Hubby had been telling me for days now that he intended to ride once we arrived here, but I didn't realize he meant that he wanted to do that even before I had a chance to explore the trails! But I'm not going to deprive him, if he's feeling up to it, then we go! After breakfast I got the horses saddled up, and we had decided in a previous conversation that he might be better suited to ride Apollo than Flash. Since I hadn't ridden Flash in more than a week, and he still needed constant guidance on the trails (i.e. He needed to be steered around practically every tree because he still hasn't engaged the thinking side of his brain), and Apollo had reminded me last week of how beautifully well-behaved he was on the trails, we just agreed it was a better fit, even though his height made it a bit more challenging. But with the picnic tables in our campsite, Hubby was able to climb up on the bench of the table, and from there, with just a little help from me, he was able to climb on while Apollo stood as still as a stone (another advantage over Flash, we're still working on the standing still part of the equation). Upon the suggestion of our neighbors, we headed south on the orange trail, crossing the quiet road we came in on and before long, we found ourselves heading downhill for quite a long while. The footing was quite muddy, and there was some slipping going on, and unfortunately, going downhill is the most painful position for Hubby and his weak legs and back, so we only went about a mile before he said he's had enough and we turned around and went back uphill, which fortunately, doesn't hurt him anywhere near as much, so he was okay by the time we got back to camp. Apollo jogged and even cantered a couple of steps, so it was a good ride (albeit short) for Hubby's first day out since April. He even managed to dismount straight to the ground without hardly any help from me! It was a little less than an hour, but it was a great first step, and one we can build on. After all, his muscles have atrophied so much in the last year, it's bound to take some time to get stronger again. Once I put the horses back on their highline, I got all the supplies for his dialysis, and we spent the afternoon dialyzing and watching old movies. This place has full bars of 4G on Verizon, so Prime and Netflix are a breeze this week! Yay! Had a nice salad for dinner and we settled down to our usual evening activities.
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