Hey Babe,
Woke up easily to alarm after having gone to bed early, although it took a while to get to sleep, managed to get everything packed, Flash saddled and tied to the stock trailer and ready to roll by 7:04, which should have been early because a woman at registration told me they left at 7:15, but in fact, the first wave rolled out at 7:00 on the dot, which once again left me wondering just how poorly they communicate here. Nowhere in the ride booklet do they give a departure time, so I guess it’s anybody’s guess! Fortunately, the second wave left about the time I was ready, and we managed to catch up to the first wave a couple of miles before they reached the next camp, so I was able to find a spot next to Lynda and Wendy again. Got the portable fence up and the slide open, so no worries. We were on the bus shortly afterward, and it took off at about five minutes to 8:00, ahead of schedule. Got back, finished tacking up and was in the saddle by about 8:35 thinking out departure was imminent, particularly since it was going to be pretty hot by this afternoon, but ended up standing around until 9:00 before we finally left. A lot of hurry up and wait on this ride so far. Not surprisingly it was all road riding today, which I’ve known since the start would be the case. Flash started out very calm despite his bit of craziness yesterday, but it didn’t last long. Once he got warmed up he wanted to go, go, go, and I ended up fighting with him most of the way. Did an extra mile just running him to the front, then waiting for the line to pass by, and running him to the front again. I really hope he’s not like this the entire way, I can’t say it was entirely fun today. He got kicked at a number of times for being too close to the tail of one horse or another, and he kicked out at a couple of horses as well, so I’ll have to put a ribbon in his tail tomorrow since he’s decided to act like a knothead. We stopped about 11:30, which we thought was just a water stop, but turned out to be the lunch stop, it just hadn’t arrived yet. Then Wendy didn’t even get her sandwich, they ran out before she got there! All she was told was that “sorry, sometimes people take them when they’re not supposed to,” which kind of defeats the whole bracelet wearing thing. I guess they finally got her one at the end of the ride, better late than never. I trust they’ll upgrade their system or supply tomorrow. Unfortunately when we were driving in the morning, I noticed that my truck had less fuel in it than I thought, and since this was the shortest day (14.9 miles, plus my extra going back and forth), I found a gas station five miles away and quick disconnected. I acquired a passenger, a guy named Mike who needed to get propane, so he came along. At least I won’t have to unhook again this trip, fingers crossed! I was so hungry, I only had a protein bar all day, completely forgot I had packed a pack of Tuna Creations, again because for most of the time I thought it was just a water stop and the lunch stop would be later. By the time I figured out it was lunch, it was too late. Anyway, we all arrived safe and sound (albeit fighting with Flash the whole afternoon), I took by quick ride, made some dinner, then settled down a bit, actually napping a little in my recliner. I sure hope Flash is better tomorrow. I thought I could solve the problem at one point by running him down a side road and running him back again before the group passed, which helped a lot the first two times I did it, then was told by the outriders that I couldn’t do it anymore, I had to stay with the group, which is why he got so much worse later in the day. Not sure what I can do about it, I just hope he tires out in a day or two. Well, it’s not even 6:30 and I’m thinking of taking my shower and getting in bed to read for awhile, since I have to get up even earlier tomorrow (still late by OTL standards!), and to recover from the unusually high level of energy expenditure I had to make today. So good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Babe!
