Archives for July 2013

Another good night’s sleep, another good breakfast, another great ride, though this time we skipped the second loop (my niece was a bit worn out from yesterday’s long ride), though we took one side trail down to the lake, where we saw a couple of Canadian geese on the water, and a couple of boats of fishermen and families. Along the way, we saw a black house cat out in the woods, fat and sassy, but smart enough not to move an inch when we went past. When we got back to camp, we ran the horse trailer up on the Jiffy Jack (one of the best investments we’ve ever made!), Hubby took off the errant tire so that I could get a new one put on when I go into the city tomorrow, as well as some other items that needed to be returned, and packed them in the van. Another very enjoyable day!

After much discussion about resolving the unpleasantness of our experience here, we decided to leave early. Though we had planned on staying here until Thursday, we decided to pack up this morning, drive over Mystery Cave for their first tour at 10:00 (which was quite interesting and enjoyed by all), then headed out to a farm where I had made arrangements to pick up hay around 11:00 (where my niece’s help was greatly appreciated), then headed east and north, back the Highland Ridge Horse Camp in Wisconsin. Going backward is not something we typically do, but we didn’t want to jump from the frying pan into the fire, and were a bit worried that any other new place might be just as bad, but we knew the camp and trails at Highland Ridge, and thought it would be a good choice, plus it was closer to the airport than most other places in Minnesota for when we had to send our niece back home. Another advantage is that my niece got to add another state to her list of visited states, AND she got to cross the Mississippi River on the ground. When we were about a half hour from the campground, Hubby pulled over because a passing vehicle signaled to him that something was wrong, so he pulled over, then I pulled over. The guy who waved at him stopped by me to tell me that one of the tires on the horse trailer was flat. Hubby pulled up behind me, and we got to work. We didn’t want to bother with the spare, as it was buried in the tack room of the horse trailer, but we had a Fix-a-flat repair kit that he injected into the tire. We soon saw the hole, right along the sidewall and the first tread. This has happened so many times with these Goodyear Marathon trailer tires! It has such a weak sidewall, we used to blow them all the time when they were on our old RV trailer, we finally switched them over for a variety of different brands, all of which lasted longer than the Marathons! This tire was less than a year old and still has great treat on it, but it’s useless! He managed to put enough air in it to keep moving, and we stopped at a truck stop in the town closest to where we were heading to get generator gas and to fill the tire up again. Anyway, we managed to get to the camp okay, though the tire was obviously still leaking and would have to be replaced before we left, got our long highline up quickly, my niece put up her own tent again in a lovely copse of trees between the RV and the horses, and we soon settled down. We managed to gather enough wood for a fire again, and it was quite dry so we managed to get it going almost immediately, then I grilled steaks and, of course, had another helping of s’mores for dessert. Despite the loss of a day of riding, I think it’s turned out to be best for all concerned, I feel more relaxed already, and I get the feeling the horses and the dogs are more relaxed as well. Another quiet, relaxing evening with a movie.

After much discussion about resolving the unpleasantness of our experience here, we decided to leave early. Though we had planned on staying here until Thursday, we decided to pack up this morning, drive over Mystery Cave for their first tour at 10:00 (which was quite interesting and enjoyed by all), then headed out to a farm where I had made arrangements to pick up hay around 11:00 (where my niece’s help was greatly appreciated), then headed east and north, back the Highland Ridge Horse Camp in Wisconsin. Going backward is not something we typically do, but we didn’t want to jump from the frying pan into the fire, and were a bit worried that any other new place might be just as bad, but we knew the camp and trails at Highland Ridge, and thought it would be a good choice, plus it was closer to the airport than most other places in Minnesota for when we had to send our niece back home. Another advantage is that my niece got to add another state to her list of visited states, AND she got to cross the Mississippi River on the ground. When we were about a half hour from the campground, Hubby pulled over because a passing vehicle signaled to him that something was wrong, so he pulled over, then I pulled over. The guy who waved at him stopped by me to tell me that one of the tires on the horse trailer was flat. Hubby pulled up behind me, and we got to work. We didn’t want to bother with the spare, as it was buried in the tack room of the horse trailer, but we had a Fix-a-flat repair kit that he injected into the tire. We soon saw the hole, right along the sidewall and the first tread. This has happened so many times with these Goodyear Marathon trailer tires! It has such a weak sidewall, we used to blow them all the time when they were on our old RV trailer, we finally switched them over for a variety of different brands, all of which lasted longer than the Marathons! This tire was less than a year old and still has great treat on it, but it’s useless! He managed to put enough air in it to keep moving, and we stopped at a truck stop in the town closest to where we were heading to get generator gas and to fill the tire up again. Anyway, we managed to get to the camp okay, though the tire was obviously still leaking and would have to be replaced before we left, got our long highline up quickly, my niece put up her own tent again in a lovely copse of trees between the RV and the horses, and we soon settled down. We managed to gather enough wood for a fire again, and it was quite dry so we managed to get it going almost immediately, then I grilled steaks and, of course, had another helping of s’mores for dessert. Despite the loss of a day of riding, I think it’s turned out to be best for all concerned, I feel more relaxed already, and I get the feeling the horses and the dogs are more relaxed as well. Another quiet, relaxing evening with a movie.

