Archives for July 2013

Saturday, July 20, 2013 – Ride Day at Highland Ridge, Eau Galle Reservoir



Woke up early after a wonderful and cool night’s sleep! So grateful for this cold front, the whole country is suffering from a heat wave, and we’re one of the first places to get relief. Finally in the right place at the right time! After breakfast we saddled up and headed out, with plans to ride as many of the trails as possible in this relatively small park. Headed out clockwise on the Campground loop, starting with crossing the road and quickly heading into some really nice deep dark woods before reaching the head of the loop. Nice trails, mostly single file dirt track, almost no mud despite the recent rain. Halfway around, we cut over to the Lousy Creek trail and onto the NN trail, which took us to a parking area with a nice view of the dam. John Creek Loop was closed, so we complete the NN trail, went back up the Lousy Creek trail to finish the Campground Loop, except we missed a turn and ended up in the Northwest Day Use Area parking lot. Then we got on some nice but steep trails that I discovered later weren’t even on the map and got turned around somehow. Confused by the map, we headed up the road, thinking it would lead us back toward the campground, but when we started seeing private mailboxes, we realized we had gone wrong somewhere. Headed back to the parking lot, where we asked a couple of people for help, one had no idea, a horse guy was able to get us back on track. As we were stopped at the creek that runs by there, there were a couple of ladies on their horses bareback in the river, washing them down, and then a tractor pulling a hay wagon full of city kids came by, and I let them pet Apollo for a few minutes, he was wonderful with the kids. He always loves attention! What a ham! We took an apple and rest break for a bit, then finally getting back on track again, and when we came to the intersection we missed, it was easy to see how we missed it, as it cut back sharply from the trail with minimal markings. No matter, we wanted to try to ride as many trails as we could, right? We arrived back at camp having done every trail (and then some) except the Prairie Loop, which was essentially just a open field anyway, just a half mile of looping around there wouldn’t have added much to our already very enjoyable ride. We were out about four hours in all, a very nice ride! We actually ran into several groups of other riders, and there were several trailers in the Day Use parking lot, so obviously it’s a pretty popular place for the locals, even if it’s not that extensive. When we got back, we decided to jump in the shower for a quick rinse off, and, unexpectedly ran out of water. We had recently had problems with our water tank, i.e. we would fill it up and it would get empty really fast, and we had just figured out that for some reason, it seems the overflow on the tank has a hose inside the tank, rather than just out of the top or side of the tank, so when we fill it up, it sometimes starts a siphoning effect, which then drains a lot of water out of the tank. We’d had the problem a couple of times before, though not to this degree! I mean, we had filled it up when we arrived on Thursday, and there’s no way we could have gone through 85 gallons of water, even though I did do one load of laundry! Anyway, we ended up having to move the RV back down to the pump house and fill it up again, being much more observant when it started to overflow and what we had to do to stop it. We’ve now figured out a system we think we can try to prevent it from happening again, but it will require the purchase of a cheap hose we can cut up and use to clamp to the overflow pipe and then raise the other end above the level of the tank, thus stopping that siphon effect. What a dumb design! I don’t know what they’re teaching in engineering schools these days, but it sure seems like they’re missing obvious stuff, like venting and overflows and siphoning! Anyway, at last we settled down for the evening confident we’ll have enough water to last at least one more day!

Friday, July 19, 2013 – Work Day

After an uncomfortably hot evening, a cold front finally managed to head in this direction, creating a thunderstorm at about 3:30 in the morning, which presented a little relief (though it did keep us awake for awhile, and I did get up to open some windows for the nice cool breeze afterward.) It didn’t turn cool right away, but throughout the day, the temps gradually moderated, only getting up the mid-80’s which seemed like a huge difference compared to yesterday’s upper 90’s (the forecast called for 92, while the actual temp was 97, according to NOAA). We have a terrific cell-phone signal here, and since I’ve been behind on so much work, I spent the day getting caught up on a lot of things. After looking at the trail map, and seeing that we could ride practically every trail they have here in just a few hours, we decided to wait until tomorrow, when the weather is supposed to be REALLY nice, and knock them all out then. So I worked on the computer, and Hubby fixed the side market on the horse trailer (he had found a replacement at Blains) and a few other chores, before our settling down at our usual time to our usual routine.