Had a good day today! Well, any day on my horse is a good day, but some rides are just better than others. I started out doing chores, skipping breakfast because I had to have labs done today for my annual wellness checkup yesterday. I had already hooked up the trailer and put all my tack into it, so once I finished getting ready, we loaded up and headed out. I had one stop at the Indiantown Post Office to pick up a General Delivery package that had two new slobber straps I had ordered, then we headed into town to go to the lab in Jupiter, then headed over to Riverbend, where I saddled up and we started marking the trails. We went from the equestrian area to the critter crossing in Cypress Creek, then marked all the way to Loxahatchee slough, though another team had marked that somewhat, then after getting back to the equestrian area, I then marked the shortcut route to the intersection at Jupiter Farms Rd. and Indiantown Rd., which completed my assignment for the day! Saw lots of birds, a young deer that didn’t run from us and we were able to get within 10 feet of it, and a big turtle in the equestrian area. It was about 4:00 when I got back, and I settled down to do a little OTL work in the screen room for awhile. A whole flock of birds gathered right in front of me, had a brief flashback to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Birds,” such a great, scary movie! Before I knew it, it was feeding time for the horses, and finally got to settle down at dusk, which thankfully is getting to be later and later as the days lengthen. Had a couple more sign-ups today, numbers are looking pretty good! I also had a Facebook memory pop up that got me thinking a little, it was five years ago today when we left on our journey to southeast Asia! Can’t believe it’s been that long, but it was a great time, so I was enjoying the memories. Anyway, I’ve watched my couple of hours of TV, did more computer work, and now am ready for my French lesson, shower and bed! Good night, my darlin’! Love you!

Hi Sweetie,
Another exhausting day! After breakfast and chores, I saddled up Apollo, since he’s in desperate need of exercise and today’s ride is only about ten miles. I took my pink paint along, and it was going fine until the first stop, then I managed to get pink paint all over my saddle bags. Oh, well, it gives it some character! We followed the pink trail from camp down to the Cypress Boardwalk, adding some ribbons where the paint wasn’t real clear, then on the way back, finally stopping to add a little paint in a couple of places as well. Before we can be satisfied that it’s permanently marked, we’re going to have to add a few more, there wasn’t quite enough to satisfy me that it was sufficient to follow. Some areas seemed to be mowed, others not so much, so I arranged with James to have the contractor come out and mow some areas that evidently didn’t get mowed last week. I managed to get Apollo to jog a lot of the way (automatic paint mixer!), rather just his slug walk, so we managed to be slightly quicker, but it still took us nearly four hours for just over ten miles! Well, of course, I stopped to paint a few times, but it didn’t take THAT long! Anyway, it was still a nice ride, though he was a big jumpy from the wind and the smell of pigs, as there was a lot of pig sign out there. Got back and had to deal with a bunch of OTL issues, finally had a minute to try to get the paint off my saddle bags but it was too dry. Mineral spirits didn’t even help! Finally able to settle down for the evening, but didn’t even get a chance to relax, as more OTL issues arose. Anyway, I’m done for the night, heading to shower and bed here shortly. Love you, babe! Good night!

Hi Babe,
Didn’t get to bed until after midnight last night, then woke up around 4:30, read for awhile, then fell back to sleep and didn’t wake up until nearly 9:00! What’s up with that? Did my chores, then got involved with a bunch more OTL paperwork before I was finally able to saddle up Flash, load him in the small trailer and drive down to the southern end of Dupuis near the boardwalk, where we departed down the trail past the sheep shearer’s cabins. We went all the way to Corbett, following the fabulously and permanently marked pink trail, Anita and Scott and their crew did a GREAT job. I only had to add one paint splotch, and that was only because it looked like the mower cleared a bit off to one side and could have been mistaken for a turn, and there was only one short pink spot there, so I put another one about 20 yards further on as a confidence marker. I also opened the cable gate to make sure that the combination worked, which it did, then painted from that water stop up to the beginning of the FTA orange trail. I only put a few ribbons out at the water stop, just because I’m sure some riders will still turn right, despite the multiple times I’ve mentioned the route has changed and they have to turn left, but hopefully they won’t be able to miss the ribbons and get it right. If the north end of Dupuis is marked as well as the south end, I may not even ride it on Friday, I may just trailer down with Jeff to the water stop/take out point and ride into Corbett from there. I still need to mark a short stretch from the Gopher Canal to the Tomato Grade, and there are a couple of changes I want to make along the east side, and I may just do that on the day. But I still have to do Saturday morning’s ride, not sure how we did that last time. Most of it is marked permanently already, but I remember putting some markers out there, just can’t remember if I did it during the ride or some other time. Weird. Anyway, we didn’t get on the trail until nearly 1:00, and made it back to the small trailer by 4:30, so we were back in camp right at 5:00. Spoke to Anita for a bit, then fed the horses and settled down for the night, finally feeling a bit more relaxed. Nothing like a long ride in the wilderness to calm one’s soul! Like they say, there’s nothing like the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man (or woman, of course!), and it did the trick for me, as usual. After a relaxing evening (and a comatose dog, Lola had to run most of the way to keep up, as Flash was full of it today!), I’m more than ready for my shower and bed. Good night, my darlin’! Love you!

