Archives for January 2012

Headed out a bit earlier today after getting a bunch of work and phone calls done. Brother in ICU is doing better, still on a ventilator, but that’s supposed to be coming later off today. On the trail by 11:15, taking some secondary trails that aren’t marked on the map, beginning with leaving the horse camp to the north, then west, which was essentially a perimeter trail and a firebreak. It was a wide swath of grass that was pretty badly torn up by the wild pigs in a lot of places. We headed south on the first main trail, which soon ran us right into the main trail again. We took that west some more, then north again at an intersection that had a big X marking the spot, as if it had been a makeshift helipad of sorts. It’s also where the bike trail joins the horse trail. Took that back to the firebreak, headed west again until we came across another trail heading south, but this one was SO much better. It headed into what is truly the first tropical forest we’ve seen yet. Lots of palm trees among some scattered old live oak and magnolia, along with lots of scrub palms on the ground. It felt really magical there, like an enchanted forest, and it obviously hadn’t been traveled anywhere near as much as the rest of the trails we had seen, though there were some signs of a few horse passings. That meandered around a bit, which was a nice change from all the straight lines we’d been doing, until it finally met up with the main trail again. We turned around at that point, though, because we had seen another trail head off to the northeast, so we backtracked to there. Along the way, we not only came across lots of pig sign, we came across lots of pigs as well. Though the horses did a lot of snorting and whirling and sometimes just froze in place, they were a bit less reluctant to move forward when asked, as if they were starting to get used to the pigs. At one point, I swear, Apollo was actually strutting at the fact he managed to get the pigs to run away from him, as if to say, “I’m the Man!” At any rate, we made progress getting over the pig phobia they’ve had, which will be helpful as time goes on, since there’s obviously a major pig infestation going on in south Florida these days. We also saw a couple of white tail deer, and they, too, caused only a small start from the horses before they moved on. Good to see them getting used to wildlife around them! Got back early, as we want them to get used to being ridden every day, but not for hours and hours every day, at least until they’re better conditioned. Rinsed them off, which was pretty pointless as they both rolled in the sand within a few minutes of that exercise. Fortunately it rained later on in the evening, and that rinsed them off again. Had a quiet evening, then heard that my brother was off the ventilator and doing better shortly before heading off to bed.

First things first today, I had to run down and drop off an envelope for the outgoing mail at the ranger station, running the gauntlet through the sugar sand again, slipping and sliding in several spots, but it was to pay our taxes, so I couldn’t let it go another day. Got back and had a leisurely breakfast, and did some work on the computer. Just as we were getting ready to go, I got a call from my brother here in Florida (the one we’re on our way to visit), to tell me that one of our other brothers (who was supposed to be flying from Texas to Florida today for a week of rest and to visit the same brother) was in the hospital undergoing some sort of heart surgery. Not a heart attack, apparently, but a torn aorta. Kept the phone with me for updates, and fortunately, the surgery went well and he’s going to be under careful observation for a few days, but don’t know yet about the recovery involved. Easy to deduce he won’t be flying to Florida any time soon! Well, Hubby had already saddled up his horse, so I saddled mine and away we went! It was an absolutely perfect day weather-wise, one of the best we’ve had in awhile, so nice I only had to have a tank top on. It’s great to get some sun. We did the full official trail today, which is about 10 miles, but we saw lots of side trails we’ll explore later in the week. It began with a very long, very straight stretch with old growth and palm trees along a little river which is shared with the bikers (we passed several along the way), crossed a good sized wooden bridge over the river, then eventually worked our way out to the country road. The trees thinned out until we were essentially in almost open fields with just a few pines and lots of squash palms. After that we crossed the county road, did some pretty straight runs along the boundary, came across a lot of pig sign that got the horses snorting and whirling around a bit. We crossed the road again and came across some actual pigs crossing the trail, a couple of mamas and some babies, and the horses were like statues at first. Once they caught sight of us, they ran off, which seemed to give Apollo some confidence, so he strutted past the area with a bit more panache and a lot less fuss. I guess he finally figured out that the pigs were more afraid that we were pig-eating monsters than he was that they were horse-eating pigs. We had some fantastic canters and lovely long trots, as everyone is getting more and more fit. We even trotted across the bridge on the way back, about 10-15 yards of planking that made a wonderful clippety-clop sound as we went over it. A great ride! We arrived back at camp about 4:00, just as one of my brothers texted me to let me know that my other brother was out of surgery and seemed to be doing okay, though we’ll know better in a few days in the ICU. Settled in for a relaxing evening, enjoying the quiet solitude of this place.

 Woke up to the alarm, had a nice breakfast, packed everything up, spent a few challenging moments getting out of our camping space, stopped and the RV and then went on our way! Stopped at Wauchula to shop a the Wal-mart and the Tractor Supply (for horse treats, of course!) Before arriving at Highlands Hammock State Park, apparently the oldest State Park in Florida. Technically, their horse camp is closed, because they’ve build a new one, but the new one isn’t open yet because the county won’t let them open it until they put in a new, second RV dump (they already have on the the main campground). Despite that, a friendly ranger named Steve agreed to let us come into the old horse camp for a few days. After checking in at the ranger station, we were directed through the main campground, north of the maintenance buildings. There was one rather scary stretch of road that we stopped to examine before venturing in, because it was pretty deep soft sand, and the last thing we wanted to do was get stuck. The ranger station’s advice was “don’t stop,” sage advice for anyone who’s ever dealt with suggar sand! Anyway, we made it through, though there were a couple of harrowing spots when the wheels started juddering, but we just kept moving and managed to make it okay There’s one fresh water spigot and a trough here, along with a number of high line posts in position. There was a day trailer here when we arrived, and we chatted with them a minute before they left. Didn’t take long to get everything set up and ready, so much earlier than usual we didn’t know what to do with ourselves! Happy to say I have a great cell phone signal here, so I did some work on the internet, then we settled down for the evening, using our generator for the first time in quite a while.

