Hey Sweetie,
Well, I had the chance to use some of my new tools, today, much to my surprise! Got up at my appointed hour, had breakfast and finished packing, put Flash in the trailer, and when I went back for Apollo, I remembered I hadn't put Flash's fly mask on, which I like to do when traveling to keep the dirt and hay out of their eyes, so I hooked Apollo up on the side of the trailer and noticed that one of my tires sidewalls was bursting out. Oddly, I checked that same tire a few days ago, and saw that it was my oldest tire, though at the time it looked fine. Now, the sidewall was bursting, so I knew I couldn't go anywhere until I changed, it, I was just happy I saw it before I hit the road. I took Flash back out of the trailer and put them both back on the highline, then got out my Jiffy Jack and my new impact wrench, and had the lugs loosened and the tire off in no time. Got the spare out and got that on shortly, then seeing that the spare was about ten pounds light, I got out my new compressor, started the generator, and got the tire up to specs. All in all, it took about 20-25 minutes, but I got it all done! Finally got everything put away and the horses loaded up, did my final check, and headed out just before 9:00. I debated whether to stay ont the freeways, which would add another 100 miles, or stick to US 15, which I seemed to remember had some twisty, windy bits, but from what I found on the internet, it seemed to be okay. I went west on Shippensburg road as planned, but then Google tried to send me down a road with only a 10.5' clearance, a good two feet shorter than me, so I had to find an alternate route, which took a few minutes more to get to I-81. Once I was on the interstate, we soon got caught up in an accident-caused traffic jam which slowed us down another 20 minutes or so. I couldn't believe it when we passed the accident, there was a semi that was completely burned down right to the chassis! The trailer was fine, but the tractor was utterly gone, almost nothing left of it, no cab whatsoever, right down to the frame. The engine didn't even seem to be fully there, it was that bad! Once we got past that point, though, the rest of the trip was uneventful. Just one stop for fuel, which I was burning up pretty fast due to serious headwinds, but they actually helped my downhill slopes by slowing me down. Most of the hills were long and easy, so really, it turned out to be the best route, at least until we got close to camp. Note to self, don't follow the route up Evergreen Hill road, it's a long, steep gravel road, need to find an alternative. Best to come in from the west/north, the turn into the road from the east is sharp and I had to take two stabs at it to get in through the gate. It was a bit farther out than I remembered, but finally managed to arrive in camp. Unfortunately, there was a small trailer taking up the spot we usually take, and things have changed quite a bit here! They now have designated campsites, so I stopped and reconnoitered the best place, until I finally settled on Site 2, because there were a couple of trees where I could highline. I managed to get somewhat settled in, then went looking to fill up my tanks, only to discover that they sawed off the spigots here! I hate it when they do that! Apparently they expect everyone to carry buckets of water to their horses, instead of just letting us hook up a hose and filling them! I saw a young ranger talking to some other folks and asked him about it, and got the usual story about how some folks abused the privilege, and since it was free, there was no obligation to provide services, yada yada yada, all so stupid! Throw out the bums that abuse the system, but don't make it unusable for the rest of us! I was also told horses aren't allowed on highlines anymore, they would have to be put in the covered standing stalls, which, I'm sorry, I'm not going to do. Last time I put Apollo in a standing stall, he laid down, then when he tried to get up he hit the front bar and hurt himself. When I checked on him, he was on the other side of the front bar with a terrible scrape on his back, and he was in so much pain I couldn't ride him for over a week, so, no, thank you, I'm not putting him in one of those! I had already got my horses on a highline, and as far as I'm concerned, they're just fine there. I was told I could put them in a temporary corral in an area about 200 yards away, but that I couldn't put my trailer there, so again, no thank you! If a bear came out of the woods, how long do you think a small electric fence would hold? Sorry, but I'm not endangering my horses because of some stupid bureaucrat in Albany. Anyway, we'll see how it all turns out, hopefully they'll just leave me along, but who knows? I finally settled down for the evening, grateful I finally have a cellphone signal, yay! Watched a Warehouse 13, had dinner, heading to bed early after a busy and eventful day. The good news is, a cold front went through yesterday and the temps are PERFECT! Looking forward to a fabulous night sleep tonight, with lows set to be in the upper 50's! A bit warmer tomorrow, but nothing compared to what we've been stuck with for the last couple of weeks! Hopefully, the search for seventies is finally at hand! Fingers crossed! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hiya Darlin',
Spent the day doing a load of laundry, a bit of housekeeping, and packing up what few things I unpacked, grateful for a cloudy, windy day which kept the temps down in the mid-80's rather than the 90's like it's been most of the week. Otherwise, read all day, so a slow, quiet day. Looking forward to moving on to someplace where there are some better trails, better cell phone service, and hopefully nicer weather! Should be a better sleeping night as well, with the cooler temps. I didn't even have to run the fans all day, thank goodness. Won't be late out of bed, though, as I want to get a good start in the morning. Love you, babe! Good night!

