Hi Babe!
Another day at Otter Creek, another fabulous ride! This place is truly magnificent! As you know, my goal is always to ride every trail on the map whenever I go to a trailhead, and even though this is my third time here, there were still plenty of trails I hadn't done yet. Today's ride was to try to reach as many of those trails as I could, and I ended up doing a very wide loop to cover most of it. I had a GPS trail from back in 2015 which I rode with a woman named Marsha, and it took a renegade trail to the south to reach Otter Creek Trail the quickest way, so I followed that today. I did what I think was called the Mohawk trail, then the Otter Creek Trail, then the Eatonville trail, all gorgeous trails in the southwest section of the park. Then I hit Catspaw (which isn't named on the map) to Erie Canal, fording back over the creek, up to Shortcut Road, onto Pitcher Pond, Florence, Aspen, Fletcher, Cow Trail, and finally Homeward Bound back to Blue Jog and camp. In total, it was about 17.75 miles. I started out without boots, and wished I had put them on because we did some gravel roads at the start, but finally I put them on, and was glad I did! We hit a lot of stony areas after that, though most of it was good foot, except for the many roots. Once we crossed the creek, though, I took them off again. He had started limping, because he had stones in the boots, and when I took them off, he was a happy camper! Most of the trails from then on were sand or dirt, so he sped along them just fine. We left at 10:45 and got back just before 4:00, which was the plan because the weatherman said it was going to start raining at 4:00. Of course, that was wrong, it was about 7:00, just when I started feeding the horses, when it started to rain. It's been like that all week with the weather! Regardless, it was a magnificent ride, I am so loving it here at Otter Creek! And other than a few short sections, I have now ridden all of the mapped (though not on this trip, only the accumulation of three visits here!) and a couple of the unmapped renegade trails, though there are a lot more out there if I was so inclined. I gave Flash a nice bath with shampoo, he's been laying down in his standing stall and was absolutely filthy when I got him out today, I had to give him a good brushing before saddling him, and he deserved a nice bath when we got back. He worked hard, but I think he enjoyed himself as much as I did! Settled down for the evening, finally got a signal good enough for streaming, though it's been a tough slog with that. I have two bars, but I think there are so many other people taking up bandwidth on the weekends that it really slows it down. Anyway, started a new binge on Prime, Bonekickers, a British series about a team of archeologists discoving all kinds of weird stuff. Listening to the lovely rain, having dinner, watching TV, a fitting end to a lovely day of riding! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hiya Sweetie!
Got woken up by my new neighbor's generator, which came on at precisely the allowable time, 8:00. Sigh... Read for a bit, finally got up and took care of the morning chores and breakfast, then saddled up Apollo for a nice ride. Since I've been riding him quite a bit and he's been getting fitter, I planned a somewhat longer ride, which I estimated at about 6.5 miles, and turned out to be 7.5, but fortunately, most of the trails were fairly flat, so it wasn't any strain on him. We took Fletcher trail, which took us down do a nice lake where Lola was able to get a drink, though Apollo wasn't interested. Nice trails all around, though the map was a bit off. It looked on the map like there was an earlier turn, but on the trail it was mostly blocked off intentionally, so apparently they changed the trail but didn't change the map. Not the first time I've seen that happen! It was quite a bit warmer today, but it's always cooler in the woods, so it was no problem. Beautiful weather! My neighbors Jane and Neil left this morning, then this afternoon a woman I met on the trail down at Brookfield, Beth arrived with her husband and her Rocky Mountain horse. She recognized me and called over, so later I went over to chat for a little bit before settling down for the evening. My neighbors with the generator brought in a big stack of firewood as well as hay, so I guess there here for awhile. Guess I better get used to getting up at 8:00! Sweating a bit from the day so I'm looking forward to my shower and bed! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hi Sweetie,
