Sunday, February 27, 2011 - Ride Day around the Neighborhood

After a leisurely breakfast I fixed for us and my brother, Brother and I went for a nice long ride around the neighborhood. He lives in an area that is steeped with equestrians, and there are paths beside every canal and wide shoulders along every road in order to accommodate horses, so we just weaved up a road and down a canal for nearly three hours. He used to have horses a long time ago (when he had a wife and stepdaughter), but he hadn't been on one in ten years, and he never was much of a rider, but he managed to stay on well if nothing else! It was fun, we had a good time, and we were able to chat and catch up on old times. The horses, of course, were brilliant, despite the strange rider and new saddle (Brother had a nice saddle he retrieved from his closet and cleaned up yesterday), but typically, Clio still refused to canter, though I got a few nice ones in on Apollo. Weather was again warmer than usual, but there was enough of a breeze and occasional shade on the journey to make it comfortable. We've been getting some sun, so we're starting to look nice and healthy!

Thursday, February 24, 2011 - Ride Day at Jonathan Dickinson State Park

After a few uneventful work days, we loaded up the horses in the trailer and set off on the 20 minute drive to Jonathan Dickinson State Park, just off the beach north of Jupiter. We paid the $6.00 entrance fee, got a trail map and headed down to the equestrian area. There were quite a few cars parked there, but none with horse trailers, so it looked like we would be on our own. It was a beautiful day, unseasonably hot (better than unseasonably cold!), but there was a nice breeze coming from the beach that cooled it down a bit, still making it in the upper 70's. Trails (well, actually, roads) were very well marked, mostly sand and grass so the footing was excellent. Lots of long straight-aways for trots and canters, though Hubby's mare isn't too keen on cantering when the weather is this warm, but she has a fast trot that's about equal to my gelding's lope anyway. Extremely easy, level trails, so they did get a little boring after a while, though it's never too boring not to be enjoyable! Mostly widely spaced tall pines and scrub palms covering the terrain. Took the red perimeter trail, then weaved around a couple of the inner trails just to keep it interesting. Rode about 2 ½ hours or so before packing up and coming home. A beautiful day, just the kind of thing we were looking forward to here in Florida!

Monday, February 21, 2011 - Travel Day to Jupiter (FL)

Set the alarm for 8:00, but had breakfast in the RV before we left, as the entire drive was only about 90 minutes, so even with stops we'll get there in plenty of time. Left the campground at 10:30, and our first stop was for fuel (we found diesel at $3.49/gallon, which is a bargain rate at the moment), then at a propane place which, unfortunately, didn't have anyone there to fill our tank, so we moved on, figuring we could pick some up once we get where we're going. Next stop was at the Depuis Wildlife Management Area Equestrian Center, where they have a free RV dump, plus we wanted to see what it looked like. We heard many nice things about the trails, and the only drawback has been that they don't allow dogs, though the last few people I spoke to indicated that as long as you keep them quiet and relatively hidden, i.e. not flaunting them past the campground host's site, that it's not as vigorously enforced. It's a moot point for now, though, as we'll be staying at my brother's ranchette and can easily drive the 30 minutes for a day ride, but it was good to know for the future (and for others who are following our adventures). Finally we arrived at my brother's place about 2:30, and an hour or so later, had the horses pastured (with a new pasture buddy, Gandalph the billy goat), the RV set up with electric and filled with water, and the satellite dish up and running. Brother showed up a bit after 5:00, and we chatted awhile before settling down for the evening.

Sunday, February 20, 2011 - Second Ride Day at Hickory Hammock

As the weather has turned hotter, we got up and out earlier to avoid the main heat of the day. Today we started going around the loop the other way around, beginning at the entrance to the campground and heading east. This part of the loop is open, so the sun was hot beating down on us, but it was early enough to still be comfortable. By the time it became hotter, we had reached the more shady area. We didn't do much trotting and cantering today, though, because we didn't want to stress the horses with the heat. They still have some of their winter coat, though it's coming off fast, but it's more than what they should have in 80+ degree temps, so we stayed at a walk for the most part. It was a very nice ride, with one stop to get water at a hand pump about a mile before we reached the campground, where we rested for a few minutes. Interestingly, by the time we got back, a number of other campers, with and without horses, had arrived, and all were much more friendly, forthcoming and conversational than anyone we had experienced from the trail riding group yesterday. I guess there must be something about the competition that prevents people from being as nice as they probably could be. Anyway, we switched the horses into new stalls so we could clean the old ones better, and spent the evening relaxing and getting ready for our departure tomorrow.

