Saturday, November 6, 2010 - Ride Day in Three Rivers

Slept late again, so obviously we're still recovering from our late hours earlier in the week. After brunch, we saddled and booted up the horses and hit the trail about 12:45. The trail was pretty rocky in a lot of places, but some areas weren't too bad. It was a gentle climb for the first couple of miles, but then started getting very rough, so we decided to return, since this was the horses' first day out in over two weeks, and we wanted to make it easy for them. They were already sweating just on this short, easy ride, so we knew they'd gotten out of shape, so we have to work them up again slowly. I can't say it was as enjoyable as it could've been, mostly because hostess Christy had regailed us with stories of running away from bears, almost getting leaped on by a mountain lion, rattlesnakes and a whole litany of other wildlife horror stories that kept us on a paranoic edge for a while, before we finally settled down, comforted by a lack of activity of wildlife all around us. In fact, the only thing we saw was a flock of wild turkeys crossing the trail in front of us. Meanwhile, the horses were brilliant, well-behaved, not at all spooky though their ears and noses did prick up on a few occasions. So well-seasoned now, even a two-plus week break hasn't phased them. Was out for a total of almost two hours, just about the right length for our first day out. Spent the rest of the day watching movies, beginning with Jaws and Jaws 2, having DVR'ed the whole epic in recent weeks, before switching to a couple of network shows. Went to bed happy that we're living the dream!