 Another quiet night for everyone, the horses seemed much more relaxed last night and this morning. Either the pigs went elsewhere or the horses are starting to get used to the smell! Either way they seemed more rested. After a leisurely breakfast and a few chores, we headed out on the trail around 1:00. Today, we just meandered a bit. We did a little exploring around the southwest part of the park, an area they call the Sundance Trails. As expected, the trail map wasn’t as accurate as I would like, so we just wandered somewhat, a bit on the blue trail, a bit on the white trail, a bit on one of the many silver trails, crossed the road to do part of the red mustang trail backwards from yesterday, then back to the southwest corner to go on what we missed. There a lots of long straight grassy trails so we did a lot of cantering today, as we continue to condition the horses and ourselves for longer and longer rides. We got back a little after three, and I spent the rest of the day playing around with Google Earth. I discovered I could overlay the map the ranger gave me on top of the Google Earth satellite map of the area and then roughly trace out the trails with actual lines the color of the depicted trail. Then I can readjust the trail from the rough map to the actual trail as I can see it on Google Earth. Pretty cool! Thinking about doing this for a bunch of maps I already have downloaded or scanned. I’ve been collecting quite a library over the years, and I may just add those to the new website I’m designing, which I’m going to put up as Equicamping.com in a few weeks. Stay tuned for more as we get closer to our launch date! Watched some football and TV for the rest of the evening, intermittently working on my maps. Rest day tomorrow!

While the night was restful for us, it wasn’t quite so restful for the horses. We noticed some signs of wild hogs or pigs along the side of the road coming in yesterday, and that was borne out by the fact that the horses seemed to be at attention when we went to bed last night, and were still hyper-alert this morning, though nowhere near as agitated as when we had hogs in the campground in Texas last winter. That, combined with two days off, and the fact that it was a lot cooler this morning meant the horses were quite frisky when we set out just after noon. The trail map we got from the ranger station yesterday is pathetic, though the trails are actually marked a bit better, they just don’t jibe with the map very well. Lots of intersections have numbered markers, but the numbers aren’t on the map, so that doesn’t help. The trails are marked by colored arrows, but the map is in black and white, so you have to decipher the gray dots on the map are the green trail, little diamonds on the map are the red trail, and so on. The first part of the trail was essentially open areas with lots of little palmetto palms, as if it had been cleared and never recovered. Eventually we went through a few areas of older growth forest. After several missteps, we finally found the crosswalk over the road to get to the Mustang Trail, which turned out to be very nice, with some of the best old growth forest we’d seen in a long time, but even that side had a few areas of “management,” code for clearing out the old growth trees and replacing it with pines, likely for eventual harvest.  We even crossed a water hazard, our first in weeks! Okay, so it was just a trickle of a creek, but at least it was running water!  Did the entire Green Trail (parts of it twice) and the Red Trail in just under three hours, and found lots of places to trot and canter, in fact did some of the longest canters we’ve ever done. It’s a pretty small park, so it was hard to get too lost. The horses started out jittery, but finally settled down after a few of the canters, though they got a little on edge on the final leg back to the camping area, where the telltale signs of wild pigs grew more noticeable. They’re absolutely getting in better shape though, as are we. It feels so good to be getting back to riding more regularly, we’ve been so busy since the summer it feels like we’ve gotten off track! Got back to the campground and discovered that all four of our neighbors had moved out, but knew they’d be filled in again by the evening, though whether any of the were bringing horses was unknown. Got the horses settled in just about the time people started showing up. We discovered that we could easily reach the electrical outlet of the site next to us, so we decided to plug in, then ask later when someone arrived if they’d mind. Eventually they showed up, and after a nice chat, they said they didn’t mind, so we’re set with electric for the weekend (albeit by a bit of pirating.) Call it being resourceful…: -) Anyway, we had a quiet evening and we’re looking forward to good sleeping weather, temps down to 40 tonight!

Didn’t bother with the alarm this morning since we had such a short trip today, got out about noon after using the dump here at Alafia. After stops at the Post Office and Wal-mart on the way, we arrived at Little Manatee River State Park, less than 25 miles away from where we started. The ranger at the entrance seemed rather surprised that we were even aware that they had four extra primitive horse camp sites, apparently they’re brand new and haven’t even been put on their computer yet. Nevertheless, she made a call and managed to make the arrangements after I explained that I had called and spoke to someone who told me they had these spots. Before long we were on our way to the equestrian camp. They have four sites that are reservable through ReserveAmerica, but they were all booked for the weekend, so we opted for the first-come, first-served sites, figuring coming in on a Thursday would improve our chances. We arrived to discover that all four “reserved” campsites were full, but not one of them had a horse. Apparently they use this area for overflow when the regular campground is full. Fair enough, except that the four new spots were really crude and incomplete. They had put big gravel down, and hadn’t really cleared anyplace for the horses to go, although they do have covered stalls behind the reservable sites, not within view of the primitive sites, though. We did find a grassy area between the reservable sites and the trailhead, however, that had tall pines in the right position to highline, and enough room for us to park both vehicles and create a nice little alcove for ourselves. There is also a very convenient spigot right here as well. We were set up, satellite dish and all, well before 4:00, so we had a relaxing evening. Funny, we had stayed here once before years ago at the regular campground, and when we drove in, I saw the sign for horse camping. I actually think that we saw that same sign back then, and that was when we first became aware that people actually camped with their horses, planting a seed that would eventually grow into what we are doing today! Sort of feels like we’ve gone full circle on that one! Looking forward to our first ride tomorrow!