Hiya Darlin',
Another night where getting cooled down took some time, but ended up being a good night sleep eventually. After chores and breakfast and a bit of reading, I finally saddled up Flash to check out the trails here. I haven't been able to get Google Earth to open up MyPlaces for some reason (it's saying it can't connect to the network, but that never stopped it before, so I don't know what's going on,) so I wasn't able to do any of my usual planning, but I did have a map, so off we went, leaving a little after 11:00. We headed out the back way from the campground, and soon found a sign for the Wildcat trail and followed that. The plan was to do a loop from that trail to another one that comes back on the west side (Ant Hill Trail), possibly hit another trail, the Abigail trail, which would go further south, if we were in the mood to go any further. Pretty quick out of camp we weren't happy with the footing, it turned into some very rough stone, and I was a bit sorry I didn't decide to go to the post office first, where a new Cavallo boot is waiting, but I didn't think it would be that bad. There were large areas of logging going on, and I ended up losing the trail completely several times as a new logging road had destroyed some sections of trail. Someone had put up some blue flags that I was mostly able to follow, until I hit an area where they were actively logging, and I couldn't go any further, as I couldn't find any markings. The loggers had utterly destroyed the trail, so we had to head back and try to find another way. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem, but there was absolutely no water on the trail, and Lola was getting extremely dehydrated and overheated. We stopped several times to let her rest, and I gave her pretty much all of my water, and unfortunately, didn't bring any spare like I usually do, as I had cleaned out my saddlebags before taking them out to Utah and hadn't really restocked them as thoroughly as I normally do. It got so bad she was wheezing, and I tried to get her up on Flash's rump, but she wouldn't stay up there. The only trail I could find was cutting all the way across the widest part of the forest, downhill, until it finally met up with the first trail we came on. She was is such a bad way, I finally decided to use a poncho (the only thing I had!) to tie her to a tree and left her with the last dribbling of water, then got Flash into his best speed on these rocky trails and got back to camp in about 15 minutes. I loaded up with water and headed straight back out. Fortunately, Lola was still where I left her, a little rested but still panting horribly, and she promptly drank two whole bottles of water. I made her rest a little more, then she finally headed up the trail on her own, obviously ready to get back to camp. We followed slowly, letting her do her own pace, but at one point, she threw up some of the water she had drank. About halfway back to camp (which, thankfully, was less than a mile away), I stopped again and let her drink almost two more whole bottles of water, but made her lay down so it would have a chance to absorb into her system before moving on. We finally made it back to camp, and she went straight to her water bowl and drank some more, still panting heavily. I got her into the shower and gave rinsed her in cold water, letting her stay there for awhile. She seemed better, so I finally got her back outside, where it was cooler in the shade, and put the small fan on her. I wasn't too long before she finally stopped panting, and seemed to be fully recovered, thank goodness! I was really getting worried about her. I'm thinking she may be getting past her trail days, at least when it's this hot and there's no water on the trail. I'm certainly going to load up on water next time, for sure! Anyway, crisis averted, I finally settled down for dinner (no movie, as I still don't have a signal), but I did fun the generator and the AC for about half an hour just to blow some of the hot air out, and to recharge the batteries a bit. I've had good sun on the solar panels, so this is the first time I've had to turn on the generator. Of course, it helps that I'm not watching TV :-). So, an evening of reading, shower and bed, another day gone! Good night, sugar! Love you!
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