Thursday, August 12, 2010 - Drive Day to Horse Creek, Siuslaw National Forest

Got up about 7:00, got out by 8:30, heading west until we picked up 101, the famous Pacific Coast Highway. A little while later we saw our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, in effect completing our cross country trip, from sea to shining sea, though I said it doesn't count until the horses get their feet in the Pacific, the way they did in the Atlantic on Assateague Island last October. That will have to wait till next week, when we'll be actually camping on the beach. Meanwhile, we had more immediate challenges to solve. We knew that the campground we were going to had no potable water, and the stock water was somewhere 1000 feet from the camping area. Though I tried to find out from the local ranger office whether we could reach the water with our truck, I couldn't get a straight answer. I spoke to two girls who didn't know anything other than what was on the website (which I had already read, thank you very much), then got transferred to someone's voicemail, but who didn't call me back until after we had already arrived. We stopped in a small town to try to find some kind of storage tank for water, but all the local farmer's coop had was a 63-gallon one that fit into the back of a pickup, which would have been perfect except it was over $200 (yes, I'm the thrifty type). As we were leaving, though, I saw a plastic 55-gallon drum by the front door with a sign asking for food donations. I went back in and asked if they sold those drums, and was told no, but the lady at the desk asked around, even getting on the phone to find out who had them, and discovered they were from a feed store just up the road. So she called them and handed me a phone, and sure enough, they had one. If we wanted it, it would be sitting by the back door of the loading dock, and we were free to take it, no charge! So we ran by and picked it up. It was dirty, looked like it had some kind of oil stuff in it, but it turned out to be something they use of cow teats for some reason. We put it in the back of the pickup, not sure whether we would need it or how it would work, but convinced it would be useful at some point. We continued to head south on 101. Though we were driving right along the coast, the turn into the forest took us up a narrow road that climbed into the hills (it's hard to call something 1370 feet above sea level a mountain). I let Hubby go first to scope out any problems, and he started out rather disappointed at the campground, and particularly in the distance to the water, which, in fact, was actually down a switchback on the trail, better than a quarter mile away, with no hope of being able to lug any up to the campsite. Contrary to what the ranger gals told me, it was not a pond or lake, but a trough with a hose coming out of a spring to fill it. It would have to be walking the horses there until we could modify our newly-acquired barrel. We found a pretty nice spot facing a bank of trees, and after getting the horses in their corrals, spent an hour getting the satellite dish set up. Afterward, when the horses had had time to eat some of their hay, we decided it was time to get them to the water. They had had a long drink when we filled the RV tank at a campground up the road, so they weren't desperate. Anyway, I put my bridle on Apollo, and swung myself on to his bareback, something we had never done together before. He wasn't quite sure what was happening and pranced a moment, then settled down when he discovered he could now reach clover. I let him graze a bit, letting him (and me) get accustomed to this new feel. Hubby handed me his mare's lead, and off we went! I sensed that both horses were a bit curious about what this new thing was, but were on their best behavior, almost like they were trying to help me out! Good horses! We made our way to the trailhead, then down the trail, which has a pretty good grade to it. Made it down to the trough without incident, and they both had a good long drink. Back up the hill (I'm not ashamed to say I had to hold onto his mane to keep from sliding back too far), and got back to the campsite in one piece in just a little over ten minutes. Everybody happy at the new experience! Off to bed with a list of things to do in the morning!