Well, the weather finally cleared up and warmed up a bit (though it's chillier than the last day I rode), so after getting Hubby dialyzed, I set out to explore the northern part of the park. On my last ride, I only got the southern part done, a little over five miles in that loop I made, but it was a great exploration because I learned that instead of just one giant loop, there's a lot of fields that you can cut across, and always eventually lead back to a single trail along the road that takes you back to the campground. Not to mention, being that we were both out of shape (Apollo and I), I didn't want to overdo it the first day out! But today, we were both ready to go longer, and since we got a pretty decent early start, we headed straight up along the trail that parallels the road, all the way to far north end of the park (which really isn't that far!), before the trail cut into the woods. This was one of the most interesting parts of the trail, actually, with some little grades and sharp turns, until we reached the trail that took us along the shoreline, where it became level again. There is really only two types of terrain here. You're either following a single track trail through the woods and weaving along each shoreline, or you're on the edge of a field, where they have done some nice mowing, with a wide track perfect for faster paces and side by side riding. It's a nice combination, but after a while, I found it got a little boring. We did see quite a bit of wildlife, though. Some beautiful white pelicans with black babies were gathering in the lake, we saw some kind of 4-legged critter which I didn't see clearly enough to figure out what it was, but it was the size of a large dog, but more round like a baby bear. Hard to say. At one point, a HUGE wild turkey flew up right after we passed it, and Apollo started to take off sideways. Fortunately, that meant he headed straight for a tree, and he had to stop and think about what to do next, at which point I had regained my balance and kept him standing still. Got a nice bruise on the inside of the my thigh from the saddle horn, as you would expect! Lots and lots of deer out here, really big deer. It seems they grow everything bigger up here! The turkey's seemed bigger than usual, too! Anyway, we kept following the trail, even down to the lake, where we tried to find another route up to the trail and couldn't, so we backtracked the way we came down and picked up where we left off. After about two hours, we stopped at a nice spot with a picnic table on a ridge, and I checked our time and GPS. I realized that if I continued to follow the entire length of the trail, it would be another two hours, which I thought would be a bit too much, so we headed on a more direct line to get us home in about an hour, which we did. Three hours is enough until we both get in better shape! Nevertheless, it was a fabulous ride, we had a wonderful time, it is SO GOOD to be back in the saddle again! Now we just have to get Hubby strong enough, and get him another horse, so we can go back to riding together! I do miss him on the trail, though I have to admit, it's nice to have a little time on my own once in a while. Being his nurse takes up a lot of time, and being solely responsible for his well-being, more so than ever before, does get a bit weighty, but we're settling down into a routine again, I just hope he can get strong enough for that routine to include him riding with me again!
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