The Next Day

I slept like a baby. The mattress in my new trailer is kick-ass. Or maybe it is being hundreds of miles from home in the middle of nowhere with around 20 of my good friends and my good horse right outside my trailer door. Whatever the reason, I slept later than I normally do, fed Windy while my coffee brewed and enjoyed a cup in my home away from home while reading the newest issues of American Quarter Horse. See, I can get by without being online. Kind of.

The cooks were preparing breakfast for 8:30. I meandered to the common area a little before, still in my pajamas. The sun was shining brightly and the skies were clear. We had Dutch oven egg casserole, way more than I usually would eat for breakfast. We were saddled and ready to ride a little after 10:00 AM.

Windy was ready to roll and quickly making her way to the front of the pack. At the first water crossing, she did some crow-hopping coming up the hill. Bucking is usually not her MO, so wondered if perhaps my tack wasn't uncomfortable. When we stopped later, I readjusted and that seemed to take care of that problem. She was still a bit high and rushing hills. I really needed the break we took at lunch.

We had a bit of excitement a couple of hours into the ride. At what looked like a benign creek crossing, one of the cowgirl's horse lost his traction going up the bank. He struggled for what seemed like minutes, but was probably a lot short time and then fell back into the water with his rider. She was momentarily caught under the saddle, but managed to pull herself out. The horse floundered and with the help of the trail boss, they pulled the saddle and got him up.

This afternoon was more of the same, but this time the horse under me was the one I know and love. She settled nicely albeit the ride was getting a bit monotonous. I like to find areas to run but there were holes and occasionally some stray barbed wire in these pastures. When we did get out on an open road, Tanya and I loped off, finally letting my mare stretch her legs… and mine, too. We rode 18 miles today and that quarter mile sprint was one of the highlights! My body needed to stretch!

We got back to camp around 6:00 maybe? I didn't look at the time, but did note that we rode almost 18.5 miles. The cooks had our supper cooking and after filing our bellies, we had more campfire stories about the day.

Good times.