Archives for October 2012

Wet and foggy this morning, more rain overnight than we’d had yet, a repeat of yesterday mostly. Despite the storm, UPS managed to deliver our package from Valley Vet with Hubby’s new horse boots. Considering the cable failure of the Boas, Hubby decided to try a pair of Cavallos like mine. These have worked incredibly well for me, and despite my initial worry that they were held on with “only Velcro,” I’ve never had any trouble with them despite some challenging terrain. Now’s he’s looking forward to seeing how Clio likes them. Not sure when that will be, hopefully later this week.

More off and on rain and some wind today. Nothing too bad here, the worst of it stayed east of Richmond before heading north, never getting this far west. Another day on the computer, not much else to do.

With morning there came little sign of the approaching hurricane, with just a few gusts of wind. In fact the day started out quite sunny, clouding up later in the day as we tried to rest from our busy schedule the last few days. The wind and rain came in a bit later, nothing serious, just a little bit of a blow here, though it seems the NYC area is likely to get hit pretty bad. Relaxed most of the day, not a good day to be outside, but Hubby had managed to set up the satellite in such a way it was protected between the van and the RV, so we didn’t lose our signal. We took one side trip over to the horses’ pasture to put on their rain sheets, for when the horses came out of the shelter to eat grass, which they were doing when we arrived. Not much else to do when we got back but curl up with a warm computer in my lap and look to solve impending challenges, which lately has become the solution to our trailer swap. We’ve been looking at new trailer units since July, including communicating with several custom builders in an effort to get a floorplan we really like. It’s been a very slow process, with long delays between emails and difficulties in trying to get what want, so painstaking it’s starting to take its toll. Somewhat productive today, however, we feel a breakthrough coming soon, hopefully. Otherwise an uneventful night, which is just what we needed.

Started the morning by heading out to a nearby ENT as a followup to the exam I had at the clinic in Rhode Island back in September. My hearing is somewhat improved, but still a long way from normal, so I made an appointment to have it looked at again. Not a very helpful visit in the end, they did an exam and a hearing test, couldn’t seem to find anything in particular except that my hearing wasn’t 100%, which we already knew! The only thing the doctor recommended was a choice between doing nothing and taking a two week course of steroid pills to reduce what MIGHT be inflammation in the inner ear. I usually don’t like to take medications unless I have to, but we were on the outer limit of time according to the doctor, if we didn’t take them soon we’d beyond the 8 week window when it might be effective, so I decided to give it a go. We picked up the prescription on the way back to the house. Meanwhile, I got a call from the guy in charge of the job we have scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, and after much deliberation, the company had decided to postpone it because of the threat of an incoming hurricane, Sandy, which was stirring up a lot of concern. The best laid plans! After a few more errands, we arrived back at the house, where we had a fantastic meal that Toni prepared, along with the company of their neighbors, another very pleasant evening (and why we like to visit them so much!) Stayed up later than we probably should have, but we didn’t need to be anywhere early, as we had already made arrangements to just go back to Belmead and camp out there for the weekend. What a whirlwind week!

After breakfast I decided to take a drive down to the boat launch and walk the River Trail with the dogs. We were pretty convinced that was where we had lost the boot, since it was the first place we had cantered (and whenever one of us loses a boot, it seems to be either on a canter of knee-deep mud), so I took a very slow careful walk, looking through the high grass along each edge. I finally found it, a mere 60 yards from where we turned around to look for it! It was right on a corner that we had cantered around, which was obviously where the stress occurred, and in fact, it turned out to be a Boa boot failure. The wire cable that is used to tighten the boot had broken. It was good to know, as it was one of the concerns we had when we got the Boas. It seems the more moving parts, the more likely the failure. Anyway, the dogs and I had a good time on the hike, spending a little quality time together for a change. Mostly worked on the computer, and in departure preparations for the rest of the day.