Hi Sweetie!
Stayed in bed late just to stay warm, it got down to 37 degrees this morning! Finally crawled out of bed and got the day started, getting to be the same routine, feed the animals, have breakfast, did some OTL work, then finally hooked up the small horse trailer to the truck, saddled up Flash and got him loaded in, and headed down two gates and along the powerline grade until I finally reached the crossover under the powerlines that makes the border between Dupuis and Corbett. My plan was to follow Road 3 to see if it improved any over the way it looked on the other end, and I’m sorry to say, it didn’t. In fact, it got worse. We’d get about 10 or 20 yards of sandy road, then have to wade through 50-100 yards of water, sometimes pretty deep water, and often with no way around it. It wasn’t long before I was soaked from the knees down. Never quite had to actually swim, but there was some lunging going on a number of times. At one point I tried to get around it, and ended up just going in one big loop and ended up right where I started, so we had to traverse another long stretch of water to stay on the road. FINALLY made it to the Gopher canal, which is where we usually come up off the canal, and that section eastward isn’t bad, until we turn north again. Scott and Anita said they think they found a good dry grade further east, but it was getting so late, I didn’t want to go that far, and I still wanted to see how Road 4 was, so I cut up Road 5, which goes along the Gopher canal northward, and it’s really nice. I wish there was an east/west road as nice as that one! It ran into Road 4 and I turned west again, and while it was slightly better than 3, with a few easier ways around the water, there were still sections where it was deep in the cypress swamp, so I’m thinking some folks are really not going to like it. I finally joined up with the trail I came in on, and headed out that way for a bit, until I reached the FTA trail. I had intended to check that out, too, so I headed out to see what that little section was like, and it was the best riding of the day. Ankle deep water most of the way, and some knee knocker trees you had to watch out for, but really, the best riding of the day. So that’s no doubt going to start a debate. My next jaunt will have to be the whole length of the trail, to see if it holds up, at least until Gopher canal again, at which point there are a few options, including the new one Anita and Scott found. Considering that when we leave Camp I we pretty much stay on the FTA trail anyway, I don’t understand what the big deal is about us using the west side of it as well, if it’s in good shape, which, as I said, will be my next recon trip. Anyway, we got back to the trailer and got loaded up by 4:45, and back to camp by about 5:30, so I fed the horses, filled the trailer’s water tank, got my dinner and settled down for the evening. Didn’t make as much headway as I thought today, but it certainly was enlightening, so I guess I accomplished something. Getting late now, so I’m off to shower and bed. Good night, babe! Love you!

Hey Babe!
Woke up to another beautiful morning, got my chores done, did some OTL work, finally saddled up Flash for our first ride here at Dupuis. My goal was to ride the newly marked pink trail (Anita and the gang came out and did some tree painting last weekend), to see where the problem were. While most of the southern part of the park seemed okay, there were a few sections close to camp that really were difficult to navigate, seems like it hasn’t been mowed in a really long time, so it was a bit tough to find the trail, even with the new markings. Once I reached the bottom gate, I had planned a nice loop on a couple of different trails back to camp, and that was even more of a challenge! Whole sections where the horse trail was indistinguishable from the numerous game trails, and the markings so far apart you couldn’t see them. I can’t tell you how many times I had to turn around and start going in a different direction, and that was only because I had the trail mapped in my GPS, otherwise I would have gotten utterly lost! Not a good feeling! Of course, we found our way back to the main trail eventually, but the number of squiggles on my GPS trail when I finished was alarming! It was a nice ride, though, but when we got back, it was starting to cloud up, and even though there hadn’t been any rain in the forecast when I checked this morning, when I checked again after having sprinkles landing on my head, suddenly there was a 20% chance of rain, surprise, surprise! I also met another James, the older guy who does all the mowing, and we had a chat about getting the pink trail mowed on Monday. In fact, he says he can get the entire park done in one and a half days! That’s like 50 miles of trails, I’d like to see that happen! But the pink OTL trail is the priority, that was made clear. I had another phone conversation with James I, making plans to meet next week to show him some of where the rest of the trail goes, he seems honestly curious about learning as much as he can about the equestrian’s needs, so naturally, I’m happy to play tour guide! He also said that in order to complete my volunteer application, I would have to submit to a background check and go to their offices in West Palm Beach to get fingerprinted. That’s fine, especially if I decide to do some campground hosting here, it’ll save me the trouble of doing it again later. It will also give me a chance to pick up the small horse trailer at Jeff’s, since I need it out here for my next ride. Rain in the forecast tomorrow, too, so it will be a good day to get these errands done. Spoke to Anita a couple of times, finally settled down for the evening, won’t be long before I’m ready for shower and bed! Good night, my darlin’! Love you!

