Hi Darlin’,
I had a GREAT night sleep last night, woke up refreshed and raring to go! After chores and breakfast, I saddled up Flash and headed down to Buckskin Canyon, one of the few trails left I haven’t done. I put his boots on before leaving this time, since there are a lot less muddy patches on that side of the forest, but still a bit of gravel, and I knew that part of this trail was actually along a road, some of which had gravel. We got through the first part okay, but I missed the turn into the southern unit of the park (I forgot that my neighbor Opal had told me to look for a chain link fence. I got distracted because a nasty little dog was making a fuss the whole length of the yard!), but I had put it into my GPS so it didn’t take me long to find it. There were a bunch of cars blocking the entrance but I managed to get around them, and I met all the drivers hiking up the trail, they were apparently associated with the park somehow. We chatted a few minutes before we went our opposite ways. There is a red loop and a white loop, so I took the white loop as the first part of a figure eight I planned to do. It was obvious no one’s been on the trail for quite a while, lots of undergrowth and not much sign of horse traffic. When I got back to the red trail to do, I ended up at an intersection with arrows in three directions, but the map wasn’t very clear on where they went, especially since it was right on the fold I had made, but it looked like one went down the mountain and stopped and the other one looped around. I tried to take the loop but there were a lot of trees down, and it quickly began to look like it was going to be cross-country through the woods for a ways, and I wasn’t willing to do that, so I abandoned it and turned around and came back a slightly different way. We were about a mile out when we heard a thunderstorm coming our way, so we picked up the pace, coming up that long stretch on the white trail where it’s not too steep, but a long incline, and gaited most of the way up there until we had to dip back into the woods. We managed to get back in time, though, I was able to get him unsaddled and everything put away before the rain hit. I didn’t have time, nor did I feel I needed to bother rinsing him down, since the rain did a fine job of that. It didn’t last long, and soon the sun was back out, but it only made it steamier. It’s been getting hotter the last few days, but there’s rain coming in the next few days, and it will be cooler after that. Once it passed through, I headed out to get some hay from a woman I had messaged earlier, she had some grass hay for $5 a bale. The bales were a lot lighter than I’ve been used to, so they won’t last as long as the ones I have now, but they’ll get me halfway through my next camp, which will be plenty good enough. Fortunately, the rain had passed through there before I got the hay, so everything will stay dry. Headed out to Tractor Supply to pick up a little horse feed, then Walmart for some shopping, then back to camp, where I had dinner, a nice Angus burger on the grill. While I’ve had neighborly interaction with Opal and her friends, I hadn’t really chatted with them at length, so I went over and spent some time with them. They all wanted to see the inside of the trailer so I brought them up for the grand tour, then we went back to her trailer and I asked them if they would be one of my preview audiences for my Snowy River production, and they agreed, so I performed that for them, which they seemed to thoroughly enjoy. We chatted till well past dark, until the mosquitoes got to be too much, then said good night. They’re riding in the morning, but they all want to buy a book, so I’ll see them again in the morning. Settled down late, of course, but got in one Voyager and a shower, now I’m ready for bed. So good night, babe! Love you!
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