Woke up before the alarm this morning, which I had set because I had an appointment to pick up hay this morning. Thanks to Karen, who I picked up first, we went to a hay barn behind the Tractor Supply run by Mennonites and picked up 20 bales at $4.00 a bale, best price I've seen yet! Looks like nice hay. I only needed 12 bales, but Karen needed the rest, so we picked that up and headed home, with a stop at Millers, which is a nice little farm store and meat market, with their own processing plant next door. Karen made my buy a donut, and the proprietress threw in a little cruller kind of thing, and OMG, they were fantastic! I only took one bite of each and decided to save the rest until later when I would make some coffee, just because they go so well together! Dropped off Karen and her hay, then put my hay away, including some under the gooseneck, so I had to get the skirting out since we have so much rain in the forecast. All that was done by 10:30 (see how much I can get done when I get up early?), then I did a few things on the computer before I finally saddled up Apollo for a 4.6 mile ride with Lola. We stayed mostly on the wide trails, but was sorry so much of it was on Confusion Flats, which is where they've laid down a lay of pea gravel, which I learned they just did about a year ago. At one point, just to get off the gravel, we took one of the renegade trails, and it took us exactly where we wanted to go without adding nearly the mileage if we had diverted the way I was going to. Anyway, it was a lovely ride, Apollo seems to really be getting fitter, he's walking faster, and at one point, when he got frustrated with a little mud bog we were going through, he actually broke into a canter to escape it faster! That's the second time this weeks he's gone into a canter, he's acting younger all the time! Good horse! It was another beautiful day as well, the weather has been just perfect. Once we got back to camp, I spent some time re-sanding their stalls to freshen them up a bit, then made my pot of coffee and enjoyed my donuts. It wasn't long before it was suppertime, and just as I was finishing feeding my horses, my neighbor Jane (and Neil) came over to ask me about my solar panel, and we ended up chatting for a bit. After finishing with the horses, I walked over and sat by the fire for awhile and we had a lovely evening socializing. Came back, did my dishes, now I'm ready for shower and bed! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Babe!
Another good night sleep, chores, breakfast, the usual routine. Then I saddled up Flash and we were off just after 11:00 on a 16.8 mile ride up to the north end of the forest, to ride some more trails I haven't been on, though I had to take some more familiar trails to get there. I had distinct memories of us in a couple of places, like where we stopped for lunch, and going over several bridges. It really felt like you were there with me today! Our goal was the Burnt Creek trail, which had half a dozen spots where trees were done that needed to be gone around, but most of the trail was just lovely. Flash did great, though it was a bit slow going, and for awhile I thought we would be late getting back to camp, then we hit a long sandy road, and since we were now headed toward camp, he took off, and we did a lovely gait for several miles and made up some time. This is truly a beautiful forest! I have always thought of this place as one of the best in the country, and having come back here now after nine years, I can honestly, it still is! I could be here all summer and not ride every trail out here. There are miles and miles of marked trails, and miles and miles of unmarked "renegade" trails, and there's a tremendous variety from long straight sand stretches to climbing up and down steep and not so steep hills, and half a dozen rivers and creeks, not to mention lakes throughout the area. Truly stunning! Pretty sure I won't wait nine years for my next visit!Actually got back to camp a little earlier than I expected, around 3:45, got Flash put away, changed clothes, and waited for Karen G. to pick me up. I know her from Florida, she has a place near Goethe State Forest, and also a place up here. Turns out she grew up not far from where I did in the suburbs of Rochester, knew well the stable where I first became addicted to horses, and it was like old home week, even though we don't know each other very well. She drove into town to a pizza place and we had a great meal (I so seldom get pizza, it was a real treat!) and even more of a treat was that on the way back she stopped at a little place that served frozen custard! I've been looking for that since I got to NY and hadn't found one, so I was SO glad to finally get some! Of course, that means way more calories today than normal, but then again, I burned a lot riding 16.8 miles! Oddly, we started a conversation with another diner and discovered he was from North Carolina and was here for some dog trials, and we asked him if he had been to H. Cooper Black, and of course he had! So funny, because Karen and I had been talking about that place just a little bit earlier! What a small world! It was a lovely day, with perfect weather, couldn't ask for more. Frankly, I was extremely surprised the camp wasn't full, in fact, we barely had more people here than we did during the week! I was sure the weekend would be busy, but not so! I can only think that maybe with all the bad storms they had two weeks ago, that maybe people figured the trails would be in bad shape, but they actually are pretty good. Karen was showing me all the roads that got partially washed out, and one that was completely washed out, and how high the water level was in some places. In Lowville, she said there were buildings that were under eight feet of water! Well, they've recovered nicely, all the roads are open, the trails are good, couldn't ask for better weather, another fantastic day! Glad I have another week here! Anyway, time for shower and bed. Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hiya Sweetie!
