Wednesday, December 7, 2011 - Another Ride at Millcreek Park

Got another load of laundry in, and did a few jobs in the morning before we headed out for another ride on these terrific trails. We started out going in reverse from the previous day, heading north on the Governor’s (Yellow) trail, carrying on past the cutoff and working our way through some lovely narrow, forest trails. Blazes were a bit more intermittent and the trail wasn’t marked as well as the Palmetto Trail, but just when I had my doubts, another yellow marker would usually pop up. This was a really windy trail, and Apollo really had to concentrate, which kept his active brain busy, and thus out of any trouble. We almost missed one intersection when we reached an area of private property, but eventually discovered the trail went directly across a road. A couple of guys were on the private property doing some dog training, looked like hounds learning how to follow bait that was being pulled around by an ATV. Fortunately the occasional gunshot was far enough away not to startle the horses too much, and we got by that area without incident. Then we were on sandy roads for a bit, and we got a few nice trots and canters in. We didn’t take the Governor’s trail the entire way, as we got started too late in the day, so we took a few roads back to the Palmetto Trail and headed back towards camp. More opportunities to trot and canter, and the horses behaved themselves splendidly, so we got back to camo without incident, and having finally worked the horses back to riding mode. Too bad they’re going to get a whole week or more off after this! Can’t wait until we can get back to riding 2-3 times a week consistently. Should be able to do that after this next job, our last of the year! Yeah! Managed to get another load of laundry in before the evening was out. Settled in for the evening, well satisfied with our ride today.