Hiya Sweetie,
As usual, I spent the morning working on the computer and making phone calls, then I spent some time trimming both of the horses hooves, which took some time in the heat. We’ve been having very warm temps here lately, so I was sweating pretty good by the time I was finished. In the afternoon I needed to send a letter, so I decided to take the opportunity to continue conditioning Flash, and rode him down to the mailbox down in the Publix shopping center in front of the NAPA. It meant we had to cross Indiantown Rd. again, but he did it so well the other day, I was confident he could do it again, and there was no problem.. We came back on one of the canals, and averaged 5.6 mph for the whole trip, so we made it in good time. Once we got back, I gave him a nice bath again. I know you’ll understand when I say that I really appreciate the luxury of having time to do things like bathe the horses. I never seemed to have time before, but I’m glad now I do. You know I bought some special shampoo for white horses (though, oddly, it sprays out purple!), and I’ve used it the last couple of times, and now Flash is really starting to shine. I was glad that he didn’t run right out and roll in the dirt, but I imagine he will by tomorrow! It was so warm after that that I decided to take a quick swim, so I changed into my bathing suit and took a quick dip. The pool was cool after so many cold nights last week, but it’s been warm the last few days and nights, so it felt good to me. I took some time clearing out the pool using the net, and reconnected the vacuum, so it looked better, and will hopefully stay that way for a bit, though I’m going to start keeping the filters clean more often since Lola is carrying so much sand into the pool. We fetched for quite awhile today, too, so hopefully she’ll sleep well tonight. Took my shower early, and finally settled down for the evening. Ready for bed now, though! Good night, love!

Hi Darlin’,
Got kind of a late start today, first working on some computer stuff for OTL, finalizing the GPS files and an outgoing email summarizing everything the riders need to know, then just as I was getting ready to leave to mark some more trails, I got a call from Dolly. You remember her, it was her house where we got married, we knew her through the theatre where we met. Anyway, I had written her a letter to let her know about what happened, and we had a long chat. Funny, she didn’t recognize the name on the letter at first, but she said when she touched the letter she got an image of Alex in her mind, which got me thinking about an afterlife, and if your two spirits are meeting somewhere. In any event, she can’t make it to your Celebration of Life, but we’re planning on getting together sometime soon to get caught up. She said she’d be interested in seeing some of the videos of your performances. She working a lot at Delray Beach Playhouse, and runs some kind of acting class. Kind of wish we had hooked up with her earlier, I know you would have liked to be involved in something like that, when you were up to it. Anyway, we finally hung up and I got on the trail with Flash, stopping by Anita’s to pick up some more trail markers, then down to Riverbend to finish off the few sections of trail that weren’t done yet. Hoping it doesn’t create a problem, but I ran into one of the neighbors who started to make a fuss about it being a private road, and what kind of damage a bunch of horses might make, etc., etc., etc. Hope that doesn’t force us to change routes, though it wouldn’t really be a big deal, we’d just need to go all the way to the canal and then south on the main road for about a block. I just would prefer to stay off the sidewalk. We’ll see. Flash got a bit agitated toward the end with all the stopping and starting, but we did something today we’d never done before, cross Indiantown Road right by the Publix, in order to get into Cypress Creek without going all the way around the east end of Riverbend. There was a lot of traffic, but I managed to hit the crosswalk button, and we got across okay. Then I let him go as fast as he wanted the rest of the way home, he cantered for awhile, then largoed for a long time after that, and finally came down to a walk about three miles later. We did almost 18 miles in total again today, because I haven’t had as much time to get him in shape like I did last year, so I’m kind of trying to make up for it now. With less than two weeks to go, I need to do everything I can to condition him before the big event. Gave him a quick rinse off, threw the frisbee for Lola for a bit, then settled down for the evening. Time now for my shower and bed. Good night, my love!

Hey Darlin’,
I made arrangements to record a PSA over at Tim’s in-house studio this morning, so I was up early enough to leave by about 10:00, riding Flash down to his house, which is a straight shot down the canal to the first crossover and just a few houses in. Flash stood quietly nuzzling Tim’s horses while I went in and knocked out the :30 PSA, which I now need to figure out how to distribute to local radio stations. After that, I headed toward Riverbend. I wanted to get accurate GPS readings on the incoming and outgoing trails so my final maps would be accurate. I’m going to send downloadable files to one of the OTL guys who is going to put it on the website so others can have them. I wasn’t going to mark the trails today, but I noticed they’d already done some marking, so I decided to finish it off anyway. We may lose a few markers over the next couple of weeks, but I’ll be able to replace them on the day of the ride anyway. Once Flash figured out we were heading home after we crossed under the Indiantown Rd. Bridge, of course, he decided to speed up, and we ended up gaiting fast for the next 5 or 6 miles! I slowed him down the last mile just to cool him off, but he would have been happy to keep going. Anyway, it was a long ride, almost 18.5 miles, so he was good and sweaty. I rinsed him down and let him loose. I made myself a meal and fell asleep watching TV right afterwards, I was so tired, plus I didn’t get a great night sleep last night for some reason. Did some computer work, but now I’m still hot and sweaty (it got to over 85 degrees today, but there’s a cold front moving in overnight), so I’m heading off the shower and bed. Love you, babe. Good night!