Friday, February 18, 2011 - Ride Day at Hickory Hammock

Slept late, then after breakfast saddled up and started following the trail that was the route to be used for the competition tomorrow. We were under the impression that each of the obstacles had already been put in place, but in reality we only found one, a tarp on the ground at stop 3. We also thought it was a linear trail (every map we had indicated it was a linear trail), but in fact they had made a loop by following the fenceline. Because we missed it (it was poorly marked), we didn't see what the last three obstacles were (there are six total, apparently). We're still hoping we'll be able to observe tomorrow, but it's beginning to look like we won't be able to. Anyway, the trails were lovely, passing through some beautiful huge live oak with moss hanging down, typical old Florida terrain, lots of palm trees, and even a few cactus (which I thought we left behind in Texas! :-) Trails were sand and grass, with some great straight-aways for some trotting and cantering, something we're really doing a lot of these days. We followed the trail north until we reached a four-way intersection. We went straight at first, and in about ¾ miles, we came to the end of the trail, at a gate on a busy road. We turned around and came back to the intersection, and turned south. After about a half mile there was a fork, but no trail markers, so rather than risk getting lost, and still believing all the horse trails were linear, we headed back. Had we kept going, apparently, we would have made the loop, but once again, bad maps that don't match bad markings ruled the day. Disappointing, but at least we learned about it later so we can take it again on our next ride. There is also a trail that goes south out of the campground, but it seems to be mostly in the open, and the sun is a bit too hot (at least, in the afternooon, which is when we've been taking our rides lately), so I don't think we'll be taking that on. By the time we got back from our ride, several more campers had started coming in, so we had a few conversations with some of them. It seems most of them are newbies, we only met a few folks that had been to an event like this before. In the evening, we thought there would be a big bonfire and everyone would gather, but there was a small bonfire and only a few people gathered, mostly folks just stayed near their own campsites. Again, a bit disappointing, we had hoped to develop some camaraderie, but that didn't happen either. Oh well. Maybe things will improve tomorrow! The ride was nice, at least.

Saturday, February 19, 2011 - Informative Day, Sort Of

Got up early enough to walk over to the "riders meeting", which turned out to not be a meeting at all, at least not one that indicated any signs of organization. The organizer didn't start on time, and after 15 minutes of waiting, she started out apologizing, saying that she was waiting for the judges to "get in position" before conducting the meeting. Of course, as she started speaking to a few people, others stepped in to try to hear what she was saying, and started asking questions, so she started (I guess you could call it that) to start the meeting. Unfortunately, she was hard to hear, and after about five minutes someone finally handed here a microphone, which she didn't know how to use so it didn't help much. It seemed very impromptu and worse, amateur, and I ended up walking away shaking my head at the audacity of someone charging $58 to participate in such a shoddily-run event. I may check out another one to see if it's just the organizer or if they are all like this. I don't see it as being worth the money or effort. The "breakfast" was coffee and iced tea and one chafing dish of some kind of burrito mix, period. I didn't bother to go back to see what lunch was like, because there was no set time for that either and I wasn't about to hang out all day just to confirm what I already knew. Most everyone had packed up and left by late afternoon, pretty much leaving us on our own again, with only a few folks remaining. Anyway, spent the rest of the day doing some computer work and watching TV, planning on riding again tomorrow.

