Hiya Sweetie,
What a beautiful day this turned out to be! It started out cloudy and with a hint of rain, but it gradually cleared up throughout the day until it was just perfect! I met the gals at the intersection between the Lincoln Trailhead and Double J (the place I hate, but where they were staying), and we headed out on the second “reachable” loop down Mill Branch and around to Raymer Hollow before climbing back up to Collie Ridge. Evidently they had a couple of bad storms in March, and so many trees came down that we seemed to be passing by recently cleared trees every hundred yards or so! There were even a couple of trees that hadn’t been cleared yet, or more likely have fallen since the last time they came out and checked, that required us to get very creative in order to go around them. One was so tall that it hung over the next ridge, and I had to use my camp saw to cut a branch that was preventing us from crossing over a big tree that was down, and that was a good 50 yards away from the trail, and it required a good climb to get back up to the trail. Sure was wishing I had one of those little 6 inch chainsaws right about then! Another one, right after we stopped for lunch by a creek, where we had to climb almost straight up the first couple of steps in order to get around the root ball. Some very challenging riding today! Otherwise, it was just a beautiful ride through hills and hollers and creeks. Lola came along today and thoroughly enjoyed herself, although at the end, just as we were splitting back up at the intersection, she followed the wrong horses toward Double J and I had to rush up and get her back when I realized she wasn’t with me anymore. Some of the trails had really excellent footing today, small pebble-like base that made it so much easier on the horses today. Shawn’s horse Rebel was VERY subdued today, whereas yesterday he kept wanting to stay out front and be speedy, but today he was as a slug like Apollo. Figured he wasn’t really in great condition for these types of hilly trails, but he managed to get back to camp okay, albeit slowly. After I left them and was heading out the last stretch to Lincoln Trailhead, there was a ranger driving down the trail/forest road, and I was worried he’s say something about Lola (technically dogs are supposed to be on a leash, which we horse people know is absurd and dangerous), but he passed right by me and didn’t even roll down his tinted window, so no worries there! Got back to camp, washed down Flash and put him and Apollo back out into the pasture Kristen was kind enough to let me use, then headed back over to Double J to pick up Joyce, Shawn and young Katie, and we went over to the Blue Holler Cafe for dinner (which features some German cuisine and a few other things that were quite original), very affordable, big servings, great service, very nice little family operation, and we all had a nice time. Drove them over to my camp to show them around (they loved it!), and then took them back to their camp where we chatted some more, before I came back to camp before dark. A beautiful, perfect day spent with fabulous friends. Life is so good! Won’t be long out of bed tonight (Lola’s zonked out, naturally!), looking forward to a quiet remainder of my evening. Good night, baby! Love you!
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