Christmas Ride

I was rummaging though my trailer looking for something this morning and came across my bag of Christmas decorations that I've used for the yearly Bowdoinham Christmas Parade when I lived in Maine. So I grabbed it and headed for the barn. Lily came to me as usual ready for whatever adventure I had in store. After a good grooming, I saddled her up and commenced to don the decorations. This what not quite what she had in mind as an adventure but stood patiently as I put decorations all over her. I think she was a little embarrassed by it actually. I mounted up and rode over to Sally's place. She and Josh were outside with his two girls so they took a couple pictures for me. I then headed out for a trail ride. I did remove any decorations that might come off and get lost or caught in branches etc. I didn't do a long ride. Only 4.5 miles or so. Lily was not as quiet as usual when we are out alone. She behaved but was a little keyed up. It was still a very nice ride.

Trip Home, Day off, One Last Ride in Shawnee

 Friday morning, we packed our stuff up and loaded JoJo's trailer. JoJo's mule Sinbad decided he wanted to stay at camp refused to load into the trailer. 4 of 5 cowboys quickly came to help and eventually Sinbad was convinced to get onto the trailer. Lily loaded right up and we were on our way. We did find another route to go home and it was a MUCH better way to go. We managed to blow another trailer tire. And now we had no spare as it was already on the trailer. And we still didn't have a 4 way. We were about 10 miles out of the last town we'd passed, Calico Rock. I googled tire shops and found someone that would come out and get the tires. While we waited, several people stopped and offered to help. One man that stopped had a 4 way and got the flat tire off before the tire repair woman showed up. She was a super nice woman and sole owner of the tire shop. She put both flat tires in her truck and JoJo went with her back to town to mount new tires on the rims. Both mules were quite through the wait. The woman came back and put the tire back on the trailer and we were on our way. The trip home was smooth and uneventful. We enjoyed each others company, chatted and the time passed quickly. JoJo dropped Amy and me off at Delbert's. Lily was happy to be home to roll in her own dirt. We unloaded as quickly as we could and JoJo headed home. I'd left my little truck at the barn so we tossed our stuff in and drove home. When we got to the house, I was surprised to see a strange car in the driveway. Turned out to be my brother in law, Leigh on a surprise visit. I was so happy to see him and I knew it would mean a lot to Fred that he'd come to visit. I quickly got a bed made up for Leigh, Amy was in her usual room and I had a house full.

Saturday, Amy and I decided to go over to the Amish in Kentucky to the saddle maker. I had a piece of tack at one of the harness makers shops that I needed to pick up. Amy cooked us breakfast then Fred and Leigh headed off. Amy and I took the ferry over to KY. We stopped first at Crooked Creek Saddlery. Then we went over to Detweilers Harness shop. The owner is 91 years old and still making harness and other tack. We all went out to eat at the Red Onion that night. It was a long wait to get in as expected but the food was good. When we got home we played the Mexican Train Game. It was a nice day. I contacted my neighbor Sally to see if she could ride Sunday morning and asked if we could borrow a horse. She said yes and that she could ride. We made the plan to meet at 10:00 am.

In the morning, Amy and I walked up to Sally's place and Amy stayed there to help Sally get horses ready. I walked on over to the barn to get Lily. Much to my delight, after all the riding I've done the past week and the two long trailer rides, when I called to Lily, she came right to me ready for whatever I had planned. I rode over and met Sally and Amy and then we went back over to catch the trail behind the barn. I at first asked if we could ride out the north trail as the one behind the barn is the steep drop that Lily and I have been having an issue with. Then I decided that I might as well just go for it while I had people there to pick up the pieces if there was a problem. Amy and Sally rode down the trail ahead of me. Lily did stop and refuse at first. I just asked her to go forward and she pinned her ears, shook her head and backed up a few steps, I asked her again and she decided to go. I left her alone and let her do her thing as there was no problem. Though it's a small thing, it was a big step forward for us and I was so pleased with her. Amy was riding Sally's horse Zak, a Paso Fino gelding. And Sally was riding her little Paso horse ChiChi. We had a great ride and in places moved right out to take advantage of the gaited horses. We rode to Initial Tree, up by Indian Paint Wall, crossed over Black Ridge Rd. and went to Pounds Hollow Lake. We rode the trail along the lake and then up on top to the overlook. From there we rode along Little Hurricane Bluff and back home by way of trail 188 and then 184 to Black's Cabin. It was a great ending to Amy's trip.

That night Amy got a message from the airline that her flight home had been cancelled due to bad weather going through the Carolina's. So, she ended up riding back to Maine with Leigh. It worked out perfect.

