Sunday, Jan. 26, 2020 – Reconnoiter Ride in Dupuis on Flash

Hello Darlin’,
Got up with my alarm this morning, picked up Anita from OTL and headed out to Dupuis to start marking the trail for the OTL. They’ve instigated a whole new bunch of rules out here, and the gate is now locked at all times! You have to get online and sign up for a free permit in order to get the gate code, then the latch on the gate is so cumbersome, it’s very difficult to work it. Crazy! You’d think a public facility would want to have the public be able to get in and out easily, but that’s not the case out here anymore! Anyway, I managed to set up and account and get the code, so we eventually made it in. We got the horses saddled up and headed out on the trail on a beautiful morning. You remember I got so turned around in there last year, and it became pretty clear why, when even Anita got lost in the first 10 minutes of the ride! We managed to get back on track, but I realized that a lot of these folks don’t ride out here much, which surprises me considering how great the trails are out here, and that they’re sponsoring an event that starts from here! Anyway, we managed to get on track, though, of course, Flash was outpacing her pokey Arab for a while, then suddenly Flash decided to get behind him, and kept his head literally at his hindquarters, which got a little scary because I don’t think the Arab liked it that much. We followed the trail all the way down to the first water stop, which was at the south end of Dupuis (and over 5 miles in), then headed back at a much quicker pace. The plan now is for me to leave camp each day during the event ahead of the pack, and fill in any markers that may have been lost or missing, or that I think need to be added to insure clarity. I still feel like they’re not putting enough markers out, but that’s just me, and I’ll fix it when the time comes. Anyway, it was a very nice ride, and I made it back home by about 2:00. Jeff was working on scrapping in the back, and I gave him a hand with it for a while, but then he didn’t really need me, so I decided to start moving that pile of cement blocks that have been bugging me for so long. I got the tractor going and starting moving them and stacking them underneath his big Mayflower trailer. I didn’t quite get it finished, but I certainly got most of it done, so I figure I’ll finish it off tomorrow. I’d love to get all that junk moved and then bush hog over that area, it should open that whole section up quite a bit. I’ve been bugging Jeff about moving that line of units right in front of the house, and scrapping or moving the Skeeter mobile away from the house as well. If we can get that done, it will make a huge difference to the look of the yard in front of his house. Any improvement would be nice, frankly. Anyway, that took us until horse feeding time, after which I settled down for the night. Tired from all the physical activity, so heading off to bed now. Good night, my love!