Monday, January 31, 2011 - Fabulous Ride Day

Picnic Area with Hitching Rail

Set the alarm for 8:00, had breakfast, then packed up the saddle bags with plans to take the longest loop in the forest, almost 15 miles, leaving about 10:30. It's been such a long time since we had a long ride, but as this might be the only nice weather we have while we're here, we decided to make the most of it. Our only concern was that with all the rain, there might be some impassable places. Last year, when we were here in February, we had plans to take the Blue trail, but the water was so high that we couldn't cross a bridge. In fact, the water was up the to horses' chests when we were still 10 yards from the bridge, and the water was running fast enough for us to turn around. This year, though, the bridge was clear and we were able to easily pick our way through all of the water hazards, most of them were no more than knee-high. The day started out cloudy, but as the day passed, the clouds broke up, the sun came out, and it warmed up enough for me to strip down to my sleeveless tank top, a perfect day weatherwise. We LOVE these trails. The footing is sand, clay, grass and pine needles, or any combination thereof, which means no boots, no rocks, excellent draining for the most part, just great footing except for a very few slippery spots. The trails are extremely well marked, and we only missed one fork because an arrow on one tree was tipped to the left instead of to the right, but we discovered our mistake just a few hundred yards out when the trail petered out, so we turned around. We stopped at the old POW camp (from WWII, when they brought captured Germans here) for lunch at the Horse Rest Area (I'm not kidding, there's an actual sign there), which was about 2/3 of the way around the loop. There are picnic tables and hitching rails all along the trail and we stopped at several to take a break, to stretch our legs and rest the horses. They were brilliant, by the way, they didn't seem to mind the long journey one bit. In fact, we've gained so much confidence in the past year, we were trotting and cantering a lot, and Hubby even got a few gallops in! He's been a little nervous about those in the past, but he's learning to relax and sit more deeply in the saddle, which is making a huge difference for him. My horse is learning to canter on cue better than ever, and we did a lot of it today. A great ride that lasted until we arrived back in camp about 5:00, stiff and sore, but happy that we survived an all-day journey (though we'll likely be in need of pain killers tomorrow!) These are the kind of days that we LIVE for! And the very best part? There's no fee for camping here! If it wasn't going to get cold on Wednesday, we'd probably stay a lot longer, but because of incoming rain, hail and cold air, we'll be moving on, on the only sunny day that's forecasted, Wednesday.

Sunday, January 30, 2011 - Rain and Rest Day



Today's Backyard

The day started out misty and drizzly, and stayed that way until the afternoon, when it turned to intermittent rain, then steady rain, and occasionally heavy rain. Fortunately, it stayed warm, so we weren't worried about the horses, they needed a rinse off anyway. Spent the day watching movies and relaxing, with plans to ride tomorrow, as the forecast looks much more promising.

Saturday, January 29, 2011 - Drive Day to Bigfoot Horse Camp

Set the alarm for 7:00 and headed out early, as it's going to be a long drive today. We managed to get out with no problem, for which we were grateful, and headed straight to the Walmart in Lake Charles, where we did our shopping and got fuel. Afterward we detoured to the Post Office to mail a letter, though was disappointed that it was closed on Saturday. Dropped it anyway, so I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. Stopped once at a Winn-Dixie to pick up salad mix that I forgot earlier, and to give the horses a drink. After one wrong turn that Gracie (my GPS) made me take, we were soon back in familiar territory. This was the first camp we've been back to since we left in December 2009, and it was a welcome sight. We filled up with water at the maintenance office by the Airey Tower, then drove back down to the Horse Trail and Camp. It was very crowded, which was a rare and pleasant surprise, it's been so long since we've been at a horse camp with lots of other campers. Of course, that's one of the reason we seldom arrive on Saturday, but we know this place was big enough to handle whatever crowd was here, and weren't worried. We ended up backing into a space at the far end, a place we had remembered from last time, that's close to the water (not that we'll necessarily need it), and away from the rest of the crowd. There was one guy here in a small truck nearby that looked like a homeless guy and his dog, and in fact, we seemed to recall he was here last time we were here (without a horse) back in February 2010. We set up so the horse trailer gave us a "circle the wagons" kind of privacy, but I guess that wasn't enough for the guy, he packed up and moved out. Well, it's a free country, and there's no designated camping sites, just fire rings, corrals and picnic tables scattered around. Besides, it's a HORSE CAMP, which means you should be camping with a HORSE, not taking up space when there are campgrounds elsewhere you could go without a horse. Anyway, things worked out, and we set out our highline, got settled in, satellite dish and all, in no time.

