Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020 – OTL Reconnoiter and Trail Marking Day

Hey Sweetie,
Had another good night sleep, then did a bunch of stuff online before feeding the horses, then getting Flash in the trailer and heading down to the Cypress Creek parking lot across from the Publix. I had a bag of markers I got from Anita, and headed due north up the OTL from there. I thought Anita had told me that another group had marked that part of the trail, but all I ever saw was a couple of markers WAY down near the Hobe Ditch, and they were way apart from each other on the linear trail, nothing at the intersections. Amazing. Anyway, Flash did a great job as we headed all the way through the cow pasture (and the herd was there, with lots of young ones kicking around), under the freeways, and finally through the Ditch. I kept going, too, because there had been reports that a certain section of the trail was going to be hard for horses to get through, where they put a bunch of concrete bags across it for drainage, but frankly, I don’t see why, it looks the same as it did last year. Plenty of room to get around if someone wants. Once we hit that spot we turned around, and that’s when Flash really wanted to kick it up a notch. We cantered and largoed all the way back to the Ditch, and in quite a few other places as well, until we reached the parking lot. Of course, the thought we were done, but not yet! I headed him east toward Riverbend, and marked all of that section, right to the south side of the critter crossing under Indiantown Rd. I must say, it will be hard to get lost this year! Hopefully, no one will mess with the markers, but even if they do, I’ll be out there on the day of to add more if necessary. It took us about 3 hours or so before we drove back. Flash was really dirty so I started giving him a bath, and a few minute later, Jeff came home, with his white van up on a tow truck. He thinks he might have thrown a rod, so you know that’s a major project. I was hoping his only major project for the next few weeks was going to be to move his junky camper over to the fence and out of the front yard, not sure if that’s going to happen now. Sigh… Finished bathing Flash, and hosing down Apollo who was standing there asking for it, then went in to fix some other problems. You know I bought a replacement GPS, but I haven’t been able to get it to work yet. It wouldn’t lock on to any satellites. I was afraid it was broken, but I finally trying reloading the updated software again, and that solved the problem. I think I might have turned it off while it was uploading before and that’s why it didn’t work. So now I do have a satellite-based GPS again, so hopefully that will help decrease my chances of getting lost, and allow me to map my routes beforehand so I can just follow the GPS. Settled down to a mini pizza and some more episodes of Suits for the evening. Took my shower earlier, so now I’m heading to bed. Love you, babe, good night!