Thursday, July 18, 2013 – Travel Day to Highland Ridge near Eau Galle, WI

Got up early again, just to get on the road before the head got too bad, managed to get out before 8:00. We had a pretty straight-forward trip, with a stop for fuel at a Centex gas station, which, oddly, charge 10 cents more a gallon for regular than it did for Super! Another stop at Blain’s Farm and Fleet in Eau Galle, a great farm supply store where we FINALLY found a heavy-duty tarp, far superior to those cheap and nasty ones that don’t last for five minutes once they start flapping in the wind. We also got some more fly spray, a heavier duty brand we want to try. We like the Bronco, but we wanted to try one that claims to be longer lasting, so we picked up some Zonk It! 35, to see if that works better. Last stop at Walmart in Menominee before heading out to the campground. Missed one sign, and my GPS (naturally), died from overheating just before we reached out destination, so we had to turn around once, although it was easy to find once we made the turn. Took a quick trip to the dump before coming back to the equestrian campground, which is the first campground you see when you turn into the park. A wide open space with almost no shade, though there were trees around the outer edge. The grass was manicured, surprising for a Corps of Engineers location, and all the sites had a pretty good long gravel pad, though the horse containment was a silly pipe rail “hitching post” with a cable stretched across the top of it. I surely don’t understand the rational behind using a hitching post rather than a highline. It might be more convenient for the rider, but it certainly isn’t a comfortable alternative for the horse! I managed to put up a highline (against the rules, but I’m going to do what’s right for my horses, regardless of what some urban bureaucrat says about it!), stretching it between one of the hitching post rails and a nearby tree (using a tree-saver strap, of course!). We put the horses on anchors for awhile, though we wrapped them around another hitching post so they couldn’t wander off (the main road runs right along the campground). There was a pump house with a couple of spigots on the outside, so we filled up the RV, the newly repaired tank in the horse trailer, and the portable barrel, which should get us through the weekend. Another incredibly hot day, we tried to survive with just fans, but it was too uncomfortable, so we eventually got out both generators and ran the AC for awhile. Hubby had no problem getting a good satellite signal (no trees), and we settled down for the hot evening.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013 – Ride Day at Smith Rapids



Can you say “overgrown”? After getting up at the crack of dawn to ride today, and a quick liquid breakfast, we headed east on the mostly linear trail here. We had originally planned on going west, but we ended up going east because there seemed to be at least one loop option, and we prefer those whenever we can, and west didn’t offer one. Also, there was a bridge apparently out along the trail, and though it looked far enough away to not interfere with the length of ride we wanted, we still preferred the loop. Off we went out the trailhead which ran out of the back of Site #9 right next to us. We had a short stretch of gravel road before we reached the actual trail, which had nice footing, but was so overgrown we were getting slapped by stuff left, right and center. The first section was in mostly new forest, small trees that didn’t provide any shade of note, then we crossed to road to another section that had larger trees, and many that were down and required us to go around them. Actually, they looked like they’d been down for years, because the trail around them was certainly well-established, but it was even MORE overgrown, making the going a bit tough. We finally came to the beginning of the loop, which, even though it was a two-track forest road, it was STILL overgrown to the point of being uncomfortable. Here there were a number of stretches that would have been perfect for trotting or cantering, but the grass was so high you couldn’t see what lay underneath it, and we were worried about twisting an ankle or worse, so the best we did were short stretches of slow trots. The road weaved along the river at the north end, which was pretty enough, but heading south was narrower and more overgrown again. We ended up hitting the motorized gravel road at the south end of the loop, and deciding to just take the road the rest of the way back, just so we could have a little open space. Just for fun, we crosses the covered bridge (which took a brief moment of persuasion) just to see what the west trail looked like, and although it looked like it MIGHT have been a bit more traveled, it was still WAY overgrown. Pity, too, because I suspect if they did a bit more mowing of the trails, it would help considerably with the bug problem. That said, the campground was pristinely mowed, and in fact, they came to mow it yesterday, and it looked like a state park, but they obviously don’t think much about the trails. One ranger actually asked me to drop a note in the box if there were any trees down along the trail! Too lazy to go look for himself, I guess, and considering there were more than half a dozen that had looked like they’d been there for years, not much care is being taken by management to remedy it, judging by all the well-worn bypasses. Amazing what a difference management priorities make! Anyway, we were back by 11:00, and before the heat settled in too badly, though it was already above 90, and spend the rest of the day in cool air conditioning, at least until the evening when we started running low on generator gas and had to cut back to fans. Incredible, without AC one 5-gallon tank of gas lasts a week, while with AC we went through 5 gallons in less than two days! Good lesson though. Sweated our way through the evening, glad we decided to only stay here half a week.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013 – HOT Computer/Rest Day

