Hi Sweetie,
An excellent night sleep, a good start to our final day of trail checking. Today it's the white trail, and a mystery from the spring ride was solved. Apparently there are two white trails, the white river trail and the white forest trail. I had been told by several people that the white trail was their favorite, and the only one I knew about was the white river trail, and I didn't particularly like it. Today, however, I was checking the white FOREST trail, and I can certainly see why people liked it, it was lovely. Not quite 15 miles, it did mostly meander through the woods, so there was only the occasional bit of gravel and stone to cope with. Once again, I didn't put boots on Flash, but he was still pretty slow at first. I'm now pretty sure his problem is simply that he's depressed and missing Apollo. He's been laying down even more than usual, which is really saying something, but he didn't have any signs of limping or discomfort, he is just going really slow. Once we got turned back toward camp, though, his pace picked up considerably, so I'm thinking his slowness isn't physical, it's mental. He might be a little tired, after all he's done over 50 miles this week now, but I'm not convinced it's that. I'm continuing him on the bute, though, just in case. Normally I would give him a day off, but the trailmaster Stagg is giving me the extreme honor of being able to ride on the west trails, a rare privilege usually only reserved for the 50 milers or more, and is closed off the guests the rest of the time, so I just don't want to miss this chance! We're labeling me as a "drag rider," following behind everyone else to make sure everybody gets out okay. They apparently used to do it but quit when drag riders were getting lost, something he knows he doesn't have to worry about with me. Anyway, Flash is just going to have to tough it out for me tomorrow. I learned of a shortcut that will take about four miles off, and I'm taking the orange west trail, so in all it will be about the same as today, about 15 miles. Got back today before 3:15, chatted with Patsy a minute, then got back to camp and put Flash away, giving him some feed. He's not liking this hay too much, I'll be glad to get rid of it! Drove down to have dinner with the group, a nice self-serve buffet of rigatoni lasagna, salad and garlic knots, and sat in the riders meeting, where Stagg and I worked out the logistics for tomorrow. Got back after 7:30, watched a Farscape, won't be long out of bed! Good night, babe! Love you!
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