After several days of rest and relaxation, which was about the only thing we (and the weather) were good for this week, we finally decided we were fit enough to get a ride in. Got the horses saddled up and ready to go, let the dogs out and headed north, to an area of the park we've never been. We started out wrong, though, because I used an overlay map to plot a course that took us on to a road, which I couldn't tell from the map, and in order to avoid the road, we took the first trail we came to, which turned out to be a hiking/walking trail, not a horse trail, but we weren't on it long before meeting up with an official horse trail. We turned north on Chase Creek Trail until we reached High Banks, a wonderful little trail that evidently hadn't had much traffic lately, and that made it even more pleasant. The trail was dirt with some pine roots across it, but only a few muddy spots, incredible considering it rained almost all night last night, sometimes very heavy, but it had mostly drained away, which is one of the things I like about these trails. About halfway around that loop there's a nice scenic area with a picnic table and a hitching post right next to a river, where we stopped and had a quick lunch, while the dogs frolicked in the water and the horses rested at the rail. Before long we were headed out again, after giving the horses a couple of apples as a treat, then climbed back up the ridge until we started heading south again. This time we stayed on Chase Creek Trail until it became Confusion Flats, which brought us straight to Blue Jog Trail and the final leg home. We had one group of three women pass us going in the other direction and a couple that we let pass us on the way home. Apollo was fantastic all day until the last straight line home, when I asked him for a canter and he wanted to give me a runaway gallop. When I tried to slow him down he got a little fussy, he obviously really wanted to run, but I managed to finally slow him down with a one-rein (almost) stop, then jogged him the rest of the way just to get him listening again. One of these bright days I'm going to have to get him in an arena and lope the heck out of him until he learns he can actually run slowly, something he apparently doesn't know yet. My fault, of course, no excuses! Got back to camp exactly 4 hours after we left, got the horses back on their highline, started the generator (it's after 4:00, of course :-), and began our evening. A perfect day, perfect temperature at 70 degrees (precisely what we're constantly searching for!), perfect trails, a wonderful day!
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