Another very hot day (unseasonable… what else?!), so we decided fairly early that it was too hot and muggy to ride. This place is also the buggiest we’ve seen, lots of mosquitos and those spotted-winged flies that take big chunks out of the skin, leaving welts and bumps all over the horses, and us when they get the chance! We decided that rather than try to ride today, we’d get up extra early tomorrow and get out tomorrow before it gets too hot. I spent the day working on the computer, as I have just barely enough cell phone service here to get online, and I’ve been getting behind in some of my work. Got caught up, which is a good feeling, while Hubby mostly read, at least after he got the second generator out and we got the air conditioning going. First time we’ve had to use that in a LONG time! Glad we had it though, at least it made the day tolerable. Not looking forward to trying to sleep in this tonight though!

Monday, July 15, 2013 – Travel Day to Smith Rapids in the Chequamegon-Nicolet NF

Finally dragged ourselves out of bed on the fourth or fifth snooze alarm, after neither one of us had much sleep last night, probably because for the first time, it was too hot and took too long for the RV to cool down inside, so we ended up only getting a few hours sleep. Nonetheless, we were on the road by 8:00, taking a longer route than necessary out of the forest because my phone GPS took us the wrong way, likely because the signal was so intermittent. We finally got back to Route 2, the main road here in the Upper Peninsula, heading west. We stopped at Rays Mill and Feed in Bark River to pick up some Purina Enrich 32 that we had confirmed they had in stock, as well as a bag of their oats and a few other things. I got into a conversation with a woman while I was there, asking her if she knew a good place to get a yooper pasty (“yooper is from ‘U.P.er’, a resident of the UP, and pasty (pronounced pass-tee) is a local cuisine item brought over from the Cornish miners in the 19th century like a calzone with mincemeat inside, and which I wanted to try before we left the area) but she didn’t know anyplace going west, only back east, unfortunately. I pulled out a few minutes later, and didn’t see Hubby behind me, and when I called back to him, he said a young man who worked at the mill had overheard our conversation and had run inside and brought out two frozen, apparently home-made pasties from a freezer inside and gave them to Hubby! Hubby offered to pay him, but he insisted on making it a gift! How nice! I stopped at a corner so I could put the pasties in the freezer so we can have them later, but our plan had been to have a hot one for brunch, so now we would have to go to a Plan B (which I hadn’t thought of yet). Our next stop was for fuel, then, just as we were leaving a small town shortly before the Wisconsin border, I found a place called the Pasty Oven (Plan B!), so we pulled in and purchased two small classic pasties with the traditional rutabaga and beef pork filling, which we promptly and quickly ate on the road. They were very nice, and, according to Hubby, very true to the original British style pasty. Two more stops, one for propane and water in the RV and rain barrel that we picked up at the Ace Hardware, the other for shopping at Walmart about 30 miles east of Smith Rapids for groceries and other essentials, then a straight shot out to the forest, with just 2 miles of a gravel road to traverse to the campground. Just before reaching the campground on the right, there is a covered bridge on the road, apparently one of the few left in Wisconsin, and we’ll have to cross it with the horses to take the linear trail west. Found a site, #10, where Hubby thought we could get a satellite signal (I thought 9 would be better for that, but it didn’t have as much shade and was smaller), and it didn’t take long to settle in. I put the horses on their anchors for a while, as the area has lots of unmowed grass, put up a highline for later, got the satellite up and running with some effort, all while smacking at lots of mosquitos and some huge and nasty horseflies that were bringing up welts and blood on the horses, and trying to do the same to us. We sprayed them with more fly spray. We had bought some Dumor from Tractor Supply that didn’t work worth a darn, then when I was cleaning out the horse trailer yesterday I found half a bottle of Bronco, which has historically worked better, though these critters are stubborn! Settled in for the evening at last, with all the fans running, as the heat and humidity are really bad here, at least ten degrees warmer than what we left in the UP! Hubby’s already making plans to get out the second generator so we can run the AC tomorrow, and I’m in full agreement

