Sandy head to head home today but wanted to get in one more quick ride before leaving. So, we planned for an earlier start today. I had left my truck and trailer at the barn all loaded up with Lily's gear to save time this morning. I was up early and at the barn in plenty of time to feed and clean stalls. Lily had gone out to the pasture by the time I needed to load her up. I went out the barn door, called her and showed her the halter and she walked right over and stuck her head in. I love this mule! She was ready for another ride. I groomed her at the barn the loaded up and headed to High Knob. I unloaded Lily and tied her to the trailer with a bag of hay as I was early enough to be able to take my time getting ready.
Today it was just Sandy and I heading out. We didn't have any big plan other than she wanted to ride in the direction of my house. She told her daughter that we would be out for only 2 to 4 hrs. I wanted to do a bit of exploring. We took the trail out of the back of the camp and came out on the River to River trail. Not where I planned to come out but that was fine. We rode all the way down River to River until we came to 005. I knew that would take us to Initial Tree but I don't believe I've ridden 005 all the way through. It is a very nice trail. Just one tricky section were there are some blown down trees and it's hard to see where the trail goes but we got through just fine. Nothing hard to get around. There was the spider incident...... we passed a tree that was very close to the trail that had a hole in it right about eye level to a rider. When Sandy went by, a HUGE spider popped out and waved it's legs at Sandy. And I mean it was HUGE! It was retreating back in when I went by but still freaked me out. Looked like a wolf spider. UGH!
We came out near Indian Paint Wall so too a little short cut across the creek and rode along that to Initial Tree. We stopped here for lunch. There were two other woman here with a pair of lovely Palominos. I wanted to do a bit more exploring so we rode out of Initial Tree on 005 and took the trail to the left up over the hill. I wasn't sure where that came out. It came out at the mule riders memorial. From there we hooked into 185 and headed back towards High Knob. We rode up on a deer that didn't want to leave the area as we rode by. She must have had a fawn close by. We came out back on River to River and rode that back to camp. At the top of High Knob, we ran into my neighbors out with their big team. Our 2 to 4 hr ride turned into 5 hrs. and we did 12 miles. It was a wonderful ride and a lovely day. Back at camp, Sandy's dog Alice took her first mule ride!
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