Hey Babe,
Another long, busy, tiring day, didn't even get back to the trailer until 9:30 pm. Worked in the kitchen most of the day, helping plan and prepare the evening meal, helping a bit with breakfast as well. We ran out of too much food too early last night, and Carol was determined not to let that happen again, so today we overplanned, and cooked way too much, but at least we didn't run out! I helped slice up squash with my kitchen machine, which was a lot easier, but we made way too much. Whatever, we've got leftovers! I had to make a quick run into town for a couple of things Carol forgot on her shopping trip this morning, but then went nonstop all day in preparation, though it was a lot more measured, planned and calm than yesterday. Jo finished her 50 mile ride in 14th place, which she was very happy about, and I picked up her prize for her since she wanted to go to bed early. I fed my hungry horses and was ready for bed almost as soon as I got back, but, of course, horses came first. Definitely ready for shower and bed forthwith! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Sweetheart!
Another exciting day, up with an early 7:00 alarm, discovering that it was still raining. Even through my earplugs, I heard a lot of rain last night, and sure enough, there was a lot of standing water around this morning. Had breakfast, fed the horses, and was over at the Snack Shack by 8:15, where I helped to stick batteries into little lights that we later took out on the trail. We had to wait for the water to recede a bit, the owner, Jerry, was concerned about damaging the trails and asked us to wait. We finally hit the trail around 1:00 on an ATV, so a lot of hopping on and off, as we put up the lights, white for straight, green for turns, red for caution. We were nearly done when Becky's husband John caught up with us, and she had to run off to put up some mileage signs for the FEI side of the ride, and John took me the rest of the say. It took us almost three hours to complete. I went back into the Snack Shack and worked on some computer stuff, there's a good signal there. Then I started helping Jack with his cell phone, he has ads popping up every few minutes, on top of everything else he's working on, very annoying! There didn't seem to be an easy fix, but I played around with that until dinner and the rider's meeting, then finally headed back to the trailer after 7:30. Got the horses fed, and loved on Lola for a bit, she was very glad to see me after being alone all day. At least I didn't have to cook and clean! Heading to shower and bed, I imagine I'll be busy doing all kinds of go-fer stuff tomorrow. Good night, baby! Love you!

Pix to come.

Hey Sweetie!
Woke up to the alarm, which I set just to make sure I didn't sleep too late, finished packing, stopped at their conveniently located RV dump, and was on the road before 10:00. Had an uneventful drive down to our next stop, Broxton Bridge, to help with their endurance ride this weekend. Owner Jerry met me in his truck and took me to where I'm supposed to be staying in their primitive area, and I had my choice of spots. Found the perfect one that lets me point to the SW, with the trailer in shade and the front wide open for my solar panel and two great trees for a highline. Got set up in no time, the horses well-settled before I headed out again to find some hay. The nearest place ended up being a feed store, G&G Milling, about 20 minutes away, where I got coastal for $11 bale. Can't believe how the prices are going up! They were very heavy bales for their size though, and I got enough for this week, and to have a full load when I drive to Florida. Once I off-loaded some bales and covered the rest with my tarp to keep them dry from the incoming rain in the forecast, I drove over to one of the empty sites and filled up my water tank in the truck, then transferred to the trailer all that it could hold. Most of the campers will be in electric sites, but I don't mind being in a primitive spot, especially when it gets crowded. I even got a password for the guest wifi, so now, FINALLY, I'm enjoying live streaming! I finished off Terra Nova (they only had one season, unfortunately), and a rom-com just for fun. Met with Becky, who helps with the trails here, and made a plan for tomorrow. Now I'm heading to shower and bed, got an early morning tomorrow! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hi Babe!
Woke up pretty confused this morning! My Kindle on my phone was telling my one time, my phone was telling me another time, and when I looked at my computer, it was telling me a third, different time! I had forgotten all about the changing of the clocks last night, and because of the poor cell signal here, it was taking awhile for things to get caught up, and they still haven't. I think my computer reverted to Central Time or something, though it's saying Eastern, Who knows, hopefully it will all straighten out at the next stop. Anyway, I ended up getting up much later than usual, even with the time change, and the place was almost empty by the time I fed the horses, except for a group of kids that were camping overnight, and they were gone a bit later. I only had to do one load of laundry, not surprising considering the short week, and I did a little more deep cleaning in the bedroom and some regular housekeeping, plus getting some stuff packed up for our departure tomorrow. Found a dead mouse in the back of the kitchen cupboard, proof my pesticide efforts are working, though I found it by the smell. I figured that would happen, but a dead mouse is better than a live one, so I cleaned that up and hope I won't find a lot more. Glad I could reach it easily! Was afraid they might end up between walls or something. So now it's getting dark by 5:30, so I fed the horses before then, and the long evening stretched out in front of me. Watched a long, boring movie with Liam Neeson, which killed a few hours, and I'm planning on getting to bed fairly early, now that the days start earlier, I need to revise my body clock (she says for the umpteenth time!) Whatever, I'm making my tea and getting ready for bed soon. Good night, darlin'! Love you!

