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!
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Just a few of many deer we saw on the trail
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