Knowing the drive wasn't too terribly long today, we let ourselves sleep in a bit, still recovering from our busy month. Still managed to get out by 10:00 or so, for an uneventful drive to the Olympic National Forest, with one stop to dump at a rest area on I-5. Had no trouble finding where the horse camp was, and most of the road was tarmac except for a short section of gravel, until we crossed the second bridge where it not only went to gravel, it became a serious, winding grade, so much so I was a bit worried I wouldn't be able to make it up. I let Hubby go up first to confirm that, indeed, that was where the horse camp was, and to find the best spot for us, while I waited down below for his report. Meanwhile, four horse rigs came down the road, and one woman stopped and chatted with me, warning me about closed trails and how to get around them. Eventually, Hubby called the all clear and I headed up, though unfortunately, another rig came down at the same time, and the road was narrow enough where I felt compelled to slow down a bit, and then I really was afraid I was going to get in trouble, so I kept going. The other rig stopped for me, thank goodness, and I managed to spin my way up the hill to the top. I turned in where Hubby told me, and wound my way through some pretty narrow twists until I came to the site he had picked, which was probably the biggest one, but still quite small and narrow for a rig our size. We were barely able to get both vehicles in the pull-through site, and only by pushing ourselves into bushes that made getting around and between the vehicles almost impossible. Nevertheless, we managed to get set up, and get the horses out on a cable highline that was already in place. While it made it easier for us, it's not really the way we like to tie them, as they can't run back and forth up their line on their pulleys, the way we do. In any event, they were very quiet all evening, and apparently quite happy, at least, once I got them some water. Water became the challenge. We didn't find any water at the campground (despite a couple of websites telling me it was there), but I had been told by the office that they had water in the Brown campground back down the hill. So I got out the water barrels, and on a hunch, the sump pump, and drove the horse trailer down to the campground looking for water. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered the only water was a hand pump!! Yuck! There was no way I was going to pump 100+ gallons of water with a hand pump, so instead, I found a campsite near the river I could get into, though it was a bit steep, but it got me close enough to be able to put the sump pump in the creek and run power from the generator for an hour, filling the two barrels about half way full, as well as two big buckets and the tank in the horse trailer, before I finally made my way back to camp. Hubby, meanwhile, figuring out that I had run into some challenges, did most of the setup on his own, so by the time I got back there wasn't much else to do, thank goodness. After finally watering the horses, we settled down for the evening, which was wonderfully quiet. Of course, we are in deep woods, so no chance for a satellite dish, so we started watching a bunch of programs that we recorded while we were in Alaska. Started to wind down from all the activity!
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