Pix to come.

Hey Darlin'!
Slept late, back to my late night/late morning schedule lately. After chores and breakfast, I did some housekeeping, found out where a bunch of stinkbugs were hiding (in the front cupboard of the bedroom), and got ride of them. Read for awhile, then at 1:30, got Flash ready to ride. I'd made arrangements to ride with Melissa, whom I met at Sandhills, and she brought her friend Marsha, who was also at Sandhills, and we headed out on the trail just after 2:00. They were both riding TN Walkers, but Flash took the lead and was his best speedy self despite the long, fast ride we took yesterday. He is in super great condition right now! We did about 12 miles at a nice pace, with quite a bit of cantering. We took the yellow trail and it was just lovely. Their two horses were getting pretty tired by about halfway through, but of course, Flash started moving faster once we turned south toward camp, so we were out front quite a bit. Love that horse! Melissa brought me a couple of bales of hay, so now I'm a lot less worried about finding hay my first day out at Broxton next week, I have a little reprieve, thank goodness. Got back just after 5:00, they packed up and said their good-byes, I made a nice Alfredo dinner and settled down to a rather pointless movie. While the trails are lovely and definitely worth riding, and the price and options for camping are very nice, I've been very frustrated here by the poor cell phone signal, it really has made the stay here less than perfect.. Heading to shower and bed shortly! Good night, sweetheart! Love you!

Hey Babe!
A beautiful morning, did some odds and ends, then headed into Manning, the nearest town, to do some shopping. Ace Hardware first for several rubber washers and bushings for little odd jobs around the trailer, then horse feed and propane at Tractor Supply, where I considered getting a couple extra bales of hay, but at $12.50 a bale again, it seemed like a lot, and I wasn't desperate. Finished off at Walmart for fuel and some grocery items. Got back to camp around 4:00, got everything put away. I discovered that my phone isn't working, at least the phone calling part of it. I tried rebooting it a couple of times, but that didn't help. Unfortunately, there isn't a Verizon store in this small town, so I'm going to have to wait until I can find one. Oddly, my texting and most everything else works, I've been doing some texting, though I don't know if that's my live streaming issue. I should have check it but forgot about it. I did some emailing using the Taco Bell wifi before going into Walmart, so there isn't anything pressing at the moment. I'm looking forward to getting back to a place in Florida where I can sort all these little problems out! Did a couple of minor repairs before settling down to dinner and a couple of movies, thank goodness I have my DVR full of movies! Doing a lot of reading this week, anyway! Good night, my darlin'! Love you!

Hey Sweetie,
Woke up to a gray day with sporatic drizzle, so not the nice weather I needed to do laundry today, or to ride, so I started the day by doing some housekeeping, which included putting out some Borax for the insects and Havoc for the mice. I hadn't intended to do any deep cleaning, but when I looked under the refrigerator to put in my pesticides where I had deep-cleaned before, I discovered the vermin had been in there again, and had eaten through all the foam insulation I had put in around the plumbing. So I had to clean that up, plus a little regular housework as well. After that, I ended up spending most of the day working on trail maps, both for Broxton Bridge and Biltmore. I hadn't gotten around to doing the west side of the Biltmore trails, and that took quite a bit of time to sort out, then I just managed to download the .pdf files for the Broxton trails and worked on those for awhile, but they got really confusing. Lots of sections that go both ways, and some illegible arrows that I can't make heads or tail of. Plus, according the Becky, who's been doing these trails for many years, the map is very different on a couple of the trails, so I'm probably wasting my time until I get out there anyway. I wasn't even able to email the Biltmore trails to the folks over there, the cell signal is so bad. I don't understand it, I'm getting two solid bars, but I can't do anything except some browsing on the internet. I've gotten email in, but I can't seem to send any out, and streaming is out of the question. Grrr! I had been hoping for a relaxing week, but not have a good cell signal is more than a little frustrating. I did manage to watch a movie off my PVR, but it's definitely going to be a week of lots of reading! Anyway, that was my day, pretty mundane. Hoping to get laundry and a short ride on Apollo tomorrow, but who knows? Love being flexible! Good night, babe! Love you!