First thing this morning while I was out tending the horses, another different ranger came by, immediately and forcefully telling me that we couldn’t highline the horses, unless we kept them within 10 feet of the hitching post! Ten feet! That’s barely enough room for them to swing their butts around! This time I had a harder time holding my temper, because this guy went from 0 to Bully in his first sentence. We’ve never been in a place where the rules were so irrational, unreasonable and inhumane, nor where they were enforced with so much enthusiasm that it would make the Gestapo proud. Well, Hubby and I tried to put the best face on it we could, despite our internal seething, had breakfast, then I headed out on another trail ride with my niece. Our plan was to ride down to where they were having the special Civil War Encampment in the old Forestville. When we reached the first water crossing, we were delayed by a group of riders who were having a bit of trouble getting a couple of their horses into the water, a problem that was compounded by the fact that rather just simply cross the river like it was no big deal, all of the first riders stopped in the middle of the water and turned around to watch. It was nearly 20 minutes before we could finally cross, but it was fairly entertaining watching them attempt a number of different ways of getting them across, none of which really worked, it was just the horses getting tired of arguing that made them finally cross. We let them clear out, then approached the water, where Apollo took one sniff, then stepped in immediately and crossed, no problem, with Clio and my niece right behind. The water was a good deal higher than when Hubby and I passed this way a couple of days ago, since we had had a lot of rain since then, and the water was brown where it had previously been clear enough to see every stone on the bottom, but it was no problem for my guys! We crossed the road and another smaller creek as we headed toward Forestville, but once again our plans were foiled by a sign saying the trail to the town was closed because of the event. Apparently the powers-that-be decided it might not be a good idea to have horses around when they have their arms demonstration, though once again, I think that should be the horse owners decision, not theirs. In any event, we turned around and crossed the two water crossings for a second time and came around another side of the loop that brought us near Forestville on the other side, and then back to camp. It was a nice ride, though my horses are showing a bit of frustration at the gravel trails and their inability to move much when they’re back in camp. My mind has been working overtime to try to solve the problems we’re facing here, especially the negativity this place is fostering in us, and I’ve thought of several possibilities, to be discussed with Hubby later tonight. Meanwhile, my niece and I ran out in the van to make a few phone calls to find some hay, then drove down to Forestville so we could at least walk around a bit, and see the action. There were a few people in costume, but the troop encampment consisted of just a few tents of Confederates on one side of the barn, and a few tents of Union troops on the other, a lot less than we expected. We toured around for a little while, but there wasn’t much to see so we soon went back to camp, where we settled in for the evening, with Pigs in a Blanket for dinner tonight, cooked inside, so we wouldn’t have to deal with the wet wood in trying to make a fire, and finished it off with another PG movie.

Everyone slept late this morning, with Hubby and I waking up to the sound of hearing our niece creeping into the RV. She did such a quiet job, neither one of our fearless watch dogs even moved! That was almost nine, so we got up right afterward. Breakfast soon followed, then a lesson in getting her horse ready to go (Hubby generously helped her get his Clio ready), then we finally headed north out of the camp, to explore the two loops that Hubby and I didn’t take on our Wednesday ride. More of the same wide gravel trails in deep woods, though not as many climbs or as steep grades, and no water crossings, which was probably good for a first day for her. There was a breeze from the north that chilled things a bit, and we both had to put on a long shirt over our t-shirts. Ended up doing about 4 miles, out under 90 minutes, which again, is a good ride for a novice. We don’t want to wear her out on her first day! Once we got back to camp, we tackled the job of setting up the high-line post, which didn’t take long, and seemed to work fairly well. We put the horses on it and watched for awhile, and all seemed well. A while later, the post got pulled down by Apollo because he wrapped himself around the end then tried to turn back toward his hay bag on the other side. We set it back up and tightened down some more, and we had no more trouble with that the rest of the day. Decided to have a rare campfire to cook bratwurst, but the wood was so wet it took quite a lot of doing in order to get it started, but we managed to do it, and to indulge on s’mores afterwards. It was a very nice evening, and delightful spending time with my niece. We watched a horsey movie until about 10, then everyone went off to bed.