Friday, January 28, 2011 - Ride Day at Rutherford Beach

After a rocky start yesterday, we were looking forward to a pleasant ride today. The forecast looked good yesterday, with 5-10 mph breezes, but by this morning, that had changed to 15-20 mph winds, and they were a bit cool, so we had to bundle up in parkas for our beach ride. For some reason (likely the clover), the horses were VERY antsy today, skittish at everything, leaping sideways for no reason. We took the dogs with us on this trip, and that probably didn't help much, but it wasn't the reason. We headed east until we reached a fence, surprised at the number of platform (we assumed oil) just off the coast. The beaches were much wider than anything we've been on except maybe Assateague Island in Maryland, but there was quite a bit of trash, though not as bad as some we've seen. Once we turned around and headed back west, the horses seemed to have burned off most of the excess energy, and we enjoyed the ride back a bit more. We passed the road we came in on, going a bit more west, but ran across more blockades, so we headed back to the homesite, having been out maybe 90 minutes at the most, just a few miles round trip, but enough to give the horses some exercise. Nevertheless, it was a good place to stop halfway between between Bigfoot Horse Camp and Houston, which has a dearth of places to overnight with horses, and no doubt we'll be back again if and when we head west along I-10 again.

Thursday, January 27, 2011 - Travel Day to Rutherford Beach, LA

Today's backyard

Got up fairly early, packed up, loaded the horses into their new, fantastic trailer, and headed out to our next stop, Rutherford Beach, LA. We found out about it on www.horseandmuletrails.com, which has become one of our favorite websites for finding out of the way places. Not always accurate, but a good start nevertheless. It had listed this place, along with the name and number of a very kind Southern gentleman, who is essentially a parish commissioner, who welcomed us heartily, and reminded us of how much we missed Southern hospitality. Though people have been nice almost every place we've been, there's something about the "above and beyond" that Southerners do that warms the heart. After stopping at an RV park on Sabine Lake, just before crossing into Louisiana to pick up water, and after we took the ferry across into Cameron (which was a pleasant surprise, but did slow us down a bit), I tried to call this gentleman (his name was Scott), but my cell phone didn't have a signal. I figures we could go down to the area we knew we were going and try to reach him again, but after we passed through Cameron, I received a text message from Scott, saying he saw us going through town, so he hopped in his truck and followed, then passed us and led us out. Right off the beach there are two streets where there used to be houses, but those were wiped out during Hurricane Rita a few years back and for the most part, never rebuilt. There were several structures that essentially were covers and porches for RV's, but only one real house on stilts. The lot he had gotten permission for us to use had part of a concrete pad and some wood stills, and the rest was plush green clover, something I knew the horses would love, but we would have to limit their intake and make sure they had plenty of water to protect them from colic. After Scott left us (after we declined his invitation to take us to dinner :-), we started getting settled in. Unfortunately, we got a little too settled. The clover was so dense that we didn't realize just how soft the ground was underneath, and when we back the horse trailer up toward the back of the lot, the wheels of the van got stuck, and we couldn't move. We took out the horses and tied them to a couple of posts, then had to unhook the van and reposition it to get out of the ruts we had made. We put a couple of pieces of plywood under the wheels as well, but that still wasn't enough. So we had to move the RV back up on the road and unhook it, so that we could use the truck to pull out the van and horse trailer. Finally in tandem, we were able to move everything out. We backed the horse trailer between the stills so that the van's wheels were on the concrete pad. Then we hooked the truck back up to the RV trailer, and pulled that in, trying to stay somewhat close to the road in an effort to not get stuck there. That didn't work either. We ended getting the truck stuck as well, because the weight of the trailer sank deeply into the soft ground. So then we had to unhook the van from the horse trailer and move that to the front of the line and try to use that to pull out the truck and the RV. Unfortunately, that didn't work, and a couple of times the wheels of the van spun and slipped so badly I thought it was going into the ditch next to the road! So we had to unhook the truck from the RV again, reposition it at a different angle, hook the van up at the front and try again. Fortunately, this time we made it! We finally repositioned the RV along a previous set of tire tracks where the ground seemed firmer because the clover had died off along that path, and kept the truck as close to the road as possible to hopefully avoid any further problems. Then we ran a highline from one of the stilts to an electrical pole, which gave the horses a pretty good run, and fed them some more hay (they had already gotten tired of the clover, would you believe!). In all, it took us more than two hours to get settled, which was absurd considering it was an open lot, but at least we managed in the end to get it done before dark, which was all that mattered. Our new back yard faces the sunset, so we enjoyed that as our reward for a hard job well done (though I felt like our troubles were mostly self-inflicted by not being careful enough, which is always rather unsettling). After feeding the dogs, then us, we settled in for the evening, watching the good action film The Bourne Identity, before crashing into bed around 11:00.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - Laundry and Prep Day

Spent the day doing laundry, cleaning and generally getting ready for our long-awaited departure tomorrow. Discovered the box of books I had ordered had arrived, albeit a day late. As it turned out they weren't necessary at all because of the low attendance in the end, which means we now have to haul them around for awhile, extra weight we really didn't need. At least we got the laundry done.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - Work Day

Made ourselves at home, had breakfast and then got ready for the day. Didn't have quite as many attendees to her private session as we had hoped in the end, and started later than anticipated, but still had a pretty good session. As soon as we finished, we packed up, had a quick meal and headed back to Houston. Stopped for groceries and gas, arrived back late, went to bed exhausted.