Archives for June 2011

Thursday, June 9, 2011 – Travel Day to Monongahela National Forest

June 10, 2011 By Admin Leave a Comment

Hit the road fairly early, again trying to beat the heat of the day. Made a quick stop for breakfast on the way, then straight east on 64, then north on I-79 until our exit. Stopped the the Tractor Supply for oats and few sundries, then decided to skip our planned Walmart stop in favor of a Kroger that was next to the Tractor Supply. It didn’t have all we had hoped, but enough for the weekend. Stopped at the Headquarters for the forest to get some maps and a bit more information, though once again, the office folks don’t get out much, and weren’t very helpful about specifics. I had had a long conversation with a ranger in the district where we were heading, and he recommended the Grady Creek area. It’s not generally known as a horse area, but he insisted the horse area would be so crowded, even on a Thursday, that we might have trouble getting our vehicles in comfortably, and that Grady Creek was suitable, so off we went. It wasn’t too far out of the way, and in fact, was in almost a direct line when we would be leaving, so it seemed the perfect place. After a long and scary twisty downhill ride on County Road 12, we made a sharp turn to the left on Forest Road 162, which was a reasonably maintained gravel road, except for a few notable sections when the potholes were too plentiful to miss. I guess I misunderstood the ranger, I thought he had told me there was an area at the end of the road that was a campground, but instead there was simply dispersed camping all along the Forest Road, which paralleled the creek. We went all the way to the end, only to discover a small cul-de-sac that was just barely large enough for me to turn around. Having seen all the spots coming in, we selected one near a clearing that was a turnout (of which there were several along that road, leading to vault toilets), just on a corner. There was some gravel there, although not completely graveled, but we were close to the creek access and there were several good trees from which to highline, so we got busy and got settled in. The BEST, most immediately relief was from the heat! We were now at a considerably higher altitude, and the temperature was a good 15 plus degrees cooler than it had been, thank goodness! We got the horses watered and highlined, didn’t even bother with the satellite dish as there was a mountain and a forest between us and the satellite signal, and we had the awning up and the lawn chairs out in no time. We really set up a nice cozy corner for ourselves, and were really looking forward to our ride tomorrow!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Wednesday, June 8, 2011 – Second Ride Day at Carter Caves

June 9, 2011 By Admin Leave a Comment

Got up slowly after the alarm went off, had breakfast, then called the office just after 9:00 to try to find out more about the “new” trail. The girl who answered gave me some basic instructions, but it seemed a bit iffy, as she didn’t really know about it, she was just repeating what she had been told, so my questions went essentially unanswered. Then, out of nowhere, the manager and another woman showed up asking is we were the ones who had called the office about a new trail, and of course we answere “Yes”, so he proceed to tell us all about this new trail. They had apparently been working on it a while, and had just completed marking it (in blue paint) the previous day. He explained in more detail how to find and follow it, and was extraordinarily helpful. It makes such a difference when management is horse-friendly! This guy was actually a horse rider, and we remembered seeing him on a tall, striking palomino the evening before, taking a spin around the campground. After a very pleasant and informative discussion (he was very grateful and responsive to our concerns about the negatives of the campground as well), we finally headed off, now a bit later than we had intended, so the day was heating up quickly. We set out going in the same direction as yesterday until the blue trail cutoff, which we had noticed the day before but had ignored because it wasn’t on the map, which had been cleared by a small bulldozer. Kudos to the Cat driver, though, he/she did an excellent job of clearing the trail without tearing up the ground for the most part. The markings were easy to follow, and though the trail was still very raw, with lots of baby trees still apparent in the middle of the trail, it was a wonderful ride, again, with some grades, some following and crossing the creek, some deciduous forest, some pines. It’s going to be a fabulous trail once it gets some more use on it. There was only a couple of places where we almost missed a switchback, or it got too muddy, but nothing that was in any way treacherous for the horses. The manager said it was about 3.2 miles long, which was just about perfect for a short ride today after our unexpectedly long ride yesterday, Only problem was when we got back to camp, the highline was still in full sunlight, so we decided to stay in the woods for a little longer, following a small loop that partially backtracked on the Kiser Hollow Loop we had taken yesterday. That killed another half hour, so the highline was just on the edge of the shade now, and would only get better as time went on, so we came back in, settled in the horses (letting them eat some of the new grass nearby for a while, as a treat), then spent the afternoon working on the computer, reading, doing a bit of laundry (why not, we had a full hookup, might as well use it!) And generally doing our best to stay cool. Hubby took a nap, and I think I nodded off in my recliner for a while as well. It’s been a very nice stay here, despite the high price, but we would really have been suffering without electric to run the A/C, so once again, we were in the right place at the right time, as the heat wave had enveloped the entire eastern half of the country (it was even over 100 degrees in Minneapolis!), so there was not escape. Researched our next stop, made some phone calls, and decided to head out to the Glady Creek area of the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia, which would be a good halfway point from here in Kentucky to our next confirmed destination near Washington DC in Maryland. Another early night, setting the alarm once again for an early departure.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Tuesday, June 7, 2011 – Ride Day at Carter Caverns

