Archives for May 2014

Yesterday, we drove all the way out to McKinney Roughs for a ride, only to learn the trails were closed because they had 3 inches of rain a few days ago. Note to self: Call Ahead! Since we had had two dry days after the rain, it never occurred to us the trails might be closed. Anyway, I had called Reimers yesterday and they said their trails were open, so I knew they would be today. We've only been here once before, and it was nice but not too challenging (i.e. Boring), but it's close, and we wanted to do the same trail in reverse. We arrived to find that two rangers were working on the parking area, with new wood chip surface, and building a railing around the entire parking lot, will make it look a lot nicer when it's finished. One other trailer was there, and we met the owners a bit later, an English woman and her American husband, when they returned from their ride. We were delayed quite a bit because I had to trim the horses' feet, as they were way out of whack, and none of the boots fits. That took nearly 1 ½ hours, so much needed to be done. Plus chatting with the couple was a small but interesting distraction. Finally got on the trail about 1:30, heading north so as to take the loop clockwise. Lots of opportunities to canter and the horses behaved beautifully, having as much fun as we did. Only twice did Apollo try to add an extra leap in his transition, but I managed to stop one and ride out the other until he settled down. At one point about halfway around, Clio brushed Hubby up against an unforgiving limb, which caught his stampede strap and broke it, so that his hat came off. Once retrieved we carried on for a bit, before he realized he had lost a hearing aid. Knowing it had to have happened during the branch incident, we headed back to that tree limb, and, miraculously, after about 5-10 minutes of looking actually FOUND the tiny little bugger! Yeah! Once plugged back into his ear, we continued on our way, getting a few more lovely canters in before getting back to the parking lot by about 3:30. From there, we met with my brother and his friend Dely for a birthday get-together (he celebrated his 89th yesterday) at a nice little place called J-5 Steakhouse on Hwy. 71. Got home around 8:00, bedded everyone down, and had a relaxing evening, after a very nice day.