Headed out early today, as we had 16 miles on the Yellow Trail to do today. Managed to get out before 10:00, looking forward to a nice long ride, hopefully through some nice pristine forest. Unfortunately, large areas along the Yellow trail had been clear cut, so the feeling of riding in the wilderness were much less enjoyable than what we prefer. It was maybe 30% nice forest that we truly enjoyed, and the rest was pretty much clearcut, with a lot of clutter in and near the trails as a result. At one point, we lost the trail for a few minutes, because the cleared area overlapped the trail area so much we couldn’t find the markers. This was the first time we lost track of where we were, as the trails here have been stupendously marked up until now, with me hardly ever having to pull our the map. It made for a long day, and not quite as enjoyable as we had hoped, by as Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan both said, “No hour on the back of a horse is ever wasted!” On the final leg of the journey, we decided to cut back to camp on the White Trail, which would be the reverse of how we had taken the White trail before, rather than complete the Yellow trail, which we already did when we took the White trail earlier in the week (the White and Yellow combine at that point). It offered several opportunities to canter, and, unfortunately at one point, Hubby’s horse shied at a shadow behind a tree (her favorite pastime), and he took a spill, landing on his shoulder in a way that wrenched the muscles. Fortunately, we were less than a mile from camp, so as soon as we got back we started the usual regime of painkillers, cold, heat, cold, heat, etc. on him, while I took care of the horses. He still managed to feed the dogs and do a few of his usual chores, but he was in agony doing it, until finally we spend the rest of the evening in repose. We were planning on taking the day off from riding tomorrow anyway, to rest the horses after their long day, but now Hubby will need as much rest as they do!
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