Sunday, April 3, 2011 - Ride Day with Brother at Dupuis

Having already let his friends know he would be leaving early today, Brother and I left with the horses around 12:30, finally taking him out to Dupuis, a place that despite the fact that he lives less than 30 minutes away, he has never been. We saddled up and headed out, me with my saddlebag packed with my usual; first aid kit, thermal blanket, matches, Swiss army knife, extra Gatorade, etc. Brother, of course, packed his saddle bag with his usual; beer. What can I say, it's just the way he is. Anyway, we headed out on the yellow trail, most of which I hadn't done yet, and it was a lot more wide open than previous trails had been. After an hour, Brother needed a break, so we stopped for awhile. Then we headed out again, for about another half hour, till he needed to stop again. While we were resting, we saw TWO bald eagles, one perching in a tree so quietly he looked like part of the tree, and another that came swooping in, landing near the one perching for a few minutes, making some sort of overtures of some kind (not sure if it was mating play or something), before taking off and circling away. It was truly a beautiful thing to watch. We then carried on, and finally got one pretty decent canter in (he doesn't like to trot because he hasn't really learned to post yet, so we've been plodding along at a walk the entire way), which went well. Then we took a third and final break next to a small pond where the horses were able to get a much needed drink before heading out again. By now, even my butt was getting tired from doing the same pace all day. The trail is just under 9 miles, and I had figured about 3 hours, but with all the stops and lack of trotting and cantering, it took us almost 4 � hours to complete. It was after 6:00 by the time we got back to the trailer, nearly 7:00 when we got home. It was a beautiful day, though, a bit hot in the sun but a nice breeze kept us from overheating. It was a great ride which I look forward to doing again with Hubby on another day. Crashed for the evening, watching the very compelling movie "2012" before going to bed.