Hi Sweetie,
Slept late again, though I woke up a few times during the night, don’t know why. Did some work on the OTL stuff again, then decided to see how my back was really doing, so I saddled up Flash to take him for a ride on about the only other “trail” that’s on the map that I can reach, Road 10. Had to do the same boring stretch along the road until we reached it, pass through a gate, then we had a nice long grassy straight-away between pastures for awhile. Ran into a couple of quail hunters with a pretty GSH, chatted for a moment before we went on. There was one very short stretch that got mildly interesting because it had cypress copses on either side, but then just opened up into cow pasture again. At one point, Lola apparently disturbed a snake, she was a ways ahead of me, and I saw it strike at her, but it missed her by a mile. I’m not sure she even saw it! The other week at Picayune she actually stepped on one that was uncurling to get out of our way, but we were moving so fast, it never knew what hit it. I’m more worried about gators, though I didn’t see any here, but I’m going to be so busy in the coming weeks, I’m not sure I’ll be able to take her with me, and I know they’re a bit more strict about dogs on the trail at Dupuis, though I’m hoping I can take her occasionally. It was a nice ride, though, we got in a lot of gaiting and cantering, and thankfully, my back handled it all very well, even without me taking any aspirin, so I’ll be ready to get to work next week! Got a call from Anita from the OTL this evening, they went out and worked on the trails today, said they were in the worst shape she’d ever seen them, which I guess shouldn’t be too surprising since we skipped last year, and apparently the guy who used to maintain the trails passed away last year as well, so we’ve got our work cut out for us! Actually looking forward to it, it seems like I’ve wasted so much time sitting around here. Weather is supposed to turn bad tomorrow, so I went ahead and put most stuff away, hooked up the truck so the ground would stay dry under it, brought the awning most of the way in because they’re calling for high winds and rain, then settled down for the evening. Heading to bed here shortly, so good night, babe! Love you!

Hi Babe,
A great night sleep and a morning full of computer work, then I saddled up Apollo for a long overdue ride. I had planned to take the last long trail I could reach out here, but decided that a shorter ride was better, because he’s such a slug these days, so I headed through a gate that was supposed to be a “trail” but was nothing more than an access to the multitude of cow pastures out here. We followed it about as far as we could, and yes, we got to go through a stretch of cows and the many babies, but it was really a boring ride. Might have been more interesting if I actually had a job to do out here, but just walking through a cow pasture isn’t much of a ride. When we got toward the end, though, it seemed as if Apollo got the scent of something more alarming, maybe a panther? We are kind of in panther country out here. In any event, he kept stopping and shying and it was getting rather annoying, so rather than go through another field that was full of cows, I decided to head back. Well, Apollo took that as a sign to bonkers on me, and he took off at a gallop like he hasn’t done in years! It caught me by surprise, and I couldn’t get him to stop, so I just grabbed the horn and hung on, figuring he’s wear himself out before long. You know I’ve never trusted his gallop, since he always tends to make sudden sideways moves and I usually end up on the ground, and these days, that seems a lot farther than it used to be! Well, once I got myself in control, I was able to finallly get him to slow down as we approached, but I was pretty nervous for a minute there! He was still a bit antsy, but at least he behaved himself the rest of the way home. It was only about an hour, but it was enough. This place is really boring, I can’t wait to get back on some real trails. I think it’s going to be a LONG week here, which is an unusual feeling for me, most of the time it goes by so fast! So now there’s only one more trail that I can take, and I’ll do that on Flash, then I’m going to let them rest until we get to Dupuis next week, where I expect to run them both ragged, hopefully. Flash is getting restless, he ran around the paddock like a mad horse when we got back, which I’m glad about because he’s been a bit sluggish lately, too. The rest of the afternoon was mostly me doing a bunch of messaging to folks who had indicated an interest in the ride but who weren’t on my mailing list, hopefully that will stir some more interest. Pretty boring day, actually. Then I watched a very funny short series on Prime called Jean-Claude Van Johnson, which literally made me laugh out loud more than I can remember any series doing in a VERY long time! The self-effacing and “inside the entertainment industry” pokes at himself were hysterical, almost melodramatic. I wish there were a lot more episodes, it was very clever! So now I’m ready for shower and bed, and a bit more reading. Good night, my darling! Love you!

