I gotta tell you about the Men's Trail Ride that we had this past Saturday. It was quite a ride!
I got up at
Then headed over to Tommy Phillips' place to pick him up. I realized that due to the way I had redone my trailer, both horses wouldn’t fit in it. So,we unloaded Big Guy and reloaded him in Tommy's trailer with his horse and off we went.
It was about an hour drive through some real rugged terrain. We crossed several low water bridges that were not really too low. In fact, a couple of them looked kinda “iffy” to me, but we made it across them OK. Kinda glad we were not in MY truck and trailer.
There were about 16 of us on the first ride, mostly guys riding mules. Of all the hee-hawing they did. Our horses just looked at them as if to say “What's your problem ?”
We rode on some really nice trails, crossing several streams of water, up hills , down hills, and then we came to a concrete slab with about 8-10 inches of water running over it and about 100 feet wide. A couple of the horses would not cross it, so 4 or 5 of us went back across and coaxed them to come on with us. The rest of the group had gone on and was heading back to camp. We trailed them and, then, finally lost the trail in the woods. So, we dropped down on the edge of the creek to follow it back to camp.
GOT LOST! Big Time! And had to do some riding in some VERY rough areas to finally get back to camp. We even had to pull some fence posts up and hold the barbwire down on the ground while the horses crossed. We were about an hour longer than the other group getting back to camp for BREAKFAST, which turned out to be LUNCH.
Then, on the afternoon ride, some of the guys were too tired to go again, so the numbers dwindled down. One of the less experienced guys that had ridden a very gentle horse earlier decided to ride one of the mules. That turned out to be a mistake! While we were riding down a rather steep hill, he got off balance, started yelling, and lost the reins. The mule pulled a runaway and started bucking. It unloaded him right on the side of the mountain in a pile of rocks. This could have really been a disaster.
Fortunately, he wasn’t hurt too bad, but was very reluctant to get back on the mule. But, due to the fact we were several miles from camp, he had to. He was just trembling and shaking, but did stay with the mule and rode back. He was, however, being led by another rider (we call this ponying) all the way back to camp.
There were a couple spots on the trail that I just wouldn't ride down. I told the guys if they wanted to ride down, have at it, but I'd been too fortunate in my riding to take a chance on falling and breaking something. That would HURT!! and I DON'T like to hurt! And, being the oldest guy there, I thought that with age comes wisdom, and I was wise enough not to try to go down an EXTREMELY steep, rocky hill on my horse. Not good for him, and sure not good for me.
We stayed around camp for a bit and then decided on one more ride before the evening meal. The temp was delightful all day. Quite cool in the morning, we all wore jackets, and there were no flies to bother us. On the second ride, we finally came out of the jackets, and then the flies bombarded us. On the last ride, the wind changed to the north and it cooled off again. No more flies and back with the jackets. We had a wonderful time, and figured we rode about seven and a half hours.
Two of the guys who didn’t ride were the cooks, and did they put the ol' feed bag on for us. We spent about an hour and a half sharing Jesus with each other, and some good stories. I got home about 10 PM, well after dark.
All in all, it was a very good day with the guys.
"Happy trails to you!"
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