I had an excellent night sleep last night, following a rainstorm and a serious drop in temperature, so I'm feeling better all around, so today's the day I want to explore Malabar Farms. I have a poor map of both Pleasant Hill Lake and Malabar Farms, and no map of the trails in between, but I had already reconnoitered which trail would head me in the right direction, so I saddled up Flash and away we went! I passed several folks along the way, including a friendly couple I met yesterday, Jim and Ruth, who were one of the many folks who piled in yesterday for the weekend. Flash was full of energy since he had only gone on one short ride this week, so I let him go whatever speed he wanted, which, as always, was about as fast as the trails allowed. I had no trouble following the trail markers, crossing the road in the right place, then reaching the first intersection where I had to make a choice of which way to go. When I realized I had traveled about four miles to get the Malabar, and that the Malabar perimeter trail was about 7 miles, meaning if I took that we'd have a 15+ mile day, I decided that was plenty do-able, as we had left camp a little after 11:00 a.m. So I turned left/west which did take me out the perimeter trail on the west side. I had to stop one and clear the trail, a fairly small limb had fallen over it, but had dragged a huge amount of vines with it, so it was impassable, but didn't take much to clear it. It wasn't long before we came to the campground area. I had been told that our unit wouldn't fit in there, and it was true that some of the sites were fairly short, but I saw at least two that would have suited us just fine. Food for thought the next time we come through this area! I went to the kiosk there hoping they had some better trail maps, but no such luck, so we got back on the trail and continued around. Not sure if I missed something after that, because I ended up going right out to the big house and the main farm area, where they have a big parking lot and lots of activities going on. Some kids started yelling "horses, horses" like they so often do when they see a horse and rider, even though there were horses in a field on the other side of the road! Flash was too hyped up to stop and socialize, so we kept going, largo-ing across the edge of the yard and out to another section of the farm. I missed one turn, but then I accidentally found the Farm's restaurant, so now I can figure out the quickest way there. Hubby and I want to eat there one day, thinking I might ride out and have him meet me with the truck. Or we'll just drive, whatever. Anyway, I took a nice canter across their newly shorn hay field, then picked up the turn I missed, which pretty much brought me back to the trail back to Pleasant Hill. It did end up being about 15.4 miles, but we did it in about 3:45, pretty good time. GPS app said we were averaging about 4.6 miles an hour. Man, this horse likes to run! But it is a workout for me, too! Got back and relaxed with what remained of the day, trying to avoid the people that moved in next door to us, as they have a lab that wanted to play with Lola so bad, and even though I asked them for a play date, they wouldn't agree, and the poor dog was left to leap and jump at the end of his cable. I thought he'd just about break his neck! And they also had a little yippy dog that barked at every darn thing that moved. Rather irritating, but what can you do? Lola has had to stay on a leash with all the people here, looking forward to tomorrow when we figure everyone will go home and we'll be on our own again. Lake has been busy today, too, lots of boats running around, so we've had something to look at as well. Did some reading and napping later in the day before settling in to our nightly routine.
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