Hi Babe!
Had a good night sleep, then did chores. Maggie and Sandy both decided not to ride today, Sandy had a brief dizzy spell which we attributed to a bit of dehydration from the ride yesterday, so ended up riding Socks again today. Pat decided not to come along on her other horse, and the two new girls, Joyce and Sean came along, so it was just the four of us. They wanted to do the lake trail, so we took that one. I tried to figure out where I lost the trail last time, and still managed to miss it somehow, but it was a very nice ride, much more relaxing because my two slowpokes weren’t holding us back, which made it a much faster ride as well. We were back in camp just after noon, though Sandy and Maggie had gone off somewhere to find a wifi signal. I went looking for them, and they were just coming, back to camp, so we ended up deciding to find a place where we could have lunch, a wifi signal and air-conditioning for a few hours. We ended up with an additional bonus, waterfront, because we went to Cindy’s on the Barge, down by the Marina. A nice little, inexpensive grill with a gift shop where Sandy bought a T-shirt for her husband. After lunch they drove down to the barn so they could get another look at the horse Sandy is considering buying, I stayed behind to do a bunch of overdue work on my computer, including uploading this week’s worth of diary entries. When I finished that, I called the ladies to see if they were still at the barn, but neither answered, so I thought maybe they had already got back to camp so I drove there. They weren’t there, so I went and visited Trish and her group for a bit, and we all decided to take a run out to the Bison and Elk sanctuaries they have here. Once everyone got organized, we headed to the north on first, where there was an unexpected $5 entry fee, but we paid and drove around about a two mile (if that) loop where we saw one tiny herd of about 10 bison at the top of a hill, barely visible. Not exactly worth it, but hey, we did it! Then we headed south to the other bison viewing area, but we got about six miles or so south when we learned the ladies in the other truck were running low on fuel. Rather than head back north (which would have been shorter), we kept going south, all the way down to Dover, TN to find fuel. Trish knew of an ice cream place in town so we drove there, only to discover they were “closed for maintenance” at 5:00! Crazy! So then we went back to the McDonalds, because now I was really in the mood for something sweet, and when I asked for ice cream or a milkshake, I was told they weren’t available at the moment! REALLY?? Oh, well, I managed to get a Caramel Frappe which satisfied my sweet tooth and need for something cool on my tongue. We headed back towards camp, and saw a single rogue Bison on the south viewing range by some corrals, then another herd further up a hill, actually more than we saw in the paid viewing area, so I guess we got our money’s worth. By the time we got back to camp (and I went the back way to show them the crazy road I drove in on with the trailer and ran into a short, heavy downpour) Sandy and Maggie were back. We chatted for a bit, exchanging stories about our adventures, and all the new information Sandy learned about the horse she’s looking at, sounds very promising for her! We even are considering that I bring her up to her when she’s visiting her daughter and granddaughter in central Michigan, if we can get the timing to work out. Then just as we were settling down to watch Silver Streak, all the ladies showed up for a tour of the trailer (those who hadn’t seen it yet) and to chat about tomorrow. They’re getting bummed out by the heat and are considering leaving in the morning rather than riding, which kind of changes all our plans, but nothing too serious. They’ll make a final decision in the morning. I mean, yeah, it’s hot, and really humid with all the rain, but it’s a lot cooler in the woods so for me it’s no big deal when you’re riding, but I guess it matters to some folks. We’ll see. Anyway, after they left, we watched a little more of the movie while Sandy’s pillow was in the dryer, then they both headed out to their respective tents. Now it’s my turn for a shower and bed, at least I downloaded my next two books while I was out, I ran out of reading last night, horror of horrors! So I’ll say good-night now, my darling! Love you!

Hi Sweetie!
