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!