Pix to come.

Hiya Babe!
Let myself sleep in a bit this morning since it was such a short drive to Mill Creek. Didn't take long to pack up since I did most of it yesterday, and I was heading out of camp just after 10:00. Once I got to Gasline Road, though, I had a little problem. Patsy had told me that if I turned right, the way I came in, the hill was very slippery and someone had jack-knifed their trailer there Saturday night after the rain. It was possible that it was dry enough by now, but there's no place to go if it wasn't. She had suggested turning left and circling back by the lake. So I started to turn left, but that was actually going up a little hill and making a sharp corner, and there was a big tree on the corner, and the sand berm was built up on the high side. So about halfway around, the trailer was dragging really badly in the berm, so I had to back up and swing a whole lot wider, which meant I was way over on the berm on the right side in order to make the left, and I was still dragging, but at least I made it. Then I had another left turn on Mountain Rd., and I had to drive my truck halfway over the next berm in front of me in order to avoid the sign on the corner! Not sure if I wasn't better off trying the other way, but I was committed by then! The rest of the drive was uneventful, thank goodness! I made one stop at a Post Office to drop off my completed ballot, and some of the back roads were a bit rough, but I arrived right around 12:30. I had to take a walk to reconnoiter between the primitive sites and the electric sites, though most of the former seemed to be on pretty unlevel ground. I was almost tempted to take an electric site, but finally decided on a site next to the bathhouse with a couple of HUGE trees for the horses' highline. Managed to get mostly set up by just after 2:00, though I had to do some reconfiguring when the highline dropped down too low. The circumference of one of the trees has to be close to 10 feet, I really had to jury-rig my feed bag rings to make it work. Bad news is, the cell coverage is still really bad. Despite getting two bars on my phone, I can't even come close to live streaming, and I'm barely able to get on the internet. Disappointing! I was really hoping for a reprieve from that after all the frustration at Sandhills last night, but I guess I'll be doing a lot of reading this week! Of course, I still have movies on my old satellite PVR if I'm desperate. Anyway, horses are happily munching away just outside my door, and it's a beautiful night with a fantastic forecast for the entire week. It's hunting season, and some of the trails are closed, but I'm planning on giving Flash a rest for a few days anyway, though a short ride on Apollo may be in order, for Lola's sake as well. Looking forward to a good night sleep! Good night, darlin'! Love you!

Hi Darlin'!
Got up with my alarm this morning, got my chores and breakfast done, then drove up to see what help was needed to finish packing up the ride stuff. Most of it was done, though Patsy said the little hill out of here was so slick after the rain last night that someone slid off the road last night, so suggested I take "the long way" out, which isn't really that long, just not as direct, but it's flat, so there's less chance of getting stuck. They all left to put stuff in their storage shed, so I went back to camp and started breaking down everything. Had pretty much everything put away before 11:00 or so, with just a few odds and ends I finished in the afternoon. I let the horses graze this afternoon, since they've been cooped up in the corral all day yesterday. It was a gray day, though fortunately not raining as predicted, and a bit cool, so I spent a few hours doing research for my absentee ballot, which was in my package yesterday, and managed to get that all done. I had no trouble getting on the internet on my computer, but when I went to watch TV in the afternoon, for some reason, I just couldn't pick up a good enough cell signal to do live streaming today. Usually, if I'm patient, I can find a spot that will work, but I spent hours trying, and only managed to watch about ten minutes of TV. I finally gave up and read for the evening. I did manage to get my Spanish lesson in, and to load up my diary for the day, but that was about it. Couldn't do laundry, but the rest of the week looks like better weather, so it will get done soon. A fairly short drive tomorrow, so no alarm in the morning! That'll be a nice change! Love you, sweetie! Good night!