Saturday, December 14, 2024 – Work Trail Day with Another Christmas Party

Hiya Babe,
Woke up before the already early alarm, which gave me an opportunity to do a little planning for the morning, though once the day began, a lot of that changed. Left camp just after 7:30, stopped at the HQ for some ice to keep my deviled eggs cool, and arrived at Tidewater just before 8:00 as planned. My first thought was to check the bathrooms just to make sure they had enough supplies, since I knew there was the Levy County Horse Club coming in for their Christmas Party Pot Luck luncheon, only to discover not only was it under-stocked, it was HORRIBLE!! Both toilets were blocked up and full, there was no toilet paper, no paper towels in one (it was obvious that was what plugged the toilets along with the human waste), and the floors were filthy. What a mess! Obviously my first task was to straighten that out, plunging toilets, etc. Folks starting showing up on schedule, everyone was there except the forest service with their two UTV's. They finally arrived about 15 minutes later. I did a quick strategy meeting and sent two of the teams out on the trails, then had to wait for the second FS guy to run back up to HQ to get more toilet paper and bathroom supplies. Once he got back, we were about ready to go, when we realized that the trimming equipment, loppers, etc. were locked in the first FS guy's truck, so we had to wait for him to get back to open his truck and get what we needed. We finally got on the trail at 10:00, way behind schedule. We had only worked on the first area of concern when we got a call that the folks in the pavilion didn't have power, so I had to drive back and check on the circuit board, though it turned out to only be the GFI circuit which nobody checked. I finally got back to my team, and we raced through the rest of the trail. Fortunately, one of the other teams did a bit more than required, which saved us some time, and we managed to get back to camp at 12:15, a bit after the other teams, but in time for their pot luck lunch. Jo and Logan put up some great new trail signs at the entrance, the yield signs and instructions for non-horse people about what to do when they run into horses. Nice photo op! I stayed afterward and talked with a bunch of people, including the gals running the trail riding concession out of the Black Prong Equestrian Center, which I found to be very helpful, then got back to camp and had another long chat with a couple of campers from Canada, followed by a visit with my new friends from South Africa who stopped by to take some of my deviled eggs with them, and finally settled into my evening, with hot tub, shower, Farscapes and bourbon cocktails! Ready for bed soon, I'm exhausted from all these activities and early mornings! Good for me though, keeps up my stamina. Good night, my sweet! Love you!