Archives for 2018

Well, the weather finally cleared up and warmed up a bit (though it's chillier than the last day I rode), so after getting Hubby dialyzed, I set out to explore the northern part of the park. On my last ride, I only got the southern part done, a little over five miles in that loop I made, but it was a great exploration because I learned that instead of just one giant loop, there's a lot of fields that you can cut across, and always eventually lead back to a single trail along the road that takes you back to the campground. Not to mention, being that we were both out of shape (Apollo and I), I didn't want to overdo it the first day out! But today, we were both ready to go longer, and since we got a pretty decent early start, we headed straight up along the trail that parallels the road, all the way to far north end of the park (which really isn't that far!), before the trail cut into the woods. This was one of the most interesting parts of the trail, actually, with some little grades and sharp turns, until we reached the trail that took us along the shoreline, where it became level again. There is really only two types of terrain here. You're either following a single track trail through the woods and weaving along each shoreline, or you're on the edge of a field, where they have done some nice mowing, with a wide track perfect for faster paces and side by side riding. It's a nice combination, but after a while, I found it got a little boring. We did see quite a bit of wildlife, though. Some beautiful white pelicans with black babies were gathering in the lake, we saw some kind of 4-legged critter which I didn't see clearly enough to figure out what it was, but it was the size of a large dog, but more round like a baby bear. Hard to say. At one point, a HUGE wild turkey flew up right after we passed it, and Apollo started to take off sideways. Fortunately, that meant he headed straight for a tree, and he had to stop and think about what to do next, at which point I had regained my balance and kept him standing still. Got a nice bruise on the inside of the my thigh from the saddle horn, as you would expect! Lots and lots of deer out here, really big deer. It seems they grow everything bigger up here! The turkey's seemed bigger than usual, too! Anyway, we kept following the trail, even down to the lake, where we tried to find another route up to the trail and couldn't, so we backtracked the way we came down and picked up where we left off. After about two hours, we stopped at a nice spot with a picnic table on a ridge, and I checked our time and GPS. I realized that if I continued to follow the entire length of the trail, it would be another two hours, which I thought would be a bit too much, so we headed on a more direct line to get us home in about an hour, which we did. Three hours is enough until we both get in better shape! Nevertheless, it was a fabulous ride, we had a wonderful time, it is SO GOOD to be back in the saddle again! Now we just have to get Hubby strong enough, and get him another horse, so we can go back to riding together! I do miss him on the trail, though I have to admit, it's nice to have a little time on my own once in a while. Being his nurse takes up a lot of time, and being solely responsible for his well-being, more so than ever before, does get a bit weighty, but we're settling down into a routine again, I just hope he can get strong enough for that routine to include him riding with me again!

Had a full night's sleep and woke up feeling absolutely great! Yaaaay! Got Hubby dialyzed pretty early, though I had to call the park office to see if they could change out the 30 amp breaker at this site. It kept tripping for no apparent reason, even when the load remained the same. They came by moments later to take a look, and said they would be back later in the afternoon to change it out. It was a beautiful warm day, but the forecasts had been saying sunny for days today, which of course turned out to be wrong, we had scattered showers all morning. But I was so determined to have a ride on Apollo, I didn't care if I had to get a bit wet. Fortunately, it had mostly cleared out by the time we finished dialyzing, so I went out and started getting Apollo ready. He gave me no trouble at all putting his boots on (he almost seemed glad about it!), and stood quietly while I saddled him up. Just about then, the rangers came back and started to repair the circuit breaker. I found that none of the batteries I had for my GPS were any good any more, but I saw a little mini-mart just outside the park entrance, so I took a quick ride over there and bought some. I finished getting Apollo ready, wearing my new Troxler helmet, and Lola dog and I headed out to the trailhead. What a nice ride! Though I thought there would be gravel on the trails, in fact, there was almost none. It was all dirt covered with layers of leaves, well-enough used so that it was easy to follow. I was also relieved to see that there was a lot more variety to the trails than the map indicated. It essentially showed one long, winding trail that followed the erratic shoreline, with a straight run down the road back to the camp at the end. In reality, the windy trail loops into the straight trail, which runs parallel to the road, many times along the way. You can circle each field and come back to the straight trail, take any number of cutoffs if you don't want to go all the way out to the shoreline, just lots of variety which made it more interesting. Though the park had delayed the trail openings from this weekend to next (due to the rain expected tonight and tomorrow), today they were just beautiful, mostly dry with just a few wet spots around the fields, but absolutely no big deal. I can see why they want to preserve the trails by holding off another weekend, but today, it was a gorgeous ride. Best of all, Apollo did brilliantly! This is his very first ride on his own, without his Mama (mine, too, without Roy! Well, except a few times on other people's horses), and he just did perfectly, totally responsive, seemingly happy just to be doing something besides eating and standing around. He never got excited, though he walked fast at first, as always, and I waited until he was good and warmed up before jogging and eventually even getting a little canter in. He's obviously as out of shape as I am, not having been ridden since last June, and he started to sweat and lather after the first few jogs, but I didn't overwork him (or me!) We stayed out about 90 minutes, doing almost five miles of the 9.2 miles of trails here, and I was surprisingly not the least bit sore, as I thought I might have been after so long. By the time we got back, the circuit breaker was fixed, Lola had thoroughly enjoyed her run (but she immediately found her ball and started tossing it at us to play, of course!), and Apollo seemed very pleased that he had had a break from his routine. I must say he seems to be much more settled since we got on the road, particularly since we've been at the park (he's not much for stalls), and he's relaxing back into his old self, which is great to see. I put him on an anchor so that he could munch on some of the new grass that was springing up nearby, and before long, Hubby and I were both enjoying a nice steak dinner, our first real solid food in days, before settling into the only really comfortable place in this little trailer, our bed! A few more Longmires on Netflix and lights out!