Hey Darlin’,
A nice, quiet night sleep, then I woke up relatively early, did all my morning chores, and before long, was saddling up Flash for our first ride. The map indicates one large loop of roads that would be about 16 miles, with a bunch of little spurs and one small loop off of it, so I decided the explore the main road first, then do the spurs later. This is an interesting place, inasmuch as the road is fully lime-stoned, and mostly long and straight, so the actual riding is pretty boring, but we saw more wildlife here than all of the wildlife in the last few months combined! Birds of every size, shape and color, from wading birds to hawks. Saw an otter hop across the road. Saw a baby gator peeking out of the water, an adult sunning on the canal bank, and a dead one on it’s back with crows and buzzards making a meal out of it. Saw a deer running across a field, and saw scores of cows, since this is mostly leased ranch land, lots of calves of every color and type and even crossed some open range where the cows all ran away from us. Lots of birdcalls made the sounds rich, some lovely fragrances from somewhere, too. While it was mostly open plains here, there were thick copses of cypress, live oak with moss, magnolia trees and palms. We were making great progress, and had just about reached the halfway point, when we were suddenly stopped dead in our tracks by a cattle guard on the road with no bypass gate! We had gone through one earlier, so I just assumed they would all be like that, but nope! Had to turn around and go all the way back on the same track, with the exception of that one small loop, and you know how I hate going backwards! We stopped at the hunt check station for a quick rinse off, then I put Flash away and rested for a bit. Then I decided I needed to find out if it was possible to go in the opposite direction all the way to that cattle guard, so I jumped in the truck and headed around the road in reverse. Turns out there are several other cattle guards with no gates, so that severely limits our trail choices! I can’t even get to a lot of the spur trails because of that. Crazy! I’ve never been anywhere that had cattle guards without a bypass gate! Starting to rethink going to Okaloacoochee Slough, which is essentially on the northwest side of where I am, as their map looks like it might have more trails, but I’m going to drive over there and check it out first. No sense staying here if there’s no real riding. Got back, met another camper who happened to also be from upstate NY, so we chatted for a bit. Then, just as I was making dinner, the people who had reserved this spot showed up. Oh, well. At least he didn’t insist I move immediately, said we could do it in the morning, so that’s my first exercise tomorrow. After dinner, I attended an OTL meeting by phone, think we made a lot of progress, got most of the Volunteer list filled with names, so at least we know where the blanks are, and there aren’t too many of them. The biggest gap is shuttles and drivers, Anita still hasn’t confirmed a bus she thought she had procured, so we’re starting to look elsewhere. I’ve had a pretty good response for volunteers since I posted just yesterday, so I have high hopes it will all come together in the end. I have a very busy day tomorrow, I’m supposed to be meeting brother Glenn and wife and maybe Jeff for lunch tomorrow, but at a place that’s 80 miles away, farther than I thought when I suggested it, mea culpa. So off to shower and bed early, long day ahead! Good night, babe! Love you!