Hey Darlin’,
A nice, quiet night sleep, then I woke up relatively early, did all my morning chores, and before long, was saddling up Flash for our first ride. The map indicates one large loop of roads that would be about 16 miles, with a bunch of little spurs and one small loop off of it, so I decided the explore the main road first, then do the spurs later. This is an interesting place, inasmuch as the road is fully lime-stoned, and mostly long and straight, so the actual riding is pretty boring, but we saw more wildlife here than all of the wildlife in the last few months combined! Birds of every size, shape and color, from wading birds to hawks. Saw an otter hop across the road. Saw a baby gator peeking out of the water, an adult sunning on the canal bank, and a dead one on it’s back with crows and buzzards making a meal out of it. Saw a deer running across a field, and saw scores of cows, since this is mostly leased ranch land, lots of calves of every color and type and even crossed some open range where the cows all ran away from us. Lots of birdcalls made the sounds rich, some lovely fragrances from somewhere, too. While it was mostly open plains here, there were thick copses of cypress, live oak with moss, magnolia trees and palms. We were making great progress, and had just about reached the halfway point, when we were suddenly stopped dead in our tracks by a cattle guard on the road with no bypass gate! We had gone through one earlier, so I just assumed they would all be like that, but nope! Had to turn around and go all the way back on the same track, with the exception of that one small loop, and you know how I hate going backwards! We stopped at the hunt check station for a quick rinse off, then I put Flash away and rested for a bit. Then I decided I needed to find out if it was possible to go in the opposite direction all the way to that cattle guard, so I jumped in the truck and headed around the road in reverse. Turns out there are several other cattle guards with no gates, so that severely limits our trail choices! I can’t even get to a lot of the spur trails because of that. Crazy! I’ve never been anywhere that had cattle guards without a bypass gate! Starting to rethink going to Okaloacoochee Slough, which is essentially on the northwest side of where I am, as their map looks like it might have more trails, but I’m going to drive over there and check it out first. No sense staying here if there’s no real riding. Got back, met another camper who happened to also be from upstate NY, so we chatted for a bit. Then, just as I was making dinner, the people who had reserved this spot showed up. Oh, well. At least he didn’t insist I move immediately, said we could do it in the morning, so that’s my first exercise tomorrow. After dinner, I attended an OTL meeting by phone, think we made a lot of progress, got most of the Volunteer list filled with names, so at least we know where the blanks are, and there aren’t too many of them. The biggest gap is shuttles and drivers, Anita still hasn’t confirmed a bus she thought she had procured, so we’re starting to look elsewhere. I’ve had a pretty good response for volunteers since I posted just yesterday, so I have high hopes it will all come together in the end. I have a very busy day tomorrow, I’m supposed to be meeting brother Glenn and wife and maybe Jeff for lunch tomorrow, but at a place that’s 80 miles away, farther than I thought when I suggested it, mea culpa. So off to shower and bed early, long day ahead! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hi Darlin’,
Had a good night sleep, did quite a bit of work on the OTL today, then saddled up Flash so we could finish off the few official trails I missed. I also took a lesser “official” trail, a single track that leads right out of the campground, and which I thought was a hiking trail, but there was no sign prohibiting horses, and there was certainly a lot of indications that horses were regulars on it! So I tried that out today, and that was very nice. A bit tight in a few places between the Areca palms, but MUCH better because it paralleled the limestone road, so we cut a big section of that out, which was great! Someone hung a little horse ornament on it, too, so that confirmed for me that was the way to go! Another nice section, and it suprised me, was a long straightaway that on the map I interpreted to be another stone road, but turned out to be a trail right through a cypress swamp, but with all the dry weather, most of the trail was pretty dry as well, so it was lovely! Flash and I did a nice run through there, although it was beside a barb-wire fence. Anyway, it was a good ride, exactly fourteen miles, and that finished off the official trails, like I wanted to do. There are actually a lot of other non-motorized vehicle tracks that would make trails if they wanted to develop more here, and there’s a sign on the paddocks that the forest service is looking for input for an equestrian plan, so I may get in touch with them to see what they have in mind. Meanwhile, I settled down for the evening, the usual, and will soon be heading for my shower and bed! Good night, babe! Love you!

