start the generator once I recycled the inverter. Apparently once it gets to the low battery signal (which it does whenever I leave the inverter on overnight, which I have to do to keep a fan running in the bedroom, and I really needed it last night!,) then I have to turn it off and turn it back on again. But that worked! I was able to start the generator without getting out the BeatIt charger. It’s all a learning curve solar-panel-wise at this point, but I’m getting there! I still can’t believe it’s in the 90s for most of the week, I never thought Indiana would stay this hot for this long, so I am a bit uncomfortable with the heat and humidity, but maybe it will sweat a few pounds off me! I just want to conserve on propane, see how long it lasts, and hey, it’s not that bad, I can handle it. It took all day to upload all my photos and diary posts, because even though the signal is pretty good, I’m limited by my slow data rate, since I used that up weeks ago, but at least I got it done. Once I got everything uploaded, I decided to go check out the lake, so I loaded Lola in the truck with her floating frisbee and we drove down to the beach, although pets weren’t allowed, so I went off to one side away from the beach and we fetched for awhile. Water was really warm, like bathwater! I also checked out the boat ramp, thought I might inflate my kayak so I could paddle around once in awhile. The truck started, but sluggishly again, I need to have it checked out, probably tomorrow. I’m down to my last tank of propane, and I certainly don’t want to run out, so I’ll go into town tomorrow and see what I can find in the way of truck repair. Relaxed for the rest of the evening, had to run the AC for bit to blow out the hot air. There was some thunder nearby, I was really hoping for some rain to cool things down, but it never got here. So I’m off for a shower and bed once again, with just a small fan in the bedroom to keep me cool, relatively speaking. Good night, babe! Love you!

Hey Babe,
A good night sleep, then chores, then I put the horses out on their anchors for the day. Last time I moved, I did housekeeping on the Saturday and packing up on the Sunday, but I learned that if I pace myself, I can do all of it on the Sunday before I move. So I started doing outside packing until it got too hot (and I got hungry!), then after breakfast I did inside chores before it got too hot in the trailer. There’s a transition period where the trailer is a lot cooler inside, then by mid-afternoon it’s hotter inside than out, so then I switched to doing outdoor packing. It worked out beautifully. I would also take my time between jobs, stopping to rest and read for half an hour, then I’d get back to it. Surprisingly, I felt terrific today after that 25-mile ride yesterday! Of course, that may have been assisted by the two ibuprofen I had before I got out of bed this morning. Hey, whatever it takes! Anyway, it was all done by 8:00, all I have left to do is take down the portable fence, hook up the trailer, load the horses and stop by the dump and we’re off! We’re heading to a place called Salamonie Lake about 2 ½ hours north of here. I’m hoping it might be a little cooler, but I’m not holding my breath. In future, I definitely need to be above the 42nd parallel before mid-June if I want to avoid the 90’s, maybe even by mid-May! I liked everything about this place except the harassment I got from the rangers that one day, but they’ve stayed away all week, at least I haven’t seen them, and it was unfortunate and unnecessary, and sadly, will be the only mark against this place, except the gravel on some of the trails. Oh, and the hitching posts instead of highlines, that would be a huge improvement. Anyway, I still need to take my shower, have my ice cream and relax with some mindless television for a bit before heading to bed, so here I go! Love you, sweetie! Good night!

Hi Babe!
In spite of the 20 mile ride yesterday, Lola still woke me up at 4:30 this morning to go out, and it took me a bit to fall back to sleep, and I was still a bit tired and achy when I got up later, plus it was just so dang hot today, so I decided to be super lazy today. The only thing I did besides read, play computer games and watch TV was go out and pick up some hay. I found a guy on Marketplace who was less than 20 minutes away, so I picked up 10 bales at $4 a bale, which should hold me through almost two weeks. For the first time since I’ve been here, there’s another trailer out here in the field with me, looks like some Mennonites with tents and a big stock trailer. There’s actually another group of Mennonites in the shady part of the primitive camp as well, the only other campers in this entire section. I imagine, though, with July 4th coming up this weekend that it will start getting crowded over the next few days. We’ll see! Meanwhile, I’m going to have to keep Lola leashed up for the duration, can’t have her running around visiting with the strict enforcement they’re likely to be undertaking for the holiday. I’m beginning to think that two weeks might actually be too long to stay at one place, with rare exceptions. Maybe I’ll consider a 10-day schedule at some point, just to keep things moving. There aren’t many places that have so many trails that I couldn’t do them all in 10 days, though there are still a few trails here I haven’t hit yet. I’m hoping to get another good ride in tomorrow, even though it’s hot, the humidity is supposed to be lower tomorrow, fingers crossed! I never imagined it would be this hot for so long in Indiana, so obviously, I need to be further north by mid-June next year! Of course, next year I plan on being in NY at Watkins Glen for July 