Saturday, February 20, 2010 - The Day of the Long Ride

In addition to Tom and Gloria arriving last night, more folks arrived early this morning, and most were out on the trail by just after 10:00. We followed suit by about 10:30, and headed out on the Sandstone Trail. We decided to take the shorter loop (15 miles, according to the lady at the ranger station), going counter clockwise, with a brief stop in the middle. What a GREAT ride! Trails were a bit muddy in some spots, and really torn up by the ATVer’s (who are supposed to be banned at the moment, but that doesn’t seem to be working), but the variation in terrain, with some sandy flats, some mountain climbing and descending, lots of different kinds of trees, by far the most interesting trail we’ve been on in a long time. Trails are well marked, too, and they even have mile markers every mile, though not necessary in the direction we were going. It seems the trail is a little more than 15 miles, and the trail from the campground to the cutaway trail is another 4+ miles, so in the end, we figured we did almost twenty miles in the end. The horses did great, though they were obviously tired the last few miles, as were we. They got a great oats reward when we got back at 5:30, with a half hour of light left to get everyone settled. Then I walked over the Tom and Gloria’s site to return a bottle of wine (which we thought we’d be back in time to share, but it was a bit late now), and had a can of beer with them instead. Meanwhile, Hubby befriended the other campers that arrived in the morning, Greg and Lorilee. Greg is from England, too (as is Hubby), so they chatted about the state of things in the world. Finally got back, made a meal, then crashed into bed, with muscles that knew they’d had a workout! A fabulous day!