Exploring in Pittston

Marie is off on yet another adventure. Susie picked her up yesterday evening. She and Barbara are heading to Acadia for the weekend. It's not going to be a very good weekend with rain in the forecast for the whole weekend but I know they will manage to have a good time no matter what. I had Susie bring Cody over to stay while she was gone. I thought that Luke would enjoy having company while Marie was gone. And that Cody too would enjoy not being home alone. Well, I have to say that Luke was less impressed with Cody than I thought he would be. When I got home Friday morning Luke was balling for Marie. Cody seemed content enough though. I've always liked him and it was nice having him greet me at the gate. He was quiet and relaxed and seemed to be making himself right at home.

Linda and I decided to go riding today. The weather forecast for the weekend was looking wet so this was going to be the best day to ride. We decided to ride in Pittston. That turned out to be more complicated then we figured on. Linda picked me and Luke up and on the way over, there was road work being done on both Dead River Rd. and Rt. 197. But, we got through it all and got to Pittston around 10:15 am or so. It was cloudy and cool we headed out. We parked at Lorax but decided to go exploring. Luke was out of sorts this morning. Most likely from Marie being gone again. As we were tacking up, a trailer pulled in behind us. This got Luke very excited. I think he was hoping it was Marie. He danced around a bit and I had to get firm with him to get him to stand still while I mounted. Again, very unlike him. The other rider had already mounted up and ridden off. Luke was very anxious about the other horse and wanted to follow it. So, when I first got on Luke, he was a bit high headed and prancy. He behaved though and never really did anything wrong. We left Lorax and went left down the Kelley Rd. and then took a right onto the Old County Rd. . Linda had remembered the road as being dirt but the start of it was paved and we didn't know how far the pavement went. The road is a dead end but she was sure there was a trail at the end of it. We decided to ride up a ways. Not far down this road is a cow farm. There were quite a few cows in the field but they were not near the fence line. The barn where they can go in is right beside the road and Gus was very worried about it. By now, Luke was already relaxing and more like himself. We went by a house where someone was out in their yard and we asked them how far the pavement went. He said not much farther so we decided to continue. We went to the end and there was indeed a trail But, it didn't look to be much used. There was a small stream to cross right at the start and neither Luke or Gus wanted to cross. I had asked Luke to go first and there really was nothing at all bad about the crossing. I had to borrow Linda's crop and give Luke a tap on the butt. He went right across then. It is unusual for Luke to hesitate over a little bit of water but in the end it was no big deal. Right off we came to a downed tree. Linda got off to see if we could safely get around it. After she cleared out some branches, we got around with no problem. There were quite a few water spots on this trail but all had good bottoms and neither Gus or Luke made any fuss about them. We came to a spot where the trail split. Going to the right looked like it went into a wet area so we took the more main trail to the left. Eventually, it became a regular dirt road with houses on it. Then we came to the end and the sign said it was the Ledge Hill Rd. But, the no sign to say what road we had come out on. Linda thought it must be the Blinn Hill Rd. But did not know where on the road we were. We went left and rode down this a way but Linda decided we were going the wrong way and we turned and headed back. We came to a house with a man standing in the doorway watching us ride by and we asked him if there was another road back to Lorax other then Ledge Hill Rd. He told us there was so we rode on down Blinn Hill Rd. looking for this road. We rode for quite a while and Linda was starting to worry that if we didn't soon find a trail to cut across back towards Lorax, she would be late getting home. She had to get her granddaughter off the bus at 3:30. We rode just a bit further. We came to a spot on top of a ridge with a lovely view. There was a horse farm here and a woman working out in the barn. We asked her directions and she told us that there was no trail to cut across other then the the one we came through on and told us that was the fastest way to get back to Lorax. We decided to turn back so Linda would get home on time.

Just as we got back to the trailer, it started to rain so our timing turned out to be perfect. And though we did a lot of riding along paved road, they were quiet roads and we had some lovely views so it was a great ride all in all. And, the road crews were all done working when Linda took me home so no delays there either.