Caney Mountain Day 6 The Cave

I got up at 7:00 am this morning and it was cold and drizzling. I fed Lily, cleaned her pen and switched her wool blanket for a rain sheet. At breakfast (where they served sweet rice along with all the usual, yummmmm) we checked the weather again and talked with JoJo and pretty much decided we'd leave Friday morning.  Some people were already pulling out today. There were quite a few people at the nerd table this morning. We'd actually had company pretty regular after the first day. I think it was Amy's Maine accent drawing them in. It was like having my owner personal sideshow!
It was starting to rain a bit harder and there was much talk about whether to ride or not. None of the guides was very eager to go out other than Coon Ass Thomas. Amy kind of wanted to ride. I definitely did not so we didn't join Thomas's group when the rode out a little after 9:30 am. The one thing Amy and I did want to see before we left was the big cave. That is not all that far from camp and maybe only 1/4 to 1/2 mile off the road. JoJo was heading into town this morning so we grabbed our rain gear and had her drop us off at the corner where the start of the trail is. It was a steep hike up to the cave but well worth the effort. It was a beautiful hike up and the cave is huge!

We decided to keep hiking up and see if we could get on top of the cave. The trail did lead there and it was well worth the effort for the view. Being a cold rainy day actually made the view really neat as there were pockets of fog between all the mountain peaks that just looked really cool. Amy and I headed back down the trail and then took a side trail towards camp. We followed that until it started to turn away from camp and made our way out to the road. We saw the tracks of a wild pig and hoped we would not meet up with it.

Just as we were getting back near camp, we passed Anthony heading out with a small group.
Amy was now wishing we'd gone riding. I was still not interested as it was still raining.
We met up with Cathy M and the Lee's on the front porch of the dining hall and chatted for a bit. Then we went with Cathy to visit Ruth Reynolds and Jonica in their cabin. The rooms with the private baths were NICE! When I saw it, I was kind of wishing I'd spent the extra money for one. I'll sure keep it in mind for my next trip. We had a nice visit and finally left to go raid JoJo's trailer for snacks for lunch. Not really a raid I guess since it was our food. Amy was REALLY wanting to ride but it was still raining and I really did not want to go. She was starting to get a bit disgusted with me. We hung out in our room for a short time. Amy read and I uploaded some pictures of our rides. Finally Amy left the room. I was not sure where she was going but stayed in the room just a bit longer. I finally went out to use the bathroom and it had stopped raining finally. And I just happened to meet up with one of the guides, John. I told him Amy had really wanted to ride today but I was the party pooper. He told me to saddle up and he would take us out.  I told him I'd find Amy and meet him in front of the dining hall. I spotted Amy walking away from JoJo's trailer and yelled for her to saddle up! She stopped and just stared at me for a minute, I shouted to "saddle up" one again and now she is glaring at me like she want's to rip my head off. It turned out that she had left the room to go up to Anthony's camp and get all her tack to put away in JoJo's trailer. Amy has been riding Anthony's mules all week and it's quite a hike from his camp to where JoJo was parked. JoJo saved the day by offering to let Amy rider her mule, Sinbad.

The funnel

We quickly saddled up and Lily seemed very happy to get out of her pen and was eager to hit the trail. She was STILL not tired! We met John and headed out. I told him he had quite possibly salvaged Amy and my friendship. He had to retrieve a shovel along the trail that he had left when doing some trail maintenance. He then took us by the Funnel, then to Caney Rim to I Do rock, a popular spot for people to proposed and be married. There was a neat ledge you can ride around at Caney Rim and I did this with John while Amy took pictures. From there we rode to the Bee Hive. We asked John why it was called the Bee Hive. He said because they had to name it something. Hummmmmm. John took a couple pictures of Amy and me at the Bee Hive. Amy took a picture of John carrying his shovel while riding his mule. We told him we were going to post it on Facebook and say that the guides here carry shovels so they can bury the horse riders that don't make it on these trails. He got a kick out of that.

John and me on Caney Rim

John and me riding around Caney Rim

Caney Rim looking towards I Do rock

Looking at I Do rock

Amy on Sinbad and Cindy on Lily at the Bee Hive

John with his shovel

We made it back right around 4:30 pm. I took care of Lily and we had some time to relax before supper. Though we did start packing what items we could pack. Tonight's supper featured brisket, warm potato salad that was delicious, scalloped potatoes, and a fantastic jambalaya and rice. Though I did have to pick out the shrimp.... nasty things, as well as the usual biscuits and salad. Tonight's desert choices were a spice cake with cream cheese frosting, an apple strawberry dump cake and a blueberry cobbler with ice cream. I'm pretty sure I have not lost any weight this week. We had live music with supper tonight. Anthony made a farewell speech and there were also door prizes. But, apparently not only are Amy and I nerds, we were losers too. We stayed and listened to the music for a while then headed to bed.

