Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016 – Trails N Tails Charity Ride in Dupuis WMA

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With all the rain they've had this year in Florida, many areas that are normally dry have been underwater, and Dupuis has been no exception. But with three days of sunshine and breeze, and a forecast for low 70's today, this was the PERFECT opportunity to ride in Dupuis, and as it happens, there was a charity ride scheduled today, for breast cancer, so we decided to go and participate. That required getting up earlier than usual (by Hubby's standards, who loves to sleep late 🙂 ) and arriving between 8:30 and 9:00, which we did. After signing up, and donating a book to their raffle, we headed out following the big pink hoof signs that were well placed. They had two trails marked, one for horses and one for dogs and their walkers. This was so wonderful to see, as Dupuis, for years, didn't allow dogs, even in the campground, but they recently loosened the restriction to dogs on a leash (yeah!), something that many of us have been fighting for a long time. The camp host had dogs, but the rest of us weren't allowed... Go figure. Anyway, the trail took us all along the western side of the park, which has some beautiful areas. They had marked three loops for horses, 4 miles, 6+ miles, and 8+ miles. Well, 8 miles sounded just about right to us, so we stayed on that track. There was still much more water on some parts of the trail than we've ever seen, which kept it interesting. Lots of areas were just damp or a little muddy, but some had some long stretches of water completely covering the trail. Nowhere near as bad as the cattle drive, though, and the horses trooped through with no problems. In fact, the horses were brilliant today, no drama, great jogs and a lot of nice canters as well. Despite the mostly good trail markers, we still managed to get lost (well, not lost, just not on the designated trail), and we ended up coming back on the road for the final few miles. Turns out that was fine, as the designated trail was back the way we came, and Hubby and I HATE to go back on the same trail if there are loop options! Anyway, we got back into camp around noon, then sat around and chatted with some ladies, one who lives very nearby, and another lives in Chicago and (smartly) winters here, who said she was looking for a place in Jupiter for next year. Both ended up buying a book! Flying off the shelf, they are! Hubby put the horses away while I was chatting, and finally we left about 1:30, heading first to Ranch Feed to pick up enough feed for the horses to last for several weeks, and then to a fabulous little Thai Restaurant in Palm City, where we enjoyed a delightful meal in this quaint place. Got back to the "ranch" by 5:00, discovered a bunch more books online book sales had come in, then settled down for the evening to a very good movie and a very poor Republican debate... But don't get me started on politics!

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