Thursday, February 17, 2011 - Rest and Errand Day near Sebring

Hubby spent the day doing a few chores, while I ran back in to town to pick up the mail, which arrived this morning, get gas and do some grocery shopping in Sebring, which is about 15 miles away. Temps are good and warm now, in the low 80's for the most part. People here seem to be pretty nice, lots of older folks (no surprise there), and many seem to be ex-military, which always seems to lend itself to a nicer, more friendly atmosphere. Surprisingly, not that many people showed up today, we thought there might be a few early birds. The only challenge here is that water is a hand pump (which they just replaced for a new one), so water has to be carried to the barn about 20 yards away. Other than that, since we filled up with water before coming here, this is a really nice place. Looking forward to our ride tomorrow!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - Second Ride Day at Rock Springs

With weather warming up more and more every day, and temps in the 70's today were perfect for our ride. We started out today going in the same direction as the Riding Stable tours from across the road, but we quickly lost our way again, once again trying to follow trails that were incredibly poorly marked on the map (which is particularly ironic because on the map they warn to "avoid getting lost by staying on marked trails"!) In any event, though we had decided that today would be a shorter ride, it ended up being about the same length because of all the missed turns and lack of landmarks. We even crossed paths of an old rundown horse camp in the middle of the park, further evidence that the only thing this park needs is a bit of better management, which is so often the case. I'm certain that an ambitious public servant would be able to rally enough volunteers to spiff up a place like this in no time, but that seems to be a quality sadly lacking these days. Oh well. When we got back we gave the horses a quick bath, hoping they would stay clean for half a minute (wishful thinking, of course), put away everything else we weren't going to need in preparation for our departure tomorrow. Tired from the ride, so we went to bed early, knowing we were getting up in the morning!

Monday, February 14, 2011 - Work Day

Extended our stay here through Wednesday, happy with the accommodations and the trails. Spent the rest of the day running errands and working on the computer, getting caught up on some work and resting from our long ride yesterday.

Sunday, February 13, 2011 - Ride Day at Rock Springs

Warmer temps prevailed today, so we saddled up and headed out on the trail, map in hand. It didn't help much, though. This is another case of the map not matching the trails, and the trails not being marked well enough to follow them even if they were. The roads, which crisscrossed the trails (which were also roads, just less used), weren't on the map at all either. None of the usual landmarks were marked, like lakes and buildings and primitive camping areas, so that was of no use. Despite the challenges, we managed to follow enough of the green trail toward the Wekiwa River to approximate where we were. We finally found something that's marked on the map as a horse watering trough, which in fact was simply a marsh next to the trail with a sign where you could give your horse a drink. According to the map, the river should have been nearby, but by that time we had been riding over two hours and didn't really want to go much further, so we turned around and headed back, trying to find a loop that would get us back. We finally did manage to end up in the field where the Deere equipment was, and made our way back to the camp. Despite the challenges created by the poor map (which we're getting all too used to!), the trails/roads themselves were pretty good. Some were through old growth live oaks and swampland (though the trails were dry) and others were through much more open spaces with lots of squash palms and the occasional Royal palm mixed in. The footing was mostly good, firmly packed dirt and sand, with only a few areas where the sand was deep enough to be a minor problem, so we got lots of trots and canters in. A wonderful ride, though a bit longer than we had intended, but the horses didn't seem to mind. They're getting fabulously fit again, strong and full of muscles, with lots of definition, and their stamina in super now. We just have to keep it up so they don't get soft again! Had a relaxing evening, well satisfied at our beautiful day!

Saturday, February 12, 2011 - Rest Day

Spent the day recovering from yesterday's excitement and doing some computer work, figuring we would ride tomorrow when the weather would be warmer. Today was rather chilly, with a strong north wind dropping the temps into the forties, and since we prefer to be fair weather riders, we held off until tomorrow. A simple relaxed evening.