4, thinking about putting together my own personal reunion up there, have my NYS friends join me there. By the way, those women who I met last week, one of them bought my book online (she should have got it from me and saved herself shipping!), and another one is gathering five friends and meeting me up at Salamonie Lake State Park, my next stop! She was very impressed with my recitation of the Snowy River poem, and she’s told them all to watch the movie, but hasn’t told them why, but she’s apparently got them all interested in meeting me and hearing about my travels. She was definitely asking the most questions about what it was like to travel full-time when I met them, I get the impression that might be a goal for her. Anyway, another relaxing day, I only hope Lola gets through the night tonight, since we didn’t get much exercise today. So I’m off to shower and bed! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Honey,
Guess I’m not far enough north, the heat’s really starting to catch up with us! Forecast called for a lot of rain today (though it didn’t really come into the area until late afternoon, and it didn’t arrive at camp until about half an hour ago), so I decided to do some running around today. One of the women I met last week ordered a book, so I put that together so that I could mail it, then headed out to a tiny post office to drop it off. There are two other national forest horse camps within about a half hour drive of here, so I decided to check them out as an alternative to Brown County next time I’m in the area. Turns out they’re both fairly easily accessible even for a rig my size, and they have enough open space for the solar panel to function. Hickory Ridge is fairly small, maybe a dozen sites, and Blackwell is much bigger, probably 40-50 sites. The only problem is they don’t have any water. Well, Hickory Ridge has a scummy pond they consider a livestock watering hole not too far away, but I’m not sure I would want my horses drinking from that. So that would be a challenge. I ran into some riders there, though, who were camping up the road (there are two large commercial horse camps just up the road), and one of the men there said that Hoosier Horse Camp might be willing to let me fill my tank up there, they were usually pretty cool about it, so that’s a possibility for some future date. At least I know what they look like now and that I can get to them okay. After reconnoitering them, I headed up to Blooomington, the nearest city, and went to Tractor Supply for propane and horse feed. Turns out that all my searching for Balancer was a waste, as they had two bags on a stack, on sale! I spent 20 minutes on the phone at the Lodge yesterday trying to track some down, and they had it right here. Anyway, I stocked up, then headed to Walmart for just a few things before heading back to camp. Just missed a few rain showers, fortunately, but it’s in the low 90’s with very high humidity, so it’s pretty miserable. Guess maybe I should have sprung for an electric site, huh? Well, it’s all part of the experiment, isn’t it? When I got back, I first picked up my new screen room which was finally delivered today, then I put the horses out on the anchors for awhile, and ran the generator a bit to try to cool it down, but it never really helped that much. Finally a storm came in around 10:00 tonight (and is still going on at 11:00 as I’m writing this), but the temps have dropped down into the low 70’s now, so at least I should be able to sleep without sweating tonight. Took my shower early, didn’t even bother to heat the water up, room temperature felt just right! Settled down for the evening, but now it’s bedtime, the rain is just starting to lessen a bit. I only hope Lola settles down, she’s hiding behind my chair right now, I suspect she’ll be scratching on the bedroom partition once I get up there, silly girl. Fingers crossed she doesn’t bug me too much and I get a good night sleep. I’m hoping to take a ride tomorrow, hoping the forecast is wrong. On that note, I’m off to bed! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hey Sweetie!
Rain came in a couple of times during the night, and Lola scratched at the partition a couple of times, and eventually at the do to go out, so I had to get up around 5:30 to let her out. I think she was having diarrhea for some reason. Anyway, I managed to still sleep a bit late after I went back to bed. After feeding the horses, I took a run down to the lodge, which is over 5 miles away, to get some computer work done. I decided to have breakfast in their restaurant while I was there, just for a change, and it was pretty nice. At least I didn’t have to do any cooking or cleaning! Got a lot of work done, noticed the rangers all having lunch there as I was leaving, but I’m not sure anyone recognized me from yesterday because I was in the screen room the whole time, and they never actually came in, so they could only see me through the screen, and you know how opaque that seems from the outside. Anyway, I got back to camp just after noon, and since more rain was in the forecast (and it came in hard for awhile mid-afternoon), I decided to have another rest day. I had no additional visitors, either. I read for a large part of the afternoon, then decided to binge-watch the series Blind Spot which we still had left on the Dish PVR. We used to watch that, then you got tired of it after awhile and we quit watching it. I think it was mostly because the lead actor that played Kurt had such horrible diction, he just never opened his mouth enough to get the words out. I finished off all the episodes we had, so now I’m ready for my shower and bed! Good night, darlin’! Love you!