Woke up at 4:00 in the morning with a possible solution to our problem, discussing it with Hubby once he woke up much later. Since the main problem seems to be the ranger worried about the trees, I figured, what if we created our own tree? If we could get a stand with a heavy bottom, a tall pole, and several guy wires, I figured we could built a structure that would hold the weight of the highline on one end, using one of the hitching rail posts on the other. The question was what to use, so I decided to leave early and go to Lowes to see what I could find. After doing a quick wash of the van and truck and a couple of the muddiest spots on the RV and horse trailer (all while also refilling the fresh water tank), I headed out, first to Rochester, where I found what might be the perfect solution, a heavy deck umbrella stand, and a pole that would fit into it. Just as I was leaving and heading to another store, the sky opened up with such a tremendous downpour that every parking lot turned into a river. After waiting for the rain to abate, and looking at the radar and seeing that more was on the way, I decided I’d better head out and get out of the storm. After a few miles, it started to lighten up, and by the time I was halfway to Minneapolis, the roads were dry and the sky was mostly sunny. Arrived just under an hour from my niece’s flight, got a gate pass from the airline so I could get through security and only had to wait a short while before her plane got in. She was one of the first off the plane, and we headed down to baggage claim where we had to wait over ten minutes for the bags, but they also came out nearly first, and off we went! Even though they had provided her some food on the airplane, I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so we stopped at McDonalds along the way for a burger and fries. We stopped again in Rochester to pick up groceries and a prescription for Hubby that I had phoned in earlier, and once more in Spring Valley to get gas. Arrived back in camp about 9:45, later than we had thought, but only shortly after it got completely dark. Hubby said it had rained heavy for better than 5 hours!! Some storm! We unloaded groceries, gave her the grand tour, chatted for a little bit, then she headed out to the tent to get set up and go to bed. We followed suit, watching a short half-hour Gunsmoke before we headed to bed.

After waking up early, I was out feeding the horses when the ranger came by to first tell me that one of my packages had arrived, and secondly to tell me we couldn’t highline the horses. Even though we had used tree saver straps, the rule is no high-lining (and, in his words, “I am the rule and it’s not open for discussion,”) because he claimed it caused too much damage. It was okay if we wanted to put up a portable electric fence around the hitching post, but otherwise the horses would have to stay tied to the hitching post. Can you imagine? If I tied horses to a hitching post for 10 days and nights in most places in the country, I could get arrested for animal abuse! Well, even though I kept a smile on my face the whole time, I was very annoyed, because the location of the hitching post was quite close to the tent, and even though there was little danger of the horses trampling the tent, it was certainly close enough for the proximity stray manure to be uncomfortably close, unless we tied them so tightly they couldn’t move around to the other side, in which case they’d hardly be able to move. We considered moving the tent, but there really wasn’t anyplace else as ideal, so we left it, trying to figure out an alternative. We’ve never had a portable fence, and even though there may have been a few places where it would have been handy, it never seemed worth the considerable investment and space to carry one. Nor am I convinced Apollo would stay inside it, he’s a Houdini when it comes to escaping from containment. Anyway, we decided to consider our options further later on. Meanwhile, in the afternoon we headed out for our first ride, anxious to see what the trails were like here. We decided to first go down the historic site of Forestville, since Hubby may not be able to ride again this week, and he was interested in seeing it. As we headed out the trails, we were happy to see that the gravel we had been warned about on the trails was mostly pea gravel on top, so the boots were sufficient to protect the horses’ front feet quite reasonably adequately. We rode about 5.2 miles in all, take the most direct route to Forestville from the campground, past the site of the old distillery (which closed down after the Civil War due to the imposition of an alcohol tax-typical government job destruction), then down to the town, or not really a town, just a store and a couple of out buildings. The sign said it’s only open from Thursday-Sunday, and I think I read where they have folks in pioneer costume doing pioneer things, so that might be fun over the weekend. I also read that they’re having a Civil War Encampment reenactment this weekend, so that will be interesting to come back again. Next we headed out to the south loop, making several water crossings, missing one turn, backtracking then climbing the hill to come back to the camp on the opposite end from where we left. We actually rode about 2/3 of the park, and were still only gone about 2 hours. Not as big a park as I thought, but will still serve the purpose quite nicely. The woods here are close and often eerie, but the trails are wide and very well traveled, with horse manure about every 10-20 yards for most of the journey, although we didn’t meet any other riders on the trail. Put the horses back up on the hitching rail, did our chores and settled down for the evening.