Cindy with two of the guides, Lynn and John.

Amy and Cindy with one of the guides, Lynn

Caney Mountain Day 5 Roary Rim

On Monday, the forecast for today was that it was going to be the coldest day of the week. It turned out to be one of the nicest days. It was chilly but sunny and did get about 40°. It was the usual routine of getting up, taking care of Lily and cleaning her pen. Then breakfast at the dining hall. There has been bread pudding offered for a couple mornings and it's good! It was hard to decide what to wear today. It was cold this morning we knew it would warm up quite a  bit. Layers are always the best bet. I told Amy last night that I expected Lily to start feeling a bit tired by today but I was wrong. Lily was excited to get going this morning. I almost forgot to make a lunch today and quickly made one at the last minute for both Amy and myself as I'd not seen her down at JoJo's trailer where our food was. We were ready to ride at 9:30 and decided to go with Lynn again. He was riding to Roary Rim today. It was another challenging ride. We rode to a palace where we took a break that had a lovely view. The trail to this spot was a bit butt puckery. There was as drop through a crack in a rock. Lily did not like the look of the crack so decided to take an epic leap off the rock to the trail below. Thankfully I felt it coming and stayed in the saddle. She actually made the jump quite smoothly. She has been getting better every day with negotiating this rough terrain. We tied up the mules and horses and sat and enjoyed the view and the sunshine.

We continued on towards Roary Rim. On a trail riding along the edge of a rim, with the drop on our right hand side, Lily put her left front leg in a hole that we didn't see as it was covered in leaves. She went down and I went over her head. Thankfully, I went over the left side of her head and rolled onto a large flat moss covered rock. I was not hurt at all but laid there for a minute. Lily was up and standing still at first and I was looking over her legs scared that she might have been hurt in the fall. I had her reins still and think I was pulling on her head a bit as she started to move off. I held the reins and she circled half way around the rock I was on so I got up and stopped her. I looked her over and she seemed to be fine so I mounted back up and we were on our way.

We had lunch at Roary Rim. There was  a spectacular view from this spot and we enjoyed it. As we were riding into this spot, the group JoJo was riding with was getting ready to leave.  JoJo's group rode out the way we came in. We asked Lynn if we would be riding back the same way and he said on for about 5 minutes on the same trail. I had been worried about riding back through were Lily had put her leg in the hole. But neither Amy and I could think of a spot where you could ride down off the rim that close to where we were. Just about then, Lynn pointed out where you could see JoJo's group dropping down off the rim and it looked like an impossible spot. Yikes! We sat and enjoyed the sunshine as long as we could. We mounted back up and headed down the trail and sure enough when we came to the spot where we dropped down off the ledge it was a bit of an adrenaline rush! As we were descending, Amy's words were, "who the heck was the first person that saw this spot and though, Gee, this would make a good trail!". We all made it safely to the bottom and rode down to the cabins we'd been looking down on from the top of the rim. Lily for some reason was kind of hyped up after lunch. The mule I thought would be tired today.

We rode though Big Creek multiple times on the way back to camp. One of the horses in our group wanted to lay down every time he stepped into water so she had to gallop in across ever crossing to keep him on his feet. Lily settled down after a while and finished the ride like a good girl. We saw quite a few twisted and broken off cedar trees though one section of the trail. Lynn said a tornado had gone through Friday night. We were sure glad we'd missed that by arriving on Saturday. It was a strange thing for December. Once back in camp, I stopped at Jojo's trailer to take Lily's saddle off as we'd been doing every day. She was very quite at the moment so I decided I could let her stand without tying her while I put her saddle on the saddle rack in the trailer. Well, that turned into a big ground tying fail. With an audience of course. Nothing too bad, Lily just wandered off in the direction of the spot I'd been letting her roll every day and got both front legs through her reins. That didn't really bother her much and she was easily caught. And I did have to let her roll of course. I then settled her in her pen with water, hay and fed her as it was late enough to do so. Lily is starting to get a little attached to Mattie Ross so called for her a few times. Amy and I sat on the porch in front of our room to enjoy the last of the sunshine. Brooke and her husband arrived today. I've ridden with her before out of High Knob. They had the room next to ours and sat out and we chatted for a while. When we went down to supper, I slipped on the steps and fell down the last 3 or 4. It must be my lucky day for soft landing and I was unharmed in this unplanned dismount also. Tonight's supper featured meatloaf, scalloped potatoes, green beans, biscuits, salad and a few other things and the usual delicious deserts. After supper, I went out to check on Lily one last time before heading to bed. I have been watching the weather and it was looking like there was a storm coming in Friday night into Saturday with a significant snowfall.
We talked things over with Jojo and decided if the forecast did not change, we would leave on Friday morning to get out ahead of the storm.