Amazingly, Hubby felt well enough to ride again today, so happy he's feeling better! I think this new dialysis schedule of one day on, on day off is doing him a world of good. We just have to hope his blood is getting clean enough, which we should know soon from the labs we drew last week. Anyway, We had breakfast, and then I got the horses saddled, and again, Hubby rode Apollo. We decided to take a loop that was less than three miles, and that hopefully was a bit more gradual on the downhill grade than the orange trail. The start of that trail was up the road just a bit, but we decided to take Lola with us today, she's been feeling a bit left out lately, especially having to be on a leash so much of the time here. We found the trailhead with no problem, but just as we crossed the road, Hubby lost a fastener on his slobber strap, so I had to stop and jury-rig it with a spare piece of leather string I had strapped to my saddle. Once that was done, we continued on our way, and it was quite a nice ride, except that there was a couple of trees down, one that required us to climb quite a ways up a hill to get around, and Hubby got a little stuck for a few minutes (he had to rest from the exertion), but eventually he got around it with only one small scrape on his arm. After a few more rests along the way, we managed to reach the orange trail with it's upward climb, and were back in camp in no time. Another great ride for Hubby!! Yay!!! No trouble dismounting, and he made it back to his comfy gravity chair, where he planned to stay most of the rest of the day, reading. I unsaddled Apollo and put him away, but I still wanted to take a longer ride, though I realized it wouldn't be the long ride I had planned yesterday, but another ride was still possible. So I headed back out the orange trail, which is about the main trail that most other trails end up on at one time or another, and based on some suggestions from Phyllis, turned left at Marker M, which led me to a fence, turned right there, and right again when I came to the next "T." This took me on a trail that was marked white on the trees (which, evidently, is how practically every single side trail is marked, including all directions at every intersection, so it's not very helpful), but on the map it's marked in purple. The story I got from Phyllis was that evidently all the trail markers are sitting around somewhere waiting to be put up, but the powers-that-be didn't want the trail markers to go up until the maps were printed and ready for distribution. Well, they were distributed last Monday, but since the trail markers aren't up yet, it's very confusing to someone who doesn't know their way around, like me. The route that Phyllis recommended, she said wasn't even on the map! How crazy is that? Anyway, I did follow her instructions, and it was quite a lovely ride, weaving along edges of bluffs and and through the woods. Most of the footing was pretty good, with only a few really sloppy spots. Fortunately, there weren't any other trees down along that route, so we had no more detour troubles. When we turned onto the orange trail for the final leg home, I let Flash pick and choose his own way, trying to get him to use his mind a bit more. In the woods, I still have to steer him around practically every tree or he starts heading off the trail, but when I let him choose his own way on the orange trail, I think he finally started to get the idea that he could make his own decisions, and that seemed like a new idea to him. I think he's always been kept under a tight rein, never having to think for himself, but I really need to get him like Apollo, where he can just be put on a loose rein and he'll know to follow the trail himself without constant supervision. A work in progress, for sure! When I got back and downloaded the route to MapMyHike,which was just over 4.5 miles, then opened it in Google Earth and overlaid it on the trail map, it turned out that trail was on the map after all! It was just colored purple when the trail markers were white, so I guess that must have been confusing to even an old hand like Phyllis! Anyway, it was after 4:00 by the time I got back, so I quickly got everyone and everything put away and settled down for the evening. Was delighted to see our neighbors with the generator had packed up and left, so I'm looking forward to a quiet night and a good night sleep tonight!
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