Hard to believe it would have been 32 years of marriage today! And 35 years together! What a ride it’s been, and still is! We all slept well, and this morning after chores, we all mounted up for our first group ride together. I had planned about an 8-mile trip, which everyone thought was a good start just to see how it all went, and it turned out quite well. Maggie rode Flash for the first time, Sandy was on Apollo, and I was on Pat’s extra horse Socks, a beautiful quarter horse mare with lots of get up and go. Only problem was, as the ride progressed, Pat was rather adamant that I keep Socks at a walk, no matter what. She really wanted to run up hills and jog to catch up with the leaders, but Pat said no, so toward the end, Socks was really being pushy about wanting to go, and I would have loved to, she had a beautiful jog and a fabulous lope, but instead I was fighting her for the last couple of miles. Not as much fun as I would have liked, but beggars can’t be choosers, it was either that or stay home. Other than that bit of trouble, the ride was quite nice, lots of dirt roads, not as much gravel as I’ve seen, though there was still quite a bit. Not too steep but still some grades, overall a good ride. Got back to camp just after 2:00, didn’t have any rain again, despite the dire forecast of storms, got all the horses put away. Sorry to say that Flash’s bulbs are being rubbed raw by these new boots, he’s going to have to get a few days off before we’re going to try that again. Apollo isn’t raw, but he’s definitely footsore, he was dragging behind all day. Well, can’t say I blame them, they’ve been working hard the last few weeks! Not used to this rough terrain! The ladies then decided they wanted to go visit a horse sale barn, where Candy had bought her Walkaloosa a few years ago, just for fun, so off we went. It was only about 20 minutes away, so it was an easy trip. We walked around the barn and looked at all the horses, but since I wasn’t in the market, I ended up going back to the truck and taking care of a little business, including find a local haymaker and arranging to pick some up over the weekend. When we got back to camp, we discovered it had rained while we were gone (and there was a beautiful rainbow right over camp!), but we had left out tack out to dry, and of course it got wet, but a couple of young ladies who had moved in across the road from us told us they had put out saddles inside the screen room for us! How incredibly kind and thoughtful! We put the rest away, then got dinner ready, which we enjoyed at the picnic table, then settled down for the evening trying to figure out what we’re going to do tomorrow. I want to let my horses rest, and there’s only one spare horse, so we’re thinking Sandy will ride Socks, and Maggie and I will stay home. I really have a lot of work to get caught up on, and I have all next week to ride, and Maggie has already said she wants to rest tomorrow, so I think that’s the best solution. Anyway, enjoying a little bowl of ice cream, then I’ll be taking a shower and be off to bed shortly! Good night, my love! Happy Anniversary! Love you forever and ever!

Hi Babe!
Another good night sleep, though I’m glad my AC was on before going to bed, it was pretty hot and humid. Got out of bed around 8:00, after doing some of my PT exercises. My knee is feeling really good these days, there’s even times when I momentarily forget about it, and those times are getting longer and longer, so I trust it won’t be long before it’s all back to normal. Got the horses saddled and booted and headed out to do Trail #1, which goes along the edge of the lake part of the way. There’s a lot of stones on some stretches, though some was just dirt and mud, which was nice, nothing too mucky. The horses are still being very “mincey” on the stones, and Flash still has some raw spots on his heel bulbs from his new boots, I was hoping that three days off would have helped, but not enough to callous yet. It was a nice ride, though, just over six miles. When we got back, we headed into Murray, KY, because the Tractor Supply said they had my Nutrena Balancer last week, but when we got there, they had NONE! Very disappointing! Apparently they have one customer who comes in irregularly and buys up the lot, so I was stuck. The next nearest TSC was 30 miles in the wrong direction, and I’m not that low, so I decided to wait until they got their shipment on Saturday to see if they got any more (they have no control over that, it’s all done at HQ), but the woman there said she’d get some in for me even if she had to send one of her employees to the nearest store and pick them up for me! Very generous! I’m hoping she won’t have to go to all that trouble, and there is another store east of Wranglers about the same distance, if I have to go there I will. Good thing I have enough for a while! I’ll need to find some hay by then, too, maybe sooner, and without a cell signal, it’s going to be a challenge! We then went to a little Mexican restaurant and had a lovely meal, then Walmart to pick up a few things and fill up the truck, then back to camp, where Sandy had already arrived and Trish was just walking over to my trailer when we pulled up, so it was all happy timing in the end! We sat around chatting for a bit, then we went over to her trailer (well, her friend’s trailer whom she’s traveling with), and we all chatted with Pat and Candy as well. More of her friends are arriving tomorrow, but we’re all going to ride tomorrow, and Pat brought an extra horse so we can do that. Evidently the new friends coming tomorrow are bringing yet ANOTHER extra horse, so my guys will be able to switch off and rest every other day, which will be nice for them. I helped them with a couple of water issues, then we separated for the night so I could plan a route for tomorrow. The gals just finished their showers, so I’m about to take mine, then off to bed! Good night, Darlin’! Love you!