Hey Sweetie!
A good night sleep, got more chores done, had a few words with the non-horse camper next to me this morning. First time he hasn’t left before the sun came up, and he was surrounded by a plethora of horse trailers. One livestock trailer was even parked diagonally in front of him, since is was very crowded and not a lot of parking space left. So I said to him, maybe now he understood why he shouldn’t be camping in a horse trailer area, and he looked at me and said, What do you mean? Not the brightest bulb in the closet, I guess! Anyway, I pointed out that horse people have only a few places they can go, where he and his tent and little boat could go anywhere. He finally got the point, and packed up and left. I figured he would just move over to some other spot in the campground, but he left entirely. Maybe that was his plan all along. Whatever, afterward I saddled up Flash and headed out with a pland that was supposed to cover pretty much every trail that I missed this week, but managed to miss a turn and screwed that up. That’s okay, I’m staying a couple extra days and get the rest done on Monday. We ended up doing just over 19 miles, in just over four hours. Not a bad pace! We ran into a whole parade of jeeps, evidently they’ve recently opened up some of the trails to multi-use, including motorized vehicles, but they were nice enough to stop and let me pass. I ran into some more (or maybe part of the same group) at the primitive campsite where they have a water trough. Last time I came through here, there was a coffee container in the trough which I though might be for dogs to use (and we did!), but I figured out that it’s real purpose was to prime the pump. I tried to pump some more water into the trough and quickly learned that wasn’t happening without priming it, so I did that and finally made it work. We got back before 2:30, and then I spent the better part of an hour tweezing out burrs on Flash’s fleece saddle cover. It’s not that there were that many burrs out here, but that I had accumulated a LOT of burrs over time. I can’t even remember the last time I did that, it could have been years ago. I think I have burrs from every state I’ve ridden in during the last couple of years, all kinds of different ones! I put Flash out on a line that was anchored, hoping to train him to be able to graze like that without hurting himself, but there was one time he managed to get the rope around his back foot and got a little excited, but I was right there and I got him out of it before any damage was done. Apollo understands this system very well, but Flash seems to be having some problems grasping it. I’ll keep trying, hopefully he’ll get it after awhile, and without damage. Finally finished all my afternoon jobs, put Flash away, fed them, fed me, watched a little TV, won’t be long out of bed, since I have to get up early and meet Jane and Bob, our friends from Ohio, who we haven’t seen in quite some time. Signing off, saying good night, my darlin’! Love you!

Hi Babe!
I couldn’t get to sleep last night for anything, have no idea why! Thought I’d be exhausted after our long ride yesterday, but it was nearly 3:00 before I finally got to sleep. Oh, well! Was up at 8:00, and we were out on the trail by just after 10:00, doing just ten miles, with me on Apollo, trying to hit the bits we missed yesterday. Pistol was really sore from all her bouncing around, her horse Tommy had to do a lot of jogging to keep up with Flash’s walk, and she’s evidently not used to that much speed, so her ribs and chest were sore today. She’s not even sure she can ride again tomorrow. Guess this old gal outrode the young whippersnapper this week! I had to keep jogging on Apollo to keep up with Tommy today, though, but of course, that doesn’t bother me, since I do so much riding. It was warm again today, but with a decent breeze, apparently it’s unseasonably warm this week but cooling down for next week. Found a few more painted seashells on the new trails today, too, very fun to find those! Gave Apollo a nice rinse off, spent a few minutes digging prickly weeds out of the two paddocks, then another hour mending Lola’s big bed, she’s been going on a real bender and digging out all the stuffing, so I had four different places I had to sew up after I restuffed it. Tweezed off a bunch of burrs out of Apollo’s saddle, that took me almost another hour. Had a couple of hikers come by and chat for a bit, from California, got into a chat as discussed the entertainment business, as he claimed to be an actor and she a line producer for a reality show. After they left I fed the horses, a bit earlier because I didn’t want to get caught outside with the mosquitoes like we did last night, then shared dinner, finishing up just in time. Watched a movie on Netflix, since I’m having trouble with Prime, it seems to require more bandwidth or something because Prime keeps getting stuck every minute or two whereas I had no problems with Netflix. Now I’m having my Sleepytime and mint tea blend, ready to take my shower, and looking forward to getting a much needed better night sleep tonight! Good night, my darlin’! Love you!

Hi Sweetie!
I slept great, though I had to put in earplugs. Alligator Alley is only about a mile away, and though it wasn’t too bad, I always like super quiet nights, and that’s what I get with my earplugs! Got up around 8:00, and once I fed the horses, I immediately got busy fulfilling a book order that I forgot yesterday, and Pistol was nice enough to take it into town and mail it, since she wanted to fill up with fuel anyway. She got back and we got out on the trail by about 10:30. I remembered some of these long straight stretches, as well as the more jungle-like areas near the center. There must be some Michiganders nearby, because we spotted some painted, bedazzled seashells stuck in the trees, just like I saw painted rocks and gems up in Michigan this past summer! How cool is that? Nicely done. We reached a small campground with a water trough a few miles out of camp, and Lola had worked up such a sweat she jumped into the trough to cool off. The horses had a drink, too, as it was a pretty warm day, over 80, but not humid, fortunately. I was hoping that the further west we got the more jungle-like it would get, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. It really got more barren, with a lot less trees, and a lot of them seemed dead or almost dead. It was supposed to be Cypress swamp, but I guess it’s been so dry a lot of them are stressed. We did see a lot of animal tracks, I need to start learning a bit more so I can identify them better, but I know we saw deer, and something that could have been a small bear, a large canine or feline, not sure which, but this is panther country, as well as bear, so who knows? It was very dry on the trail until we finally hit a few big puddles, and by then the horses and Lola were really thirsty. We went all the way to the far west part of the park, to a day parking area across from a boarding stable. We didn’t run into the puddles until we were on our way back. We stopped at the camping area again and ate a snack, someone was kind enough to leave a container in the water trough to water dogs, and Lola certainly took advantage of that! We finally got back to camp after nineteen plus miles! Got our workout today! Rinsed down the horses, then answered a few emails and got the generator started so I could charge everything up, then it wasn’t long before we were moving hay that Pistol had brought for me, then finally making dinner, and shortly after, calling it a night! Watched an episode of The Expanse, now I’m ready to hit the showers and be in bed very soon! A long, tiring day, but a great ride! And we’ve already got 15 people signed up for the OTL, after only three days since I got the registration link online! Very happy with that! Anyway, calling it a night! Good night, my love!