Hi Darlin’,
Had a good night sleep, no interruptions, did my morning chores, ran the generator for a short while since it’s cloudy so my solar panel didn’t do much to charge the batteries this morning, plus to toast my bread. Since there is rain in the forecast, and I’ve ridden three days in a row, I decided to just relax today, so I spent the day mostly reading, occasionally napping, and later watching a little TV. It was nice and quiet, except for the irritating visit from one of the ranger/security force, whatever they’re called. First, visualize this. I’m on the edge of a huge field that has maybe 30 or 40 other campsites in it, all empty. Then there’s another area of campsites in the woods to the west, also, all empty. Another 100 yard further west is the day parking area with a couple of trailers. I literally can’t seem them from my site. Lola and I are peaceably in the screen room enjoying the quiet, and this woman drives up in her truck, gets out and starts walking towards us. Lola doesn’t even bark, she and her wagging tail step outside the door and walk about 6 feet to greet this woman. I say, “Don’t worry, she’s friendly” and the first words out of her mouth were, “You know she has to be on a leash.” Seriously?? Lola never went further than 6 feet and came right back into the screen room. I mean, what point would there be to having her on a leash when she’s right there with me, when absolutely no one else is around except me? Then she started complaining that my pen was too big. I had put the electric fence up around a nice little alcove in the back behind the trailer, but no, the pen is only supposed to be on the edge of the gravel where the hitching posts are, which is barely wide enough for a horse to stand without their rump hitting it.. Yeah this is another one of those places, like that horrid place in Minnesota that had the same attitude, that horses are slaves and it doesn’t matter that it would be cruel to make a horse stand on gravel tied to a hitching post for two weeks. I tried to paint that picture in the nicest possible way and all she could say was that no one has ever complained about it since the park opened in the 70’s. Really? Of course, trying to explain it in a reasonable way was too logical, so her retort was that my horse (Flash) was too skinny and that THAT was cruelty! Are you kidding me?? You can’t even see a single rib, even when he moves, and his topline is perfect! I just shut up after that, there’s no way to argue with someone that petty who can’t use the common sense God gave her. Anyway, as I said, I just shut up, there’s no reasoning with someone like that, I was just glad she didn’t tell me I couldn’t have the horses on their anchors, which they were at the time, though they were literally right next to the trailer. Maybe she figured my starving horse needed the grass and that’s why she left me alone on that issue. She obviously didn’t get a good look at that fatso Apollo! So once again, a great horse camp is spoiled by people more intent on making people trying to follow nonsensical rules than leaving them alone when no one else is being bothered. I’m seriously going to have to start looking at less developed campgrounds, like the national forests, because these more developed campgrounds can just get too aggravating when bureaucrats with no common sense are the ones running it. Well, enough of that rant, I had my shower early and I’m going to bed to read for a while. Good night, baby! Love you!

Hi Darlin’,
Had a good night sleep, no interruptions, did my morning chores, ran the generator for a short while since it’s cloudy so my solar panel didn’t do much to charge the batteries this morning, plus to toast my bread. Since there is rain in the forecast, and I’ve ridden three days in a row, I decided to just relax today, so I spent the day mostly reading, occasionally napping, and later watching a little TV. It was nice and quiet, except for the irritating visit from one of the ranger/security force, whatever they’re called. First, visualize this. I’m on the edge of a huge field that has maybe 30 or 40 other campsites in it, all empty. Then there’s another area of campsites in the woods to the west, also, all empty. Another 100 yard further west is the day parking area with a couple of trailers. I literally can’t seem them from my site. Lola and I are peaceably in the screen room enjoying the quiet, and this woman drives up in her truck, gets out and starts walking towards us. Lola doesn’t even bark, she and her wagging tail step outside the door and walk about 6 feet to greet this woman. I say, “Don’t worry, she’s friendly” and the first words out of her mouth were, “You know she has to be on a leash.” Seriously?? Lola came right back into the screen room. All I could say was that she had only been in the screen room. I mean, what point would there be to having her on a leash when she’s right there with me, when no one else is around? Then she started complaining that my pen was too big. I had put the electric fence up around a nice little alcove in the back behind the trailer, but no, the pen is only supposed to be on the edge of the gravel where the hitching posts are, which barely wide enough for a horse to stand without their rump hitting it.. Yeah this is another one of those places, like that horrid place in Minnesota that had the same attitude, that horses are slaves and it doesn’t matter that it would be cruel to make a horse stand on gravel tied to a hitching post for two weeks. I tried to paint that picture in the nicest possible way and all she could say was that no one has ever complained about it since the park opened in the 70’s. Really? Of course, trying to explain it civilly was too logical, so her retort was that my horse (Flash) was too skinny and that THAT was cruelty! Are you kidding me?? You can’t even see a single rib, even when he moves! I just shut up after that, there’s no way to argue with someone that petty who can only cite the ridiculous rules no matter how misplaced they are. Anyway, as I said, I just shut up, there’s no reasoning with someone like that, I was just glad she didn’t tell me I couldn’t have the horses on their anchors, which they were at the time, though they were literally right next to the trailer. Maybe she figured my starving horse needed the grass and that’s why she left me alone on that issue. She obviously didn’t get a good look at that fatso Apollo! So once again, a great horse camp is spoiled by people more intent on making people miserable than leaving them alone when no one else is being bothered. I’m seriously going to have to start looking at less developed campgrounds, like the national forests, because these more developed campgrounds can just get too aggravating when bureaucrats with no common sense are the ones running it. Well, enough of that rant, I had my shower early and I’m going to bed to read for a while. Good night, baby! Love you!