Hi Darlin’!
A good night sleep with no alarm in the morning, yay! Still got up fairly early, that’s the habit now, got the horses fed, just had cereal for breakfast, then ran out to the coop for a few bales of hay so I won’t run out next week, though it’s not great hay and the horses are leaving a lot on the ground. I only got two bales, so I didn’t bother to get out of the truck to load, which was my mistake, because when I got back to camp I discovered that one of the bales was completely rotten and moldy on one side, so I had to run back and change it out. Crappy hay at a higher than normal price, NOT GOOD! By the time I got back, though, the horses were pretty much tacked up and ready to go, so Callie and I took off for our ride. The horses were REALLY being reluctant today, can’t say I blame them with all the rocks and how much riding they’ve been doing on steep hills after nothing but sand a flat for six months. We managed okay. I took Callie to a secret place that I discovered that she had asked about, then because the horses were acting so tender-footed, but took a shortcut back to camp, a minor one-way horse trail direct from town to camp, so we were back in short order, less than two hours, for which I’m sure the horses were grateful. Then we all decided to go to the snack shack down in town (run by Loretta’s daughter) for lunch, I left the truck at the tube pickup point by town, and afterward we came back and all got ready to launch out tubes! The creek was moving MUCH faster than last year, but it still was over 90 minutes long (last year it was two hours), but it was very enjoyable. We had to portage around the same tree as last year, but with the creek higher, we didn’t have to do any dragging. It was a beautiful ride, nice and peaceful, with no one on the water once we got out of camp, so it was pretty quiet, which made it lovely. It was a really great day! We weren’t hungry enough for dinner after that late lunch, so a touch of ice cream, now I’m off to shower and bed! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Sweetie!
Another busy day here at the Loretta Lynch Summer Ride! Slept in till the last moment to get breakfast, then came back and fed the horses and Lola. Then we spent a few minutes pulling everything out of the screen room and washing it down, everything got so muddy with the rain, including the rug. Then we spread everything out to dry, since it was a gorgeous day today. Maggie decided not to ride today, so I decided to go with Sandy, since she was up for it, and she had wanted to ride Apollo, whom she hadn’t ridden yet, so after awhile, we saddled them up and headed off at around 11:00. It was later than we wanted but we tried to fit a breast collar that I had bought at Tractor Supply but it turned out to be too small. I’ll have to look at it again to see if I can modify it to work, or if I have to return it and find something else. We decided to follow the green trail, which had a few really serious climbs (a couple even made Flash’s legs shake and he almost slid backwards on one), and a long section of it was right down a creek bed full of sharp stones, way too long, in my opinion, but it could be easily remedied by trails that paralleled the creek. I mentioned it to Anthony about maybe rerouting it, but we’ll see. But meanwhile, it was still a lovely ride, though it got us back just after the cook shack closed at 1:30, but they were kind enough to make us a sandwich anyway. After we got the horses put away, Sandy and I decided to spend some time down in the creek, so we carried our chairs down there and sat for quite awhile in the cool water. I brought Lola out a little later and played fetch in the creek, but the current was running so fast she kept losing it in the current. We had their usual, very nice fish fry dinner, then came back and fed the horses, and then decided to take the wagon ride that took us on a long loop around the ranch and the neighborhood. Apparently we took an unusual route because the regular route was too washed out after the rain, but it was pleasant enough, a gorgeous evening, and the bugs didn’t even bother me. Lots of fireflies, just lovely. Got back around 10:00, and I showered before dinner, so I’m off to bed soon, pretty much as soon as I finish this diary entry! Love you, babe! Good night!

