Rocky Branch Hollow

Today Loretta and I ventured over to Rocky Branch Hollow in the Garden of the Gods wilderness. Today Lily got sneaky with me. She is not hard to catch and most often comes when I call her. This morning however, she snuck out of her stall after she finished eating in complete stealth mode. I usually hear her pushing her feed pan around when she's almost done eating. Not today. I was doing a few chores around the barn and when I looked up, she was half way to the pasture gate so too late for me to stop her. I grabbed her lead rope and halter and went in pursuit. She made me walk all the way out and to the top of the hill in the pasture. There she proceeded to run around bucking and carrying on like a crazy thing. I just stood watching as there was nothing else I could do. When she got done, she then came right over to me and stuck her head in the halter. Brat!

I saddle Lily up and then walked her to Double M Camp. Now that she has shoes on, I don't dare ride her along the road. Her shoes make her slip on the pavement. One fall this year with her is enough for me. And she is not all that likely to fall without me on her back anyway. Better for both of us if I walk and for sure I can use the exercise.

Loretta rode Pepper today and she trailered us over to the Golden Circle Trailhead. We headed out from there to Rocky Branch Hollow in the Garden of the Gods Wilderness. It is such a beautiful ride. A lot of bluffs and a few very technical trails. We got to a spot where the trail was block off by a downed tree. We stopped to clean it up and decided to have lunch there when we spotted a little cave up in the bluffs that looked worth exploring. We approached it carefully watching for an snakes. The cave was empty and we enjoyed lunch there with a great view.

From there we went to H Rock and back around near Garden of the Gods, and by Cathedral Rock. At one spot where we stopped to enjoy the view at the top of a bluff, just for fun I asked Lily to step her two front feet up onto a rock to pose..... that was a mistake. Lily was having no part of that. She decided it was a completely stupid thing to do. I think I spent 20 minutes or so convincing her that it would be easier for her to just comply with this simple request and eventually she did agreed. I think Loretta was getting ready to ride off without us. When we got back to the trailer, we decided we wanted to ride a bit longer so we rode down Golden Circle road to the end and down into Colbert Hollow and back.  I'm finally getting used to riding holding the reins with my left hand. I still can't keep my right arm extended forward for very long from my shoulder injury. And it still gets achy at the end of the day. Riding doesn't bother my shoulder in particular as long as I stay to a walk and I'm holding my reins in my left hand. Any activity I do where my arm is not supported for long periods of time makes it achy. Hiking, riding or just anything where I'm not sitting with my arm resting on something.  At physical therapy the past few weeks they have been taping my shoulder to support it and that does help. We have talked about getting a shoulder brace for when I return to work.  Anyway, we rode 15 miles today. It was a beautiful day and we had a great ride.