June 8, 2011 By Admin Leave a Comment

After a slow, hot start in the morning, we started debating whether it was too hot to ride. My feeling was it would be cooler in the forest for the horses rather than standing in the hot sun, and eventually Hubby agreed, so we set out saddling and were on the trail by about 11:30. We just can’t believe how hot it is for this time of year, once again following the pattern that whereever we are, there’s some kind of record temperatures going on, either hot or cold. Anyway, I was right once again, it was cooler in the forest. We followed the Kiser Hollow Trail, which was essentially a perimeter trail around the western part of the park. It was a lovely trail! Almost all just dirt and leaves, nothing too mucky, only a few short-lived rocky areas and a brief section that skirted the forest so that we were out in the sun again, but soon we were back in the forest, heading down toward the creek, where thankfully it was even cooler (relatively speaking!). It was a wonderful mixed deciduous forest, intermittent pines and lots of oaks and sassafras and so on. After having spent so many miles of flat terrain, it was a pleasure to finally have some grade as we first descended down to the fork in the trail, then followed the cool creek for some time, then ascended again, fairly gradually with just a few steeper moments. All around a lovely ride. We came out across the street from the riding stable, then followed the trail around the horse camp to our camping spot. We realized that we had gone the entire length of the Kiser Hollow Trail, with was over 10 miles, a bit longer than we had anticipated, but it was so nice we didn’t really mind. Fortunately by the time we got back the highline was in shade for the horses, and thankfully, the A/C had kept the RV cool for the dogs while we were gone. After sweating like pigs putting the horses away, we finally collapsed in our recliners in the cool inside air, waiting to recover before settling down for dinner and a movie in the evening. Unfortunately, the forecast is calling for even hotter temps tomorrow, so it looks like we’ll be getting up earlier to try to avoid the worst of the heat. Hubby took one quick trip to the ranger station for a version of their trail map so that we can compare it to what I already had off the internet. Turned out to be a terrible map, hard to read, faint, small print, pretty bad. The only piece of new information, sadly, was that the trail we had taken today was the only official equestrain trail in the park! We had planned on taking a series of longer trails that essentially circled the park, but the new map indicated they were only for hikers. I called the office to question them about it, and they confirmed that the map was correct, that those trails didn’t allow horses. For a moment we thought our only choice for a ride tomorrow was going to be doing the same trail in reverse, but then the woman said a new horse trail had just been cut, and that we needed to speak with the manager in the morning. Looking forward to that conversation! Went to be at a reasonable time, with the alarm set early.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Monday, June 6, 2011 – Travel Day to Carter Caves State Park, KY