First job of the day after breakfast was to get the satellite dish up and running, which didn’t take long at all, as we had a clear view from the end of our driveway. After having so many places without electricity or access to easy water, it was time to do laundry here! We combined the exercise with also trying to discover at what point the fresh water tank stopped siphoning, so I did a load of laundry, then we checked the meter level, which still registered Full, then Hubby dropped the hoses that we had connected to the vent and overflow of the tank, but they immediately began siphoning water, so he put them above the tank again, and I did another load of laundry. After the second load, the meter still showed full, hoses still siphoned, so I did another load, and another! It was halfway through the fifth load when the meter finally registered less than full, but by then I had started worrying that the tank might be imploding, so I went out a blew air into the vent pipe, and it FINALLY broke through. When I checked the meter again, it had dropped to 1/3, so obviously we need to be careful with that! Once the laundry was all hanging out, we tackled the job of putting up the new tent I had bought as an extra bedroom, just a little two-man that would do the job perfectly. Didn’t take long, a very simple construction project, followed by getting out the air mattress and pump. Even though we didn’t exactly have the right fitting, we managed to fill it, much faster than I thought we could, and before we knew it, job done! Settled in for the evening in the usual time and manner. get the satellite dish up and running, which didn’t take long at all, as we had a clear view from the end of our driveway. After having so many places without electricity or access to easy water, it was time to do laundry here! We combined the exercise with also trying to discover at what point the fresh water tank stopped siphoning, so I did a load of laundry, then we checked the meter level, which still registered Full, then Hubby dropped the hoses that we had connected to the vent and overflow of the tank, but they immediately began siphoning water, so he put them above the tank again, and I did another load of laundry. After the second load, the meter still showed full, hoses still siphoned, so I did another load, and another! It was halfway through the fifth load when the meter finally registered less than full, but by then I had started worrying that the tank might be imploding, so I went out a blew air into the vent pipe, and it FINALLY broke through. When I checked the meter again, it had dropped to 1/3, so obviously we need to be careful with that! Once the laundry was all hanging out, we tackled the job of putting up the new tent I had bought as an extra bedroom, just a little two-man that would do the job perfectly. Didn’t take long, a very simple construction project, followed by getting out the air mattress and pump. Even though we didn’t exactly have the right fitting, we managed to fill it, much faster than I thought we could, and before we knew it, job done! Settled in for the evening in the usual time and manner.

Woke up early, packed up, flushed out the tanks at the dump and hit the road by 8:30. Dropped mail off at Spring Valley, got an electrical adapter Hubby needed for the generator at an RV store north of Rochester, had stops at Walmart, Tractor Supply and for fuel before arriving at the park, having gotten misdirected by my GPS and essentially circling the entire park before finding the main entrance. It was a bit disconcerting, as at the end of the road they have a sign that there is a bridge out ahead, but nothing to indicate whether it’s before or after the park. I quickly called and confirmed we could get through, and soon got to the office, where we got all signed up and registered for the next ten days. Fortunately, the site we had picked out on the campground map and Google Earth turned out to be just as good as we had hoped, and was available, so we’ve found ourselves a nice private site completely surrounded by trees, with a very long pad so there’s easily room for all our vehicles. Unfortunately, MN is another state that thinks you can put horses at a hitching post for days at a time, but we did find a couple of trees to set up a highline with only minimal interference with the fire grill. Although we have electric here, water is limited to just a few spigots, one of which is across the road from us, so we ran out almost every hose we had to reach it and started filling up our tanks. Meanwhile, a thunderstorm popped up, so while we were trying to solve our siphoning problem (we had bought the hose we needed at Tractor Supply), we managed to get pretty wet in the process. Frankly, I didn’t mind, it had gotten pretty hot just before the storm, and the cold front brought fabulous relief! Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be much cell phone signal here, though I did manage enough to get online to check my email, but not enough to make a phone call. I was hoping to change my neice’s reservations from the St. Paul airport to the Rochester airport, but I ended up driving out of the campground several miles to get a good enough signal, only to be put on hold for 20 minutes, then immediately transferred to another department that started with a recording saying the wait time could be as much as an hour! Didn’t have the battery life for that, so I ended up getting back to the camp at 7 empty-handed. Meanwhile, Hubby had put up the highline and fed everyone, though he hadn’t put up the satellite dish because I had it with me in the van (plus it really takes two to do it properly). So we settled in for the evening using the DVR as our entertainment, knowing that most of the news would probably be all about the new prince that was just born in England today, to Kate and William anyway.

Spent most of the day reading, just relaxing, other than getting ready to move again tomorrow. We’re going to have a busy week the next two weeks, so we’re catching up now while we have the chance!