Had a great night sleep as the temps dipped into the low 50's, then after chores and breakfast and some work on my computer, I saddled up Apollo for a ride, the second this week! Having looked at my diary from earlier trips here, I ended up putting boots on him, since I decided to ride him to the Independence River Trail, and my notes said it was pretty rocky. Thank goodness I've been keeping a diary! The exercise seems to be agreeing with him, as he was quite lively today, trotting and even cantering up the hills despite the rocks! It was a lovely ride, and I brought Lola with us. I've pretty much determined that I can only take her on short rides these days, she just doesn't have the staying power for longer rides anymore. It was a lovely ride, albeit just over four miles, which we did in great time, what with him being more lively and all. We did both Shady Trail and Independence River Trail, both appropriately named, and it was perfectly enjoyable! Perfect weather, a little warmer than yesterday, getting better here all the time! Once we got back and put Apollo away, we took a drive into Glenfield to pick up a couple of packages, then I took a quick run into Lowville to the liquor store, but I didn't want to shop at Walmart on a late Friday afternoon, and got back to camp a little after 4:00. Had a typical evening, dinner and a movie, now heading to bed, a bit later, but getting there nonetheless. I can really feel your presence here, babe, it's alway been one of our favorite places! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Babe!
Had yet another storm come through just before bedtime last night, so dust will definitely not be a problem here at Otter Creek for awhile! It was a beautiful morning, though, and it seemed like it was going to clear up, though it actually stayed cloudy most of the day. I only took one of the light fishing shirts with me on my ride, and was wishing I had worn my denim Red Rock Ride jacket instead! Anyway, after spending the morning doing some computer work, trying to work out my routes for the next month and straightening out my health insurance, I finally saddled up Flash and headed out around 12:30. I had planned a ride and downloaded it onto my GPS, which I have to keep comparing to the Avenza map just to make sense out of it, since there are SO many trails out here that just keep crisscrossing each other, but eventually had to abandon it and reconfigure my route on the fly. That's because I had planned on taking Erie Canal trail down to Blueberry trail, and the map seemed to indicate a bridge, but in fact, there was no bridge, though there were pylons for a bridge that was long gone. Considering all the rain, you can imagine that the "creek" was not a raging river, dark and deep, and there was no way I was going to attempt to ford it! I may be brave, but I'm not stupid! I remember fording this stream another time, and it was clear as a bell, you could see every rock, but not today! So we had to turn back and invent another route, which is really made so much easier with this Avenza program, and thanks to the Geotagged map I was able to download from the DEC website. They had some terrible storms come through about a week ago, and there were a lot of trees down, which I photographed and pin-dropped so I can send it on to the DEC. Only a couple of trails were a problem, most of them were great. The route was a bit loop that included Streamside, which was gorgeous, and Ridgetop, Erie Canal, Icicle and a whole bunch more. It ended up being close to fourteen miles, which was almost as long as my original plan anyway, so it was all good! Other than feeling a bit chilled, we had a wonderful ride. Even with all the rain, there wasn't too much mud, the sand here drains quickly enough, at there's no dust or bugs at the moment! I've always considered Otter Creek one of the best horse camps and trail systems in the country, and this visit has reinforced that opinion. There are still a lot of trails out there I haven't ridden on yet, though this is the third time I've been here! Thoroughly enjoyable ride, and Flash seemed to enjoy the challenge, too! Got back around 4:00, hooked up my hose and rinsed him off, filled up my trailer tank as well as my neighbors, then settled down for the evening. Another fantastic day in the life! The only spoiler was coming home and finding Lola had crawled up into my bedroom (I didn't fully puppy-proof before I left, and she took advantage!), so I'm expecting I'll find sand in my sheets tonight. Anyway, time to go. Good night, my love!