June 7, 2011 By Admin Leave a Comment

Welcome to the second most poorly, intentionally-designed horse camp we’ve come across in our travels, second only to the worst, Occoneechee State Park in southern Virginia. Besides being expensive (27 dollars after the senior discount, though it is a full hookup, which is very much surplus to requirement for most horse campers), it is a very dumb layout. The “camp” is basically a parking lot, clearcut, then landscaped after the amenities were put in. There’s a lovely bathhouse that still smells of freshcut lumber, so it’s obviously new. Each site is a pull-through with water, electric and sewer, and wide enough for two vehicles. They’ve planted a few trees in the narrow medians separating the sites, so maybe in 10 or 20 years there will be some shade here. Meanwhile it’s scorching hot on the asphalt and gravel surfaces which make up the bulk of the campground. Across from the sites is a series of strange highline cables, short stretches with rings that don’t give the opportunity to allow the horses to move at all. Then there is a series of planks stretching from one end of the highline to the other, like a fence, or maybe they’re supposed to be a hitching post or something, but the end result is that a horse on a highline has to hang his head over the board as if he were standing in a stall, without the stall around him. Very weird. The worst part is that the footing at the highline is gravel, something no self-respecting horse owner would ever make his horse stand on for hours at a time, much less overnight. So all of the advantages of a highline are destroyed, as the horse can’t lay down, can’t turn around, can’t roll, can’t do any natural horse stuff at all, which is what is usually nice about a highline! Well, needless to say, we weren’t about to make our horses suffer like that, so we instead strung our own highline along the perimeter of the campground, which was all forest. Along the edge was some high grass, so the horses were happy munching fresh greens for a while. We had to roll out the long hose to fill their buckets, but we soon had them settled in. It was so hot again that the first thing we did was get the electric hooked up and the A/C going in order to get the RV cooled down. It wasn’t long before we were all set up, satellite dish and all, and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon and evening. There is one other site being used at the other end of the campground, by a group with at least four Paso Finos, who went out for a ride just before sunset. We figure there must be a good sunset point for folks to be going out at that time of the evening, or else they went because it had been too hot during the day and waited for it to cool down. Whatever, we’re planning on riding tomorrow, hoping that the shade of the woods will be cooler, and to getting out earlier in the day than is our habit (but not holding our breath :-)… It may be an ugly campground, but we’re holding out hope that the trails and the park are nicer.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Sunday, June 5, 2011 – Second Ride Day at Barren Fork

June 6, 2011 By Admin Leave a Comment

Once again, all good intentions didn’t get us out of the campground before 11:00, so we left hoping (in vain, as it turned out) that the other trail had more shade than Friday’s trail did. No such luck. Once again, we were in the blazing sun most of the way. The horses were still a bit antsy, and at one point they must have smelled a bear or something, they stopped short and tried to wheel around and run away, but we finally settled them down enough to carry on. They had done the same thing once on the last ride, too, not surprising since this is bear country. We did manage to get in some lovely trots and a few canters, with Hubby especially please with himself for getting his mare into a very nice rocking lope for an extended while. That section of trail was only three miles, so we were back on the road to the campground in no time, but we were sweating again like crazy. We decided to go down to the Barren Fork Cemetary, the last remnants of the mining town that thrived here from 1880’s until union strikes in the 1930’s put it out of business. The cemetary dates back to the 1850’s, with some “residents” having been born in the very early 1800’s. Hard to imagine just how much life has changed since then. Anyway, we tied the horses under a shady tree and meandered around for a bit, before finally heading back to the campground. Despite forecasts for rain, there still wasn’t a cloud in the sky when we got back about 1:00, and the heat was incredible. It started to cloud up around 4:00, so, we covered the hay and put up the awning, hoping for a great squall that would bring the temperature down to something sleepable.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Saturday, June 4, 2011- Relaxing Day

June 5, 2011 By Admin Leave a Comment

We spent the day relaxing, watching TV while I kept crocheting away. We’ll give my design tomorrow when we ride again, hoping to get out early enough to avoid the worst part of the heat of the day. Traffic began by 6 am this morning, apparently there’s a kid’s fishing derby at a pond they stocked on the far side of the campground, so lots of traffic all morning. BTW, while there were other campers, none of them had horses, and in fact, most of the sites here, though fully equipped to handle horses, hadn’t seen any horse traffic in a long, long time. Managed to finish off two fly masks which look like they may do the trick, though I suspect I’ll discover flaws that will need to be reworked on my next attempt. Maintenance guys came out once more to work on the spigot, managed to fill the buckets up once before it quit again. Not figuring on seeing them the rest of the weekend, so I drove the horse trailer, with the water drum in back, down to the maintenance area, but it was locked up, so we ended up going down to a working spigot further along the campground road, where we had to fill the drum one bucket at a time, a strenuous exercise in the heat that took us half an hour. At least we’ll have enough to last us the weekend, though.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Friday, June 3, 2011 – Ride Day at Barren Fork