Hi Sweetie,
Another exceedingly hot day today, not what I signed up for! After breakfast and chores, I ran down to the post office in Fayetteville and picked up my package, then spent some time on my computer until I could find some hay. There wasn't any really nearby, not even a feed store close, but I finally got a hold of someone north of Gettysburg, on the other side of the forest, but at least I was able to find some. Nice freshly-cut mixed grass hay for $5.50 a bale, so I went ahead and picked up eight bales so I wouldn't have to worry about it for awhile. I still have almost two full bales of the crappy hay left, so I'll mix it with that until it's gone. Stopped next to a library to finish working on uploading some pix and videos that were long overdue from the Red Rock Ride, plus the more recent stuff. I haven't had a good enough signal lately to do anything, but I managed to get everything up I wanted. Got back to camp, put the hay away, then invited my neighbors to come over and say hi to the horses. The girls over there had stopped by yesterday when I was dealing with Lola, and I asked them to come back later, but they never did. I got the feeling a couple of the men thought they would be bothering me and wouldn't come over, so I walked over and invited them. They were there a few minutes later, and the horses got some treats. I've been having to keep them well-sprayed, they have some really nasty biting flies here, not big horseflies, just innocent looking little flies, but they chomp and it hurts! They stayed around for a little bit, then went back to their camp. I spent the afternoon reading and playing computer games, and had another quiet night, sans TV. Unfortunately, my neighbors were playing loud music all evening, so it wasn't as quiet as I would have liked, but not much you can do about that! Anyway, going to bed nice and early anyway, since up in the bedroom with the small fan on is about the most comfortable place in the trailer. Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hiya Darlin',
Another night where getting cooled down took some time, but ended up being a good night sleep eventually. After chores and breakfast and a bit of reading, I finally saddled up Flash to check out the trails here. I haven't been able to get Google Earth to open up MyPlaces for some reason (it's saying it can't connect to the network, but that never stopped it before, so I don't know what's going on,) so I wasn't able to do any of my usual planning, but I did have a map, so off we went, leaving a little after 11:00. We headed out the back way from the campground, and soon found a sign for the Wildcat trail and followed that. The plan was to do a loop from that trail to another one that comes back on the west side (Ant Hill Trail), possibly hit another trail, the Abigail trail, which would go further south, if we were in the mood to go any further. Pretty quick out of camp we weren't happy with the footing, it turned into some very rough stone, and I was a bit sorry I didn't decide to go to the post office first, where a new Cavallo boot is waiting, but I didn't think it would be that bad. There were large areas of logging going on, and I ended up losing the trail completely several times as a new logging road had destroyed some sections of trail. Someone had put up some blue flags that I was mostly able to follow, until I hit an area where they were actively logging, and I couldn't go any further, as I couldn't find any markings. The loggers had utterly destroyed the trail, so we had to head back and try to find another way. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem, but there was absolutely no water on the trail, and Lola was getting extremely dehydrated and overheated. We stopped several times to let her rest, and I gave her pretty much all of my water, and unfortunately, didn't bring any spare like I usually do, as I had cleaned out my saddlebags before taking them out to Utah and hadn't really restocked them as thoroughly as I normally do. It got so bad she was wheezing, and I tried to get her up on Flash's rump, but she wouldn't stay up there. The only trail I could find was cutting all the way across the widest part of the forest, downhill, until it finally met up with the first trail we came on. She was is such a bad way, I finally decided to use a poncho (the only thing I had!) to tie her to a tree and left her with the last dribbling of water, then got Flash into his best speed on these rocky trails and got back to camp in about 15 minutes. I loaded up with water and headed straight back out. Fortunately, Lola was still where I left her, a little rested but still panting horribly, and she promptly drank two whole bottles of water. I made her rest a little more, then she finally headed up the trail on her own, obviously ready to get back to camp. We followed slowly, letting her do her own pace, but at one point, she threw up some of the water she had drank. About halfway back to camp (which, thankfully, was less than a mile away), I stopped again and let her drink almost two more whole bottles of water, but made her lay down so it would have a chance to absorb into her system before moving on. We finally made it back to camp, and she went straight to her water bowl and drank some more, still panting heavily. I got her into the shower and gave rinsed her in cold water, letting her stay there for awhile. She seemed better, so I finally got her back outside, where it was cooler in the shade, and put the small fan on her. I wasn't too long before she finally stopped panting, and seemed to be fully recovered, thank goodness! I was really getting worried about her. I'm thinking she may be getting past her trail days, at least when it's this hot and there's no water on the trail. I'm certainly going to load up on water next time, for sure! Anyway, crisis averted, I finally settled down for dinner (no movie, as I still don't have a signal), but I did fun the generator and the AC for about half an hour just to blow some of the hot air out, and to recharge the batteries a bit. I've had good sun on the solar panels, so this is the first time I've had to turn on the generator. Of course, it helps that I'm not watching TV :-). So, an evening of reading, shower and bed, another day gone! Good night, sugar! Love you!