Hi Darlin’!
Woke up an hour before the alarm, so after awhile I got up and started on some things that needed doing. After I got the chores done and had breakfast, Anthony arrived just after nine (a remarkable feat!), and we were off and running. Today’s job was to mark the yellow trail and finish off a missing loop on the green trail. We managed to get most of the yellow done before we ran out of markers and paint, then we decided to divide to conquer, and after a quick trip to his house for supplies, he dropped me off to ride the blue trail and mark that on my own because it was too narrow for his side by side, and then he went off to finish the yellow trail. It took be longer than I expected, because the trail had really been rerouted because of bad storms a few years ago, and I had to ride it twice to make sure I had it right, but finally got it done, hopefully well enough that few people will get lost. It was nearly 4:30 by the time I got back to camp, but when I arrived, Maggie and Sandy had arrived, and Callie and her mom were keeping them company. We chatted for a bit, then got busy putting up the tent for Maggie. Sandy had already put up her cot tent, and the temperature was dropping like mad. We ran out of time to have dinner so we decided to wait, and headed off to the riders’ meeting at the pavilion. Anthony did a great job, I thought, and so did all my friends. He even included the bit I added about people pushing their manure all the way back in the manure bin, people just keep dropping it near the entrance and it leaves so much space empty it’s ridiculous. Anyway, it went well, the gals headed back to their respective camps, I jumped in the truck to go to the office to get my wristband since I didn’t have time to do it while the office was open, then got back to camp where the gals had already started cooking. We made short work of dinner, chatted some more, then finally broke up for bed. I’ve had my shower and I’m off and running to bed now! Love you sweetie! Good night!

Hi Darlin’,
I was having some trouble getting to sleep, and then I heard some folks arriving at 1:30 in the morning! Crazy! Put my earplugs in and managed to fall asleep after that, though not enough hours. Did my chores, then around 9:20 I drove down to the office hoping to get five minutes with Anthony the manager about getting a schedule together to hand out so folks will know what’s going on (my bone of contention last year!), and we ended up talking for 90 minutes! He seemed very receptive to all of my ideas, and asked me to combine them with some of his and put something together, which I promised to have by end of day. Finally got back to the trailer, poor Callie and her dad had been waiting for an hour, I was apoplectic with apologies for the delay, I hadn’t taken my phone with me, but they were very understanding. Anyway, Callie and I went to get the horses, and Trail Boss Bubba had shown up and parked in his usual spot next to the barn, and he and I got into a pretty heated discussion about a whole range of things, most of it not worth mentioning, and we managed to work it out in the end, though it took better than half an hour to accomplish. We FINALLY got the horses saddled and took off. I had put together what I though would be a fairly straightforward and not too complicated route, and we were doing great on it, right up until Callie said she thought this was the longest we had ever gone riding together and not gotten lost, and wouldn’t you know? Right after that, we got lost. Grrrr! I STILL don’t know where we went wrong, it’s just crazy how badly marked the horse trails are here! I had planned about a five mile trip, thinking maybe a bit over two hours, it ended up being 3:45! It was after 4:00 when we got back. Callie’s parents showed up a bit later, we put the horses away, then I settled down to work on my project, got that finished, fed the horses, and finally settled down for the evening. Feeling pretty tired (not to mentioned frustrated that I keep getting lost in here!), so I’m guessing I’ll sleep better tonight! Going to bed early, for sure! Good night, sweetie! Love you!

