Pix to come!
Hi Babe!
Had a great night sleep (probably because I drank a little too much bourbon last night 🙂 ), but woke up refreshed and ready to go this morning. Once I got my chores and breakfast done, I went out in search of a cell phone signal sufficient to do a long list of things that have been waiting too long to be done, and ended up have to go six miles, four of those on washboard dirt road, till I could find two bars and a place to pull over, which was really just off the road, since there didn’t seem to be anything but private driveways along the way. Spent about two hours trying to get as caught up on as many things as I could, particularly the time sensitive ones. My text messaging program seems to be on the fritz, I had a hard time sending anything, and was receiving the same text message from Heide about 20 times. Anyway, I ran out of time and headed back to camp, and was saddling up Flash when Heide got there a few minutes early. No worries, we were out on the trail in no time. One of the things about Big Oaks, if you only read the website and look at the map provided by DNR, it only shows about 15 miles of trails, and all of those are clearly dirt/sand/gravel roads. In reality, there are dozens more miles of trails when you include old forest roads and some of the new trails that have been ingeniously created here, many of which Heide guided me on today. Flash and her Rocky mare turned out to be very compatible, and we average well over four mph most of the day. We ended up doing nearly 18 miles, and went through some really beautiful sections. They’ve only been allowed to flag mark them, since they’ve not been officially designated, but apparently it’s open riding here, so horses can go on any of the other trails and roads. The biggest challenge for someone visiting here is the lack of a comprehensive map, but I’ve promised Heide I would help her with that. We got an extra boost in that direction when we stopped off at a campsite with some folks from the Michigan Back Country group, who have some gps files that will certainly help with that! Heide has a lot of that on Ramblr, but isn’t technologically astute enough to figure out how to share it (something we’ll work on this week), so hopefully by the time I leave here, I’ll have all the data I need to help create a map, and the ability to spread it where it needs to go to encourage campers to come here. The campground is pretty nice, right on the edge of the lake (though there’s a dropoff, so not easy to get to, except from site 16), the pump is now solar powered, and most sites are shaded and lovely. The trails today were a mixture of single and double trails through the woods, with the occasional short section on the “official” trails/dirt roads. At one point, the trail was so new it almost felt like going cross country, which didn’t bother us a bit, and there was a long stretch along a very hilly power line that was a fun challenge as well. A very good ride! Having left at 1:00, we got back in camp around 5:30, stopped and chatted with the BCH folks, then got back to my site, where we agreed to start tomorrow at 10:00. Got Flash settled in, had dinner, settled in for the evening, ready for shower and bed! Good night, my darlin’! Love you!
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