Sunday, July 14, 2013 – Prep for Departure

Had a few chores to do today, like rearranging the hay on the truck, and Hubby spent quite a while resurrecting a nice multiple tool jacknife of mine that had seized up from humidity and lack of use, as well as a few other jobs, so it wasn’t a terribly relaxing day, but it was a productive one. Got everything put away that we could, so our departure should be fairly quick tomorrow morning. No dump to go to, and Clio has been very good about sticking her butt out in the woods to do her business, so cleanup has been pretty easy here. We had to get one large bucket of water from the pump, but we had we had the horse trailer not leak on us, it seems we would have had just enough water to last the week. Hubby thinks he found and repaired the leak in the tank, around the nozzle, so hopefully that will solve the problem next time. Finally finished up and settled down for the evening.

Saturday, July 13, 2013 – Third Great Ride at Pine Marten

Another fabulous ride here at Pine Marten! This place definitely goes toward the top of the list of favorite places, one we would certainly make an effort to return to. Today we took our longest ride in quite a while, about 9.5 miles long, including most of the Ironjaw Loop and half the Swan Loop, which took us past numerous lakes, through all kinds of forest, up and down a few hills, with lots of opportunities to trot and canter. There hasn’t been a cloud in the sky for days, and even though today was the warmest day we’ve had, it was still quite comfortable, probably in the low 80’s, with a nice breeze cooling things down even more. The horses were great, and seemed to really enjoy themselves, having had a rest yesterday. We stopped along Swan Lake (I just HAD to get to that trail while we were here : -) for a drink of water at a marked watering hole and shared apples with each other and the horses, resting for a bit halfway through the ride, then carried on from there. What a perfect day! Got back around 4:00, got everyone settled in, pretty much finished up the water in the rain barrel, so we’ll have to get at least one or two more buckets from the hand pump before we leave. We probably would have had enough for the week if the water tank in the horse trailer hadn’t developed a leak, we lost half of that before we discovered it, but saved what we could. I’m thinking about getting another portable rain barrel, just to insure we can get a full week (or maybe even two, as we head out to the desert and plains areas, where water is at a premium), and I can hopefully get it delivered to the place we’ll be staying at the end of the month. This is the first time we’ve done it this way with the new rain barrel, and it’s been working out great. Had a quiet evening, though we have a list of chores for tomorrow as we get ready to depart tomorrow.


Friday, July 12, 2013 – Rest Day

Took the day off today, just ran out a couple of times to check on email and upload some of my blog, relaxed, read and watched TV the rest of the day. Nice, and Hubby needed it because his back was hurting him a bit after yesterday’s ride. Had a horse trailer come in in the early evening, they parked at the other end of the field next to the road, so we hardly noticed them.

Thursday, July 11, 2013 – Another Fabulous Ride at Pine Marten



Another good night sleep, another quick run out to check on email, learning our client’s schedule doesn’t mesh with ours, so no logistics to work out, back to camp, saddled up and headed out on the Triangle Lake Loop, another fabulous ride! Good footing once again, a beautiful trail that mostly follows the circumference of one of the many lakes here, though a few more roots sticking out of the ground than before. Just over two hours, 6.4 miles in all. They’ve really done a nice job of marking and mapping these trails. There’s a “You Are Here” placard at every intersection, and there’s just enough trail markers to be reassuring, not so many as to insult your intelligence (though a few of the arrows are probably not necessary, but better safe than sorry, I guess). There were a few good places to trot and canter, though we mostly walked because the trails were narrow and we didn’t want to twist anyone’s ankles on the roots. Really enjoyed the ride again today. That large bird screeched at us again when we got near his domain, but it didn’t startle anyone today. I tried to get a picture of it, but he took off before I had a chance to. I need to look up what kind of bird it was, possibly a hawk, but maybe an owl. It’s underside was completely white, but I think some of it’s top feathers had a darker pattern to it. It had a good screech, though! Got back around 3:00, had our ice cream lunch, did a little planning now that we know we don’t have to fly out next week, then settled down for the evening.