Hi Babe,
Not the best night sleep, but woke up with the alarm because the first thing on my agenda was a virtual visit with my knee surgeon, everything’s coming along fine, next visit is three months from now. Got the horses and Lola and me fed, then I went looking for Anthony, but he hadn’t come back from Nashville, so I grabbed a trash bag and my picker-uppers and started cleaning up the trash that was strewn everywhere. What a mess this last group made! Evidently there were a lot of law enforcement types, and while I support our men and women in blue, I must say that this group earned the moniker ‘pig.’ I never saw some much trash piled up, nowhere near a trash container! Anyway I did that for a few hours, got most of it done, though there are a still a few corners I need to revisit. Still no sign of Anthony, so I decided to take a ride and see what kind of shape the trails are in. I fastidiously planned a route, only to have it go bust on many occasions when the markings on the trails, and even the trails themselves, were not match anywhere. I’d forgotten how steep and rough so many of the trails here are, very challenging! I put on Flash’s new boots and they were perfect, and Flash worked his butt off today! After six months on flat sandy trails, this was a really tough day for him! All over the trails we kept finding yellow caution tape strung everywhere, though I’m sure it was for the jeep or dirt bike people, because there was very little in the way of downed trees. Well, I take that back, there are several areas where the trees are down and evidently have been for some time, so some trails have been permanently rerouted, except some of the old markers are still out there, so naturally the confusion caused some misdirection. I would LOVE to refurbish all the trail markers and do a new map, one that clearly distinguishes between the motorized vs. the horse trails. There were so many mismatched markers it was hard to figure out what trail I was on, much less what trail I was SUPPOSED to be on! It would take some time, but it would certainly be worth doing. Anyway, we finally got back to camp around 5:00, and I stripped down Flash to his bridle, then hopped on bareback and headed for the creek. He was hesitant, but I eventually got him in pretty deep. Not enough to swim, but I didn’t want to push him, it took me long enough just to get him belly deep! Afterwards I fed them, played with Lola in the water for awhile, even bringing my chair down to sit in the creek for a bit, and finally got everything settled for the evening. Hopefully I’ll find Anthony in the morning, I have so many questions to ask about the trails, and to find out what he wants me to do as his volunteer force. So I’m off to shower and bed! Good night, honey! Love you!

Hi Babe,
Well, this is definitely a case of “Glad I came, but won’t be back!” I had a hard night sleep, as I typically do when I eat late and drink hard liquor, woke up around 3:30 and took a long time getting back to sleep, daylight was coming by then. Rose up to say good-bye to my Florida panhandle folks who were planning on driving all the way back today, close to eight hours straight home. Hope they made it okay! Saddled up Flash after breakfast, put his boots on, tried to duct tape the one that fell apart, it got me about as far as the trailhead (100 feet), and I had to take it off. I stayed with one on for awhile, switched it over once just to keep it balance, but eventually took that one off, too, and he was barefoot most of the second half of the ride. I tried to stay on wider trails today, and for a couple of minutes, I even got on a section of the C trail where I started to relax! I hadn’t realized it, but I hadn’t had that feeling all week! But it was short-lived, because that soon turned to deep mud, with occasional side trails that went around it which were only marginally better in some cases. Still, there was more to like about the C trail than to dislike, so it wasn’t bad. I had planned to take 16 out towards Mountain Top, but it was in really bad shape, evidently it hasn’t been looked after in quite some time, and I eventually figured out that it actually goes below the bluff not on top of it, but I didn’t know that till much later. I opted to pick up 17, which was obviously a more traveled trail, and that took me all along the edge of the bluff for awhile. Not too bad, just a lot of knee-knockers, so I was constantly pushing against trees to prevent a disaster (so not relaxing, again!) I misread the map (again) and ended up back at the old saloon (which I had already passed once, then followed the signs to Bald Knob, another destination with a 360 degree panoramic vies and a flagpole on top, where I ran into three other riders who tagged along with me as I headed down the trail to the pipeline. They stopped at the picnic table and I kept going, mostly on the eastern pipeline (which is a bit nicer than the western one) until I arrived back at 3 sisters trail. Then I headed into the woods on trail 1, which was right near camp and actually one of the nicer trails I’ve seen except, of course, it had some knee-knockers, too. We did eight miles, though Flash wasn’t