Hey Sweetie,
Ended up having a pretty good night sleep, though it took awhile for it to cool down enough to be comfortable. I wanted the horses to rest today, but I needed to find water, so I headed down the hill southward until I got to the first State Park Campground and found both a dump and a spigot there. The sign said it was for campers, and since I'm a camper, albeit not at that campground, I figured it was okay, since they were both PA State facilities. Anyway, no one stopped me, which was all that mattered. Then since I was so close to the post office, I decided to take a quick drive to see if my package had arrived, since according to the tracking it had arrived at the main post office in Chambersburg early this morning, I figured it would have arrived at Fayetteville. Unfortunately, I hadn't counted on the post office being closed, which is was, for some made up new federal holiday called "Juneteeth." Seriously, did we need another federal holiday between Memorial Day and Independence Day? And in the middle of the week? Not happy about that! But since the Walmart was only a few more miles up the road, I headed over there to get a little bit of shopping done. I didn't need much, but I figured I can get it out of the way, so I did. On the way back to camp, I decided to see if the route off the west side of the mountain was less steep than the way I came in, I was a bit worried about that one short mile that had a really steep grade when I came in. Turns out the west road is much less steep, so that will definitely be the way I go out. Got back to camp, put all the groceries away, then read most of the afternoon. Was a little disappointed that a group of young folks had pitched some tents in a spot not far from me, and were playing loud music all day. Not quite the peace and quiet I like in a campground, but nothing I can do about it. I wasn't able to get a cell phone signal at all today, so no TV or uploading anything, though I found a spot in the next parking lot where I could at least get enough to check my email. I'll just have to drive over there in the truck with my booster and see if that saves me from having to go all the way down the mountain. I can't believe the signal is so bad up here! Anyway, time for shower and bed. Good night, baby! Love you!

Pix to come!

Hi Babe!
Woke up half an hour before my alarm, but it was daylight, so I got up and started moving. Everything went smoothly and I was headed out the driveway just before 8:00. The whole day went well, thank goodness. The morning was mostly cloudy, and there was even quite a bit of fog going through the Virginia Highlands, so the temps stayed in the 70's for quite awhile. By the time the clouds were cleaing up a bit and it hit 90, I was stopping for fuel as we were heading up the Shenandoah Valley, which was relatively flat, so I didn't need to worry about managing the AC. Not that I've ever had to worry about it on this truck, but it's just a habit. Then, about 10 miles before the turnoff from I-81 to the campground, I hit a brief rainstorm, and watched the thermometer plunge from 95 to 74 in about five minutes! It started warming back up again as I went through Chambersville, it was back up to 88 when I started climbing the hill to the campground. The first part wasn't bad, but after the turn onto Shippensburg Rd., it got really steep, and I crawled up the hill the last mile. The temps only came down a couple of degrees, but there was a lovely breeze, so it didn't feel too bad. I got the horses' highline all set up and ready before getting them out of the trailer, and was pretty much done by 4:30, though my front end is a bit higher than the back, but I can't get the jacks any lower! I barely have a cell phone signal, and only with my booster, but I managed to watch one Warehouse 13 before giving up for the evening. Think I'll be doing a lot of reading here! And maybe even breaking out the Dish PVR, it still has a lot of movies left on it. Tomorrow I have to go in search of water, but otherwise have no plans, though I have a few NY friends nearby at Gettysburg, maybe we'll figure out a way to get together. I'll no doubt do some trail planning as well, but I think after 8 hours in the trailer, the horses deserve a day off! Looking forward to a cooler night, even without AC! Good night, darlin'! Love you!

Hiya Darlin',
Mostly cloudy today, which kept the temps down a bit but the humidity high, so once again, I was glad I have electric for AC, and not feeling too thrilled about the heat wave I'll be driving into this week. The good news is the campground is at nearly 2000', so that will help some, but it's still going to be a hot time! Did a little packing and some housekeeping, though I didn't unpack much anyway, so I should be able to get out pretty early tomorrow. Almost 400 miles to drive tomorrow, more than I like, but it's almost all highway, so it should be fairly easy. Had a quiet evening, getting to bed extra early so I can get a full night sleep and still get up nice and early in the morning. Good night, sweetheart! Love you!

Hey Sweetie,
Not quite as good a night sleep, but I ended up resting most of the day, only doing my laundry. I've decided to stay here until Tuesday, having made my next reservation starting on Tuesday, so tomorrow I'm hoping to have enough energy to do housekeeping and general maintenance before the long drive to PA. Ordered a Cavallo boot for Flash, one of his has split some seams and won't stay on, and I'm going to need those in coming weeks, as some of the trails I'm going on will be rocky. So, had a relatively relaxing day, still coughing up phlegm but it seems to be less thick, so I'm hoping to have a full recovery soon, I'm sick of being sick! I hope I get a good night sleep after my usual evening. Good night, babe! Love you!