Today a group of us decided to go riding at Popham Beach in Phippsburg. There was a bit of discussion in the morning as it was quite cold but in the end, we decided to just bundle up and go. I picked up Linda and we were going to meet Susie, Barbra, Tracy and Eric there. We got a little surprise when we got to Phippsburg and found it had been snowing there and the roads had a thin covering. The roads were sanded though so I had no trouble driving. We passed Tracy and Eric on the way down. They were sitting in the parking lot of the post office. Hummmmmmm. I figured if there was any problem, they would call me. Susie and Barbara were already there when we arrived but just starting to get tacked up. It didn't take long and we were all ready to hit the beach. Barbara was riding Susie's horse Dixie. I think it was the first time for her to ride this horse.
Once on the beach, Luke was again in power walking mode and I was soon out in front of the others. Unfortunately, this was getting Susie's horse kind of excited as he wanted to be up front. We decided to split up for a while as I didn't want to discourage Luke's good walk and have to keep riding the breaks on him. But, non of us wanted to create an unsafe situation for the others. So, Linda and I headed towards the fort and Susie and Barbara went out toward the rocks. Luke didn't care about splitting up and kept up his power walk. When we got to the point where you go around the corner to the fort, the wind was strong and cold and we decided to head back rather then ride to the fort. We met Susie and Barbara about half way back. They were doing fine. We kept going our separate ways with them now going towards the fort. This time when we separated, Luke had a little attitude. It only consisted of tossing his head a few times and looking back though. Linda and I tried to get Luke and Gus to walk into the waves. The water was pretty rough so the waves were all frothy and foamy. Neither one of them were going to have anything to do with walking into that water. I did get Luke to do it the last time we were there but the water was calmer and he only went in following his love, my mare Marie. He was willing to lay down his life for her but was not willing to do it just for my amusement. I even had my mule persuader stick with me but it didn't matter. He'd walk right up to the edge and then turn and walk away and there was no stopping him. Oh, he didn't go anywhere, just kept out of reach of the water. Oh well, that's life. At this point Susie and Barbara caught up to us and all the equines were settled down enough to ride together. We rode a ways up toward and along the river. I noticed there were a lot of shells on the beach today. As well as other stuff such as glass and quite a few lobster traps washed up. When we first started out I was mentioning to Linda that I've never seen any sand dollars at Popham like we always see at Old Orchard Beach. Well, not far from being back to the parking lot, Susie spotted a small sand dollar. She collects them and wanted it. But, I hopped off Luke and snatched it first. Kind of mean since she was the one that spotted it. But, she decided that since she has a lot of them at home, she wouldn't fight me for it. From there I walked Luke back to the parking lot as it wasn't worth the effort to get back on him. Just at the access patch we had a couple stop us and ask us a few question about our horses, Luke and riding at the beach. They had horses and had just come down to check it out to see if it would be good for riding.
We had a wonderful ride as usual. Susie and Barbara were going to stop for coffee on the way home. But, I had to work this afternoon so had to go straight home. We later found out that Tracy and Eric's van had broken down and that is why there were sitting in the parking lot of the post office.
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