Friday, February 11, 2011 - Move On Day

One of the things we love most about being on the road is, if you decide you can't get along with your neighbors, you can just move on, which is what we ended up doing today. It all started late last night. At about 9:00, one of the dogs came to us and asked to go out, so, being in an campground with just one other camper on the far side of the campground (and who had made friends with our two dogs within five minutes of our arrival on Tuesday), we simply opened the door and let them both out. Their habit is to simply explore for a few minutes, go off into the woods to do their business (which they've been specifically trained to do), then return shortly. The only time they might be delayed is if there is a very social environment, and they, especially little Billy (who is a social butterfly) might go visiting if people are sitting around a campfire. To date, this has never been a problem anywhere we go, and in fact, most are quite happy to befriend our cute little guy. Of course, we don't do this if we are near a busy road or urban environment, or if there is a large crowd in an area where dogs must be leashed at all times. In other words, we use common sense to insure no one is unnecessarily bothered by our dogs. Well, moments after letting the dogs out, a car pulled into the campground (remember, this is 9:00 at night). Of course, the dogs doing their job, started barking at the new strangers. I immediately called in our big and obedient dog Marina, but Billy wouldn't come in, so I put on a coat to go get him in. It turned out the newcomers were, in fact, our absentee camp hosts, who had not been here all week, but, judging from the dirt on their RV, had been in situ for some time. I called out, apologizing, gathering up Billy and heading back to our RV. From behind me, a male voice called out, "You have to put your dogs on a leash." I responded, "Even in the middle of the night?" He answered, "Yes.", I replied, "That's disappointing," and kept going. It should have ended there, but he persisted. "Ma'am, we have a dog and we have to put him on a leash, and so do you." Just the way he said it made me bristle, involuntarily, and I answered, "I GOT it," and I headed back in. I repeated the "conversation" to Hubby, and he said, "Well, that's it, we leave tomorrow." So I got back on the computer to find what options we had. We ended up not getting to bed until almost midnight because our adrenaline had hitched up a notch. Anyway, this morning, I made a few phone calls, disappointed that our first choice, Lake Louisa, flat out didn't allow dogs at the horse camp (allowed at the family campground, but not the horse campground - go figure), we considered Ocala NF, which was free but had no facilities, and finally settled on Rock Springs Preserve next to Wekiwa State Park just north of Orlando. It has a barn and water for the horses, an extensive trail system that is shared with a riding ranch concessionaire in the same campground location. An easy 2-hour drive, we stopped for breakfast, the later to dump at a Petro (but didn't get fuel there because their prices were so high), then picked up gas near Wildwood before heading out to the camp. Arrived around 2:00, discovered a water spigot with potable water we used to fill up the RV, parked next to the barn, and got settled in in no time. Our new backyard is beautiful, with a number of live oak trees with delightful hanging moss, and even though it's quite chilly from a strong north breeze, we're looking forward to a great ride tomorrow. Interestingly, scattered around the fields around us are numerous large John Deere tractors and farm equipment. At first we thought maybe they were having some kind of equipment convention here this weekend, but a little research discovered that the local John Deere dealer apparently leases out much of the area as a demonstration area for their potential customers. The odd things one learns while traveling like this! We saw a number of vehicles moving around the fields, so I guess some folks were test driving! Anyway, we settled in for the evening, delighted with our new digs, and the memory of our last human encounter quickly fading, thank goodness.

Thursday, February 10, 2011 - Rest Day

Spent the day working on the computer expanding my Google Earth listing of horse camps, while it rained for a good part of the day. Hubby read and watched TV, then took a short trip into town to pick up a few things before we settled in for the evening.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011 - Ride Day at River Rise Preserve

 THESE are the kinds of rides we live for! After sleeping WAY too late (if there can be such a thing when there's no appointments pending :-), we finally managed to get out on the trail about 12:30. And what a trail it was! We started on the red trail, where the footing was sand and dirt often covered by leaves, and it meandered through a variety of terrain (though all flat), with some areas filled with squash palms and others with large old growth trees that were perfectly stunning. The trail took us close to the Santa Fe River, which apparently is mostly an above ground river that suddenly turns subterranean where Oleno State Park is, the "rises" to the surface again, thus explaining the name of our wildlife area. From the read trail we looped back on part of the yellow trail, which extends a very long way on the other side of 441, which is a very busy road so we decided not to cross it today, but might do over the weekend, then meandered through some of the green trail, which were mostly sandy roads, which were perfect for long trots, canters, and we even got a few gallops in, would you believe! It was fantastic! Both us and the horses were very relaxed, even at the gallops (which I think they're starting to really enjoy knowing we're getting so comfortable with them). We couldn't have asked for a more perfect ride! We were out just under three hours, and all of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Although we had originally planned on moving south on Friday, it looks like we're going to stay for the weekend so we can get that 15-mile yellow trail done on Saturday. A perfect day!



