While the night was restful for us, it wasn’t quite so