Ahhhh, today Susie, Linda and I had big plans. Susie and I had the day off and Linda's grandchildren had a class trip so she didn't have to get them off the bus so we were all free to go venture further afield for an adventure ride......... then, Thursday morning I get the call...... "This is Dr. Howell's office to remind you of your appointment for you and Fred for your cleaning....." AGH! What was I thinking when I made an appointment for a Friday! But, the appointment was at 8:00 am so would not kill the whole day. Then Linda found out she had to be home for her grandchildren by 3:00 pm after all. And Susie did have friends coming over for dinner this evening. So, we decided that we would still ride but just stay close to home. So, it was decided we would ride in West Bowdoin. Those trails are so much fun it's hard to get tired of them.
Susie picked me up at 9:45 am. I was ready and was just haltering Luke when Susie arrived. I wondered if Luke would mind Susie's trailer. It is a slant load step up like mine but it has a much higher step up. Luke is such a gem. He didn't even hesitate and hopped right in. Well, he had to stop half way in and take the opportunity to smell Bayzen's butt but after a sniff, he went all the way in and we were on our way. We arrived first but Linda was only moments behind us. Luke had no issue with the big step out of Susie's trailer either. Luke is such a good boy to travel with. He's gotten on ever trailer I've asked him to with no fuss. Straight load, slant load, ramp, step up, large and small. Backing out on ramps worry him a little but he makes no fuss. He just backs out on his toes waiting for the drop. It's funny to watch.
We tacked up and were soon on our way. We did all the loops on the left side of the pipe line. Luke took the lead right at the start and was full of energy. Susie and Linda were having to trot to keep up with Luke's very enthusiastic walk. The trails here have very good footing so you can move right along. When we picked up a trot, Luke was moving out with lots of energy. He really seems to love being out on the trail. And a happy mule makes for a happy rider. We crossed the pipe line down by the Keay Rd. end and went up through the sand pits with the two ponds and out the "Witches house" trail to the Ben's Hill Rd. When we got out to Ben's Hill Rd. We were debating if we had time to make the big loop up to the Wood School House Rd. when we saw 3 riders coming down the road towards us. It was Stephanie Hill. We stopped and chatted for a bit. We considered riding together but coming from opposite directions, someone would end up backtracking so we went our own ways.
We decided not to try making the big loop as we don't know the trail on the upper end very well and didn't want to get lost and run into a problem getting back in time. So, we rode down the Ben's Hill Rd. to the Williams Rd. and then down the Keay Rd. to get back to the pipe line. On the Williams Rd, there is a farm that has a lot of animals on both sides of the road. Cows, chickens, geese, goats, llama and who knows what else. And there is always a lot of activity there and a lot to look at for passing equine. Susie on Bayzen was leading at this point. Bayzen was nervous but he was a very good boy about it. Luke was not really concerned, just curious. Gus figured any monsters would eat Bayzen or Luke first leaving him plenty of time for escape and he followed quietly behind. And there was a surprising amount of traffic for what are mostly dead end roads. But again, Luke, Bayzen and Gus were good steady boys. A man I work with lives in the first house on the Keay Rd. We rode into his driveway but he wasn't home. We picked up the pipeline there and right off we passed a house with horses. The horses got excited and got to running around in their enclosure and for some reason this made Bayzen very nervous or excited or possibly both. Susie was still in the lead and had me come up beside her with Luke as he was once again just curious but not worried about the horses. Gus reacted to the horses also but didn't do anything bad. We had to cross a bit of a wet area which reminded us why we don't normally ride this section of trail. This late in the year it's not bad though and we had no trouble. We then took the trails out towards the trailer park and I showed Susie and Linda a cut off trail that bypasses the trailer park. The park owners have asked us not to ride though there anymore.
We did the bypass trail, got a bit turned around, did an extra small loop and then headed back to the trailers. Once there we still had some time so we rode down the pipe line on that side of the road. None of us have ever followed it in that direction but we know the pipe line intersects the Wagg Rd trail. If we could ride to that trail we could make another nice look. We did know there was a wet area not to far down but figured we'd investigate it. There was a short steep drop down to a stream but it looked safe and it was. We crossed with no trouble. But, not too much further we came to a second wet swampy looking area. ATV's have been going through but it was a fairly long stretch and very rutted up and we didn't like the look of the water. We decided it did not look safe enough to try. We have all had experiences of being sunk in nasty mud hole and swamps and have learned from it. Our equines safety comes first. So, we rode back to the trailers and called it a day. We'd been out nearly 3 hours and a lot of that we were able to keep up a pretty quick pace so we had made a great ride of it after all. Luke is in good shape now and is turning into a trotting machine. He is definitely ready for our first CTR we're going to the first weekend of October. I am so excited about going. Luke keeps such a wonderful steady pace on the trail and his willingness to go make him so much fun to ride. He's so good when we are exploring and is quiet and attentive when we have to go off trail to get around things like downed trees. While his size might be a slight disadvantage in getting under things, his quiet steadiness make him very good at "bushwacking". As usual, it was another great ride.
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