Hiya Babe,
Finally decided to take a long ride today, figured, Flash has had two days being stall-bound, so he would be raring to go. Got him saddled up and was out by 10:30. Since there only other "trails" to ride here of any length seem to be the road along the river to the lake, that's the one we headed out on. The first mile plus was dirt and small gravel, until we went around a closed gate, and it was mostly just dirt after that. I had put his boots on for the gravel, though we probably didn't need them for the dirt. We went through a short but nice section of woods, then it opened up into a small power line easement, just a single line, all paralleling the river. There were several "rest stops" along the way, with picnic tables, hitch rail, and a mounting block, which I'm guessing the previous horse club put in. There were a few steep grades, but nothing we couldn't handle. I had to stop and tighten his boots a couple of times as a precaution. Shortly after passing Rest Area 3, about six miles out, there was a bunch of downed trees over the trail, and the only way around was about 30 yards straight up an embankment. Pass! I wasn't so enamored with the trails thus far, I wasn't about risk injury myself or Flash trying to get around that! Especially when we are going to a place next week that's a well-known and well-loved horse camp (though I've never been there yet myself) that has many miles of trails better suited for horses. So we turned around at that point. Considering there was rain in the forecast, I didn't really want to be out that long anyway. On the way back, one of his boots came off (the old one that's stretched out a bit), so I just put it in the saddle bag. Once we got back to camp, I took him around to the trail we did a few days ago, the one with the steep beginning, because I didn't get the GPS going early on that ride and wanted to fix that. Flash wasn't thrilled about climbing that hill again, but he's a good boy, so he did it! We took the rest of that loop, then got back into camp, rinsed him off and put him away shortly before the first heavy rain came in. Spent what was left of the afternoon icing my knee, doing a little bookkeeping and reading until it was time for my usual evening routine. A nice day, but I've had enough of this place. In my typical categorizations of horse camps, i.e. I either want to come back or I don't want to come back, this one falls in the latter category. Not enough trails, no map at all, and having so many lights on at night it feels like I'm camping in a Walmart parking lot, not my idea of the kind of place I like to go. I'll be happy to use their dump, and I'm doing my best not to think about the drive out of here on Monday, my only concern now is laundry and housekeeping tomorrow! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!
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