June 4, 2011 By Admin Leave a Comment

On the trail by about 11:00, a bit later than we wanted, but sleeping late to recover was equally important. The trail map was very vague about where the trailhead was, so we wandered a bit before finally finding the trail we wanted. We have hoped to combine the two loops coming out of the campground into one 7+ mile ride, but most of the trail was in the sun, just along the edge of where they had clearcut everything on the top of the mountain. The perimeter trail offered no view of any kind, no shade, and was a pretty ugly ride. They had done nothing to replant the area, so it was all short scrub mixed deciduous post cutting waste. Too short to offer any shade, and just plain ugly. The horses were frisky from their layoff, and there were biting flies that were making them rather fidgety as well, so it seemed a lot of the time we were battling all kinds of elements. By the time we finished the first half of the loop, we had had enough. With sweat dripping from us, we trotted (just to create our own breeze, as there was none at all along the trail) back up the dirt road, which was the shortest way back to the campground, where we arrived about 2:00. It was good to be back on horseback, but a below average ride as things go. Spent the remainder of the afternoon trying to design a crocheted fly mask to help keep the biting flies off the horses’ ears in future. Meanwhile, the maintenance guys had come out again to work on the spigot, and left sure that it was fixed. Not so, unfortunately, again it petered out after just a few minutes. Lots of traffic again, some as late as after midnight, making sleep intermittent.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Thursday, June 2, 2011 – Rest Day!

June 3, 2011 By Admin Leave a Comment

Seemed like all the preparation effort has taken it’s toll on us. We crashed today, much like after we’ve facilitated a very intense workshop or a particularly grueling job. Spent the day reading, watching movies and generally relaxing as much as possible. Still seems like a lot of traffic going in and out, and where we are situated, we hear them coming and going, even though it’s a loop around the campground. Maintenance did come out a work on the spigot, and thought they had if fixed, but it didn’t last long. Managed to fill the water buckets once before it gave out. They came out again, worked on it some more, and again, it worked for about two minutes before giving up the ghost. Glad I got water in the drum for the horses! Very hot today, and the horses are drinking a lot because of it. No surprise, where we believed we were at the right latitude for the calender to keep us in the 70’s, they’re having record heat in the 90’s, coming close to 100, earlier than they’ve had since records have been kept. Figures. Hoping to find shade on the trails tomorrow!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Wednesday, June 1, 2011 – Departure Day!!

June 2, 2011 By Admin Leave a Comment

After weeks of backbreaking labor, we, at last, hit the road again, and not a moment too soon for any of us. While the dogs may have enjoyed being home, the horses were so bored they were neighing at the horse trailer every time they saw it, and Hubby and I were just about going stir crazy. The good news is that we are leaving feeling more organized with our convoy and happier about the condition we are leaving the house than on any trip we’ve ever taken. We’ve lined up someone to keep the yard tamed while we are gone, and a pest control service to keep the mice in check, both of which we hope will make our next return home a lot easier, regardless of when we might return. We headed out by just after 10:00, stopped once at the Pilot in Crossville, TN, and arrived at our destination, the Barren Fork Horse Camp in the Daniel Boone National Forest before 4:00 local time, having lost an hour moving into the Eastern Time zone. Took us a bit longer to get set up than we had imagine, primarily because of the silly water system they have here. Although there are half a dozen water spigots scattered throughout the nicely appointed campground, none of them had any threads on them, so we couldn’t fill up the RV tank the way we usually do. To make matters more difficult, the spigots didn’t have a handle that turned on, but a push button that you have to push to keep the water running. We found a nice spot where Hubby could get a satellite signal, was level, and right across the road from a water spigot. In order to to speed things up, I drove back to the ranger station and managed to persuade the guys in maintenance to let me use their long hose to fill up the RV and the 55 gallon water drum we use for the horses (which we almost talked ourselves into not bringing, but figured if we didn’t, we’d surely need it, though not this early on the trip!). By the time I got back, Hubby had got the horses up on the high lines, which was a steel cable strung between posts already provided. It was a good thing I got water, because we soon realized the water spigot across from us didn’t work properly. It was supposed to keep dishing out water as long as you had the button pushed, but it didn’t. It petered out after about ten seconds, then you had to wait another ten second before pushing again brought up more water. This was going to be a challenge! We flagged down a passing maintenance guy, who essentially told us to call the office in the morning. So far, every question I had asked anyone associated with the park had been met with the universal response of “I have no idea,” even simple questions like, are the trails rocky, and, have the rains damaged the trails. Seems no one leaves the office or the road, or is the least bit curious about anything beyond their immediate job. Our tax dollars at work. Anyway, I don’t suppose we should complain, since it’s only costing us $3 a night with Hubby’s Golden Age Passport. Seemed like a lot of traffic coming in and out, and there’s a train a few miles away that we can hear every time an engine passes. Don’t think it’s going to be the quiet getaway we were hoping for… Oh, well, as long as we get a couple of rides in, we’ll be happy!

Filed Under: Uncategorized