Busy day today! Got up a bit earlier and got to work on my computer, first solving the power button problem (a flat cable had gotten pulled out), and then fixing another problem with the keyboard and mouse (another loose cable), until finally all was well and my computer went back to working again, yeah! Think I better order another one when we get home next month, though, this one is getting a bit old and starting to deteriorate, can't afford to lose anything! Ran out to the Shawnee State Park Lodge, which I found had a free wi-fi signal, and finished off all the work that I didn't complete yesterday. Got back to camp about 1:30, and Hubby and I saddled up the horses and headed out for what was supposed to be a 6 mile ride, which ordinarily would take us 2 hours. I had planned a loop up past the Fire Tower, then down to Hobey Hollow, then a loop back up on Rock Lick. The climb to the Fire Tower was even longer and steeper than I had figured, a long, strenuous uphill stretch that wore the horses out pretty fast. The trails aren't really trails, they're all made by a bulldozer, and there were a lot of rocks, and I was glad I had put boots on the horses. Once we passed the Fire Tower and found the trailhead for Hobey Hollow, we started to go downhill dramatically again, pretty much the whole way down the other side of the mountain, tiring the other half of the horses' muscles! At the bottom of the hill, the trail dramatically shifted, becoming a long, straight road that followed a creek that was almost dry. Eventually, there was a section with less stones, so we decided to trot and canter, and somewhere along that stretch, I noticed I was missing a boot. Now, because we've been having problems with Apollo's boots this summer, I had been checking them regularly, and was sure I had them before we starting trotting, but when we back tracked looking for it, we couldn't find it! Usually we find it in the middle of the trail, or stuck in mud, but we hadn't seen much mud and I had checked each time we went through any to make sure I still had boots. We covered more than half a mile, twice, looking for it, and never could find it. We decided that since it was getting late, and the terrain had slowed us down considerably, we couldn't afford to keep looking, so we continued on our way, making the turn on Forest Road 1, picking up Rock Lick Trail, that was a pretty nice trail, fairly gradual grades, at least until the last section, which once again climbed up the same hill, though it didn't seem quite as steep, and at the top, the trail went sandy, thank goodness! We followed that until we hit the tarmac road, which we followed until we came to an intersection. To the left was Silver Arrow, to the right was Pigeon Roost. I quickly figured out that this section of Silver Arrow would take us back to camp, so we headed down that, which again dropped down the hill even more, and pretty dramatically. Kind of wished we had stayed on the tarmac, at the least the hill was a bit more gradual. Eventually we hit the bottom, then finally merged back onto the trail we started on, taking right back into camp. We took the horses down the boat ramp to get a much needed drink, then put everyone away, and settling down for the evening. Just for fun, I spent a little while playing hide and seek with Lola and an old boot, thinking she might be able to help us find it when we go back to look tomorrow. She did quite well, smart puppy! Whether or not it pays off this time, who knows, but if I keep it up, it might come in real handy in the future!
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