Tuesday, May 4, 2010 – Disappointing Ride Day

4 Hubby decided we needed to get out for our ride early, so we set the alarm for 7:00, and were out by about 9:30, all booted up and ready to go. We hit the trailhead, which was the electrical easement that started out rocky and got worst. After a few yards, we turned onto a side trail into the woods, and were met with very narrow and rocky trails. This is the narrowest trail we’ve been on for a long, long time, constantly being brushed with trees. My horse, who loves a challenge, found it quite interesting for a while. Eventually, though, the rocks were really not fun. At one point, one of my gelding’s boots had started to slip off, so I had to stop and reset it. Then, just as we came up on the road, Hubby’s horse, who was uncharacteristically in front, caught a running deer out of the corner of her eye and made a dramatic move sideways. Although Hubby had just tightened her girth, so the saddle didn’t slip, she moved so far that Hubby couldn’t hang on and ended up on his bum. Fortunately, it was fairly soft ground, and he landed on the opposite hip than his last fall, so he was up and around after a few minutes. His mare just went far enough to find a patch of nice grass, so I managed to catch her with no problem. We then had trouble finding where we were supposed to cross the road, and once we did find it, we had trouble finding the trail. Either we were way off, or the trail was such a mess it was impassable. Granted, there was a sign saying some parts of the trail had some obstables due to an “ice storm”, but you would think by May someone would have made an effort to clear the trails a bit. We turned around and headed to the campground road just to get out of the woods. I had to reset my boot again, this time because the cotter pin went missing. Then we headed up along the road, where we were rewarded with a lovely view of the lake (see pic). By now, Hubby just wanted to get back, and I didn’t really want to either negotiate impossible trails or just walk along a busy road. The shortest route back was straight down the hill at the power line easement again, and it was very rocky and very steep, and not much fun. We decided to at least go down to the lake, as we had seen a multitude of horse tracks when we had walked down yesterday evening (to watch the sun set over the lake). We were there about 15 minutes, working on getting the horses to wade along the edge (which Hubby’s mare managed, but my gelding only got in long enough for a drink), then a park ranger came along and told us we had to stay on designated trails, of which the lakeside wasn’t a part. I guess she missed all the other horse tracks that preceded us. Anyway, we came back to the campsite, barely two hours after we left. The horses hadn’t even worked up a sweat, even though it’s over 80 degrees today. Well, we got them settled in, got ice on Hubby’s hip, had lunch, and went back on the computer to get some more (boring, but necessary) work done. Tonight we get ready for our departure tomorrow, having made arrangements to stay at the Robinson’s Barn Bed and Breakfast in Oklahoma City tomorrow, before we fly out on Thursday.