Just a few of many deer we saw on the trail





Tuesday, February 8, 2011 - Travel Day to River Rise Preserve

Well, though it didn't rain, it stayed cloudy all day, and was colder than we thought it would be, but at least we're moving further south! An uneventful drive to Oleno State Park where we picked up our credentials for River Rise, followed their driving instructions (which put the horse camp in a place WAY outside where Google Earth says the boundaries are for River Rise!), went through the locked gate to find quite a substantive barn and an area filled with gorgeous live oaks, picnic tables and fire rings scattered about. We filled up the water tank from the washrack, picked a spot next to the barn and were settled in in not time. The trails looked quite inviting, and there's an extensive trail network here, so we're very much looking forward to our ride tomorrow!

Monday, February 7, 2011 - Rainy Day

Well, the forecasters were right today, despite having clear skies when we went to bed, it rained most of the night later on, and well into the morning. It quit about noon, but the train of rain was between us and our next destination, so we decided to stay one more day. Used it to do housekeeping, laundry, reading, and keep searching for new horse camps, as I have a very good broadband signal here, though I'm getting close to maxxing out my monthly limit, so I may have to spring for another megabyte. Either that or give it a rest for awhile, and that's hard to do! Hopefully the forecasters will be right and tomorrow will be sunny!

Sunday, February 6, 2011 - Ride, Caverns and Super Bowl Sunday

Since our original plan was to only stay here two nights, we wanted to try to get everything in today. We started out with a nice ride after breakfast. The trails were great, typical Gulf coast sand/clay/pine needles and leaves. Despite the enormous amounts of rain, there were only a few puddles on the trails, and none of them more than an inch or two deep. The only drawback is there are only a few miles of trails, and one of them was closed. We took the Fenceline loop, which is only about 3 miles long, then when we hit the dirt road, we decided to go for a run down the road a ways. The horses were brilliant again, frisky and eager despite the fact that the last ride we took was 15 miles long, so they charged ahead with a lovely trot and canter along the road. It seems the 3 mile walk had just barely warmed them up. We cantered for a bit, then turned around and cantered back, and still they hadn't even broken into a sweat. Still, it was a nice ride, though they were quite surprised we were back in camp in less than 90 minutes. I could almost read my horse's eyes, "Is that it?" Not to worry, we'll be going places with lots longer trails, I assured him. After they were put away, Hubby and I had some soup (our standard lunch on our new "New Year's Resolution Diet", which I just made up, and which we've each lost about 7 pounds in the last 4 weeks, not fast but steady), then we drove over to the cavern tour in time for the 3:00 tour, which lasted about an hour. It was supposed to last 50 minutes, but we kept slowing down to take photos, and, as usual, the tour guide wanted to go at a much faster pace than we did. I'm glad Carlsbad Caverns still has mostly self-guided tours so that you can go at your own pace, but unfortunately they don't do that here. So we go to race from one room to the next, only to stand around for 10 minutes listening to bad jokes and lame stories, with the rare piece of informative tidbit thrown in occasionally. Not bad, though, there were some pretty good formations of interest. Afterward, we came back to camp, set the PVR up for the Superbowl, and watched a good western movie. Unlike most people, we like to watch the football, not the commercials, so skip through them on our Dish PVR. So about halfway through we joined the game (from the beginning, and skipped the ads and the commentary, jumping from play to play. We caught up to the Live shot about halfway through the 4th quarter, which was just perfect for us, and watched it till the end. A great game, so much closer than so many of them, we enjoyed it completely. Way to go Green Bay! Nice to know they still have a good team even without Brett Favre. Anyway, the weather forecast is looking dismal for tomorrow, with great streams of rain training from the southwest to the northeast, so it looks like we may be stuck here another day if we want to travel in sunny weather, which we like to do to keep the hay dry. At least I'll be able to get more laundry done!

