Friday, December 30, 2011 – First Exploratory Ride at Tidewater

We haven’t been sleeping well in the last few days, so we were grateful to get a good night sleep last night, sleeping well and late this morning. We decided to take a short ride just to get a feel for the place, so we headed out Saddle Pen Road for a bit, which is where we had seen many horses enter the campground from last night when we were setting up. We got turned around a bit, when we realized that this area also only marked the trails on one side, and we were going the wrong way. We ended up cutting across along an unmarked trail, then followed along the old rail line because we knew from the map it would eventually cross a trail, but we didn’t like the gravel much, even though it was mostly covered over with grass. Eventually we ran into the yellow trail, and from there I easily navigated a way back to the campground, albeit in the “opposite” direction than the trail blazes dictated. Well, that’s what exploring is all about! The trails, again are very nice, with good footing in most places, though some have some fairly deep sand, but nothing we and our horses couldn’t handle with aplomb! A nice quiet ride with some lovely jogs and short canters, and the temperature was perfect, just what we’ve been searching for all along! A great day, especially as it is the second anniversary of the day we “ran away from home” on December 30, 2009!