Day Trip to Acadia

I had a wonderful crazy day today. Susie, Mary Ann and I decided to make a day trip to Acadia National Park to ride. We had originally thought to make an overnight trip but that didn't work out. But, we were not going to let that stop us from going. Mary Ann has never ridden there before and we knew she would just love it there.

I was up early to feed Marie and Luke. I had packed up what I needed the previous night so just had to make a lunch to take with me. I loaded Luke up at 7:30 am. I met Susie and Mary Ann at Exit 43 Quick Stop in Richmond. We transferred Luke and my stuff to Susie's trailer, I ran in a got a cup of coffee and we were on our way. Susie has a 3 horse trailer so we decided to go up together and that way we could split the gas money 3 ways. It was really foggy out when we left. We went via Rt. 3 out of Augusta. It's a 3 hr. drive to Acadia and by the time we got there the fog had lifted and it was a clear sunny day. It was also unseasonably warm but not uncomfortably so. We parked along Rt. 3 near Seal Harbor. We quickly tacked up and were on the trail around 11:30 am. It was really nice to ride the trails at this time of the year. It was very quiet as tourist season is over. We did see some bikers and hikers and at one point spotted 3 others out on horses. While many leaves are now off the trees there were still enough left to be very pretty. And the carriage roads looked so different all covered in the fallen leaves. We rode to the Jordan Stream Trail, then out by the landslide and out to Bubble pond and around that loop and then around and up Day mountain and went back by way of Long Pond and through Seal Harbor. Out on the trail we took turns leading and worked with getting Susie's horse Bayzen used to having horses pass him. It is a good place to do this as the roads are wide enough to do this safely. Luke is such a good boy about taking any position in a group. And he makes no fuss when a horse canters by him. And he has such a steady even rhythm to his trot that is so nice to ride and helped steady the other equines. We did some nice long trots and we trotted the mile road up to the top of Day Mountain. Luke did this easily. It is so neat to see the change in Luke's fitness and stamina from when I got him in May to now.  At the top of Day Mountain there were a couple hikers that we chatted with for a while and who took some pictures for us.

We got back to the trailer at 4:00 pm and figured we did around 20 miles. We fed Luke and the horses at the trailer before loading them back on. Surprise, surprise but don't you know as we were waiting for the equines to eat, someone pulls over on the other side of the road because they knew Susie. We ALWAYS meet people who know Susie no matter where we go! It's the funniest thing. Luke took a good drink of water we offered him. Mary Ann's horse had drank a lot on trail out of puddles and streams. All the of them happily hopped right on the trailer and we headed out. We decided to go home via Bangor and stopped at Dysarts for supper. When we stopped, we offered the equines water again and they all drank and then went to quietly munching hay. We had a wonderful supper. When we went back out, we gave Luke and the horses more hay and left Dysarts at 7:15 pm. We got back to Exit 43 Quick Stop in Richmond at 8:45 pm. We transferred my thing to my trailer, then unloaded Luke and loaded him onto my trailer. I wondered what he would think of all the loading and unloading from one trailer to the other but he didn't seem to care at all. He hopped right on my trailer with no protest at all. Good boy! I got home just a little after 9:00 pm. Luke was so happy to be home where he could finally get in a good roll!