too happy because of the stones and gravel, but Lola really had a good time, as always. I got back around 3:00, put everyone away, and eventually decided to go down to the Rattlesnake Saloon, which is the main attraction here, a restaurant partially inside a cave, with live music and bar food. It requires a taxi ride (a pickup truck with benches in the back) to get there, and I tried to bring Lola along, but the security guy refused her, saying it was a health department violation. That’s interesting, since I’ve never been turned away from a restaurant, a hospital, a senior home or anywhere else for that matter, this is the first time ever. Well, that’s just another item on a long list of reasons not to come back here! I brought her back to the trailer and returned, where the line had gotten three times as long and there looked like there might be a wait. I did managed to get on the next trip, though, but the only table they had was a six-top in the outer section, which was crazy for just me. Worse, the table next to me had five people, all smokers, and the wind was such it was all coming straight at me. I asked the server if she had a fan she could put out to blow it in the other direction, but she didn’t. Fortunately, a four-top farther away from them opened up, and she was kind enough to let me move over there. The burger was decent and the fries small and seasoned, the hard cider okay, I wasn’t really interested in the live music though it sounded about like what you’d expect from a local, rural Alabama band I suppose. Got back before 7:00, got the horses fed and put up on the highline, then went over to visit my other neighbors from Indiana, who I haven’t had much time to spend with, and we had a nice chat. I had a chance to do my Snowy River for them, they seemed to appreciate it. Once mosquito hour hit, it was time to settle down, now it’s time for my shower and bed! Good night, darlin’! Love you!

Hi Sweetie,
Well, I’m still in search of a trail worthy of recommending to anyone, sorry to say. Haven’t found one I’d even care to go back to, really. I did my usual morning routine, and since most of the group was driving ninety minutes somewhere to visit an Amish farmers market, I had decided to take Flash on a “short” trip today, but, as usual when the trails are poorly marked, that turned out to over nine miles, and a lot of them are really tough miles! We headed first to a destination called the Wave Rock, which was essentially a bluff, but it was unusually smooth for quite a distance, which is somewhat remarkable. Then, despite my GPS in one hand and the map in the other, I still ended up getting turned around because of poor trail markings and renegade trails that aren’t even on the map! Grrr! I ended up going a silly circle in rough terrain just to get out of it again! Finally I got back on track, at least for awhile, but I was plagued by the same annoyances for the entire ride. The boot that wasn’t in great shape got completely twisted, so I had to take it off, then at one point Flash slipped on one of these flat rocks in the middle of a road and went down. I managed to stay on during his first effort, but he slipped again and I came off on the second, slamming my hip onto the rock, so I’m sure I’ll have a nice bruise there by the time I get home. I passed a marker for the Indian shelter, which was still a mile away, and that was the last marker that I saw for it, even though I went on 4 or 5 different trails to get there. There was one quarter mile section of trail 33 to the lower waterfall that I like, but it didn’t last long and got worse afterwards. Flash’s second boot slipped off, so finally I took that off as well so he was barefoot most of the way. I got tired of narrow, knee-knocking trails so I stayed on more of the wider trails, but of course they had more gravel so it bothered him more. I must have backtracked more than half a dozen times trying to follow my planned route, and even then, I ended up on trails that didn’t match the map very well. So even though I was on the back of my horse, my usually mellow happy place, I was so frustrated and annoyed that it wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as I had hoped it would be. At least we were able to go faster and not have to worry about the big group, but still, it wasn’t as much fun as I hoped it would be. Lola came along this time, though, which was mostly the point of going out alone today, and she enjoyed herself for sure, though she got ahead of us a few times and had to come a long way back to catch up with us when we backtracked. Anyway, I finally got back to camp, spent some time working on my weekly reports in advance, was hoping to set up the accounting as necessary but the signal is so bad here it’s almost impossible to get on the internet, whether it’s my Verizon hotspot or the ranch wifi. Didn’t need that added stress here either! Like always, though, I’m glad I came, just don’t expect me to do it again! I learn from every experience, and Flash was really good today, despite the fact I’m sure he was tired and sore from yesterday. Anyway, a long hot shower and bed is in my immediate future! Good night, babe! Love you!