Saturday, February 5, 2011 - Travel Day to Florida Caverns

 Well, despite assurances from the weather forecasters, it was not a sunny day today. It was cloudy and overcast almost the entire trip, and at one point we ran into a bit of beady little snow. Other than a couple of stops for fuel and to pick up breakfast, it was an otherwise uneventful drive. Arrive at Florida Caverns State Park around 3:30, got checked right in (I had made the reservation online), stopped at the dump in the park (the one at the Mississippi border where we originally had planned to dump was closed), and quickly got settled in. There are only three equestrian sites here, two of which can be reserved, one they withhold for walk-ins. There is a good sized field and woods area next to us though, where lots more tent campers could find a spot. We get water and electric and stalls for the horses for $20/night total, which is high but could be much worse. There are 5 or 6 large covered box stalls, and maybe 10-12 small open stalls as well. We were the only ones here with horses, though there were a number of folks around in tents. Got settled in, started doing laundry (practically mandatory when we have electric AND water together), and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Friday, February 4, 2011 - Another Cold, Rainy Day

Slept late since there wasn't any real reason to get up, and in bed was the warmest place in the house. Really lazy day today, since we couldn't ride or do anything outside. Watched movies and news, that was about it today. Hubby's eye is better now, nothing to stop us from moving on tomorrow!

Thursday, February 3, 2011 - Rain Day

Cold and wet all day, woke up to a layer of ice covering the tarp over the hay, the generator, and everything else out in the open. Got the horses out of the trailer where they had spent the night. Hubby spent most of it watching TV and I worked on finding more horse camps in the south and east, which I had done before but got lost when my computer crashed and I didn't realize that Carbonite wasn't saving my Google Earth My Places (which I now move to a file that I know will be backed up regularly). Mostly found places in Florida, which, judging by the unusually cold weather, is going to be where we stay for the next 6-8 weeks. Put the horses in the trailer again for the night, as the forecast was for 100% chance of rain and lows near freezing. Sure wish we'd made it to Florida before now, not looking forward to yet another day of cold wet weather, but we'll just have to hunker down and suffer through it! At least we're not having 60 inches of snow, which seems to be the norm for everyone north of the Mason-Dixon!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011 - Shopping Day

Cold and cloudy today. Forecast keeps changing, first for the better, then for the worse. Hubby's eye isn't really well enough to drive unless we were really pressed, and since we're not, we decided to stay. Unfortunately, the temps keep dropping and the cold rain keeps falling. Ran into nearby Wiggins to drop off mail, get gas for the van and the generator, and enough groceries to last us until Saturday, when the weather, theoretically, will be warmer and sunny and we'll be moving on to north Florida. Put the horses in the trailer for the night, since the forecast now is for freezing rain overnight, with lows in the 20's. Once again, "unusual" for this part of the country. I'm beginning to get paranoid, that the cold weather is intentionally following us. Looking for a horse camp in the Florida Keys, if anybody knows of one!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011 - Bookkeeping Day

Had a good night's sleep after taking some ibuprofen before going to bed (Hubby took Tylenol). Spent the day working on my bookkeeping, finishing off last year's books and moving everything to a new bookkeeping program, and preparing to do the taxes. I'm waiting for a few more weeks before having mail forwarded, to make sure we have all the tax info. I suspect that some will be late because of the tardiness of the extension of the Bush tax rates in December. I trust they won't mind if I send in my taxes late, too (yeah, right!). It was warm, and rained most of the day, so it was the perfect day for office work. Hubby watched the news most of the day (the Egyptian uprising), then took a nap in the afternoon. On the ride yesterday, a branch swung and hit him in the face, and making a small cut on his eye, which is small but painful, so I bandaged up his eye to keep him from rubbing it and making it worse. Although we had originally planned to leave tomorrow, there's a cold front coming our way (one of the worst storm's of the century, according to most news reports), so there's only a few degrees difference between where we are and where we're going. Since here we are paying zero to camp, and will have to pay $20/night at the next place, we'd rather not do that when the weather is cold and rainy and we won't be able to ride anyway. The added incentive of Hubby suffering, and possibly not even able to drive if his eye doesn't get well enough, we've decided to stay here, even though it's going to be getting really cold in the next few days. We can always throw the horses into the trailer if it gets too cold. With that decided, we went to bed snuggling, using body heat to fend off the cold (whoo-hoo!).