Finally, a beautiful day when everyone is feeling fine and raring to go! Saddled up around midday and headed out a trail we hadn’t been on before, which turned out to be quite nice. It meandered through the woods behind the campground, crossed over the park road near the ranger station, headed up over the mountain before coming back down to the boat launch where we picked up a trail we enjoyed on another trip, the River Trail, which had a few good grassy stretches for a canter. Just when we were less than a mile from home, I suddenly noticed the Hubby’s horse had lost one of her boots. We started to backtrack looking for it, and kept going and going and going until we had gone so far we were committed to going back the entire length of the trail that we had come, over 5 miles! We never should have bothered, but we wanted to know what had happened to the boot, particularly if it was a failure rather than just that it slipped off. These were fairly new Boas with the dial front design, and we wanted to compare them to the Cavallos I just started using. Anyway, it did make it a nice, nearly 11 mile ride, a bit more than we bargained for, but nice nevertheless. Got everyone fed, watered, blanketed and settled in for the night before relaxing for the evening.

Did, in fact, have a decent night sleep, woke up to a very cool morning which looked like it had been frosty but had turned to heavy dew. Once the sun came out and started to dry out, Hubby decided it would be worthwhile to put new bolts in the rest of the slide brackets, simply because if one went, the rest might be a bit strained as well. He didn’t figure it would take too long, but I’ve learned to always double the time he thinks it will take, and be happy if it doesn’t take as long (though it usually does :-). He did manage to get the job done, but was feeling ill by the time he finished. He tends to get nauseous whenever he has to be upside down for any length of time time, and because the site wasn’t entirely level, the room underneath the trailer was very cramped, which made his job quite difficult and stressful. So rather than risk a ride, we decided it was better that he rest for the rest of the day, so we settled in early, with me doing some computer work until our usual evening routine.

Got up fairly early so that we could get back to James River and still leave me time to run into Lynchburg to do some shopping, especially for generator gas, of which we’re almost out. We got everything packed, the horses loaded, and just about ready to go, when I went to pull in the kitchen slide on the RV, only one end started to come in. Hubby immediately went to work, knowing it would require replacing a bolt in the shaft in the underbelly of the unit, though fortunately he had spares that he had bought when this had happened another time. It’s a pain, but we managed to get it done in just under an hour. Meanwhile, Dawn, the owner of Robbins Nest, arrived home (she had gone to an organized ride in Belmont for the weekend), and we had a chance to chat for a few minutes. Finally got on the road about 2:30, figuring we still had time to complete our day as scheduled. Arrived at the park around 3:00, but it took nearly 20 minutes to get signed in and paid. Whatever happened to simply paying what’s owed? Four nights @ $X, here’s my money and off we go? Now we have to practically give up every piece of private information to a government organization just to simply stay in a park! It’s ridiculous. Anyway, we finally got down to the campsite area at 3:20, only to discover that the previous campers hadn’t left yet! Check out is supposed to be about 1:00, though the hard stop is 3:00, but there they were, every site full. Fortunately, though, they were just about packed up, so they left within 10 minutes or so. Meanwhile, to save time, we moved the RV over to the water spigot and spent the time filling the tank. Just about the time that was done, everyone had left, and we moved back into our previous spot and got things set up as quickly as possible so that I could get out of there to do shopping. I was on the road right at 4:00, made stops at the ABC store, Tractor Supply, Walmart, Sheetz for gas, and the Post Office to drop off a letter in the box, hoping to get back to camp before dark, and just made it! The sun had gone down, but civil twilight was still in full force, and I saw that Hubby had managed to get the highline up by himself, as well as getting hay and water out as well, meaning he had brought out the long length of hose. Obviously he was a busy beaver while I was gone! He was surprised I got back so fast, but it was a pretty straight-forward route, even if it was more than 45 minutes each way. We quickly got the horses put up for the night with their warm winter blankets on, then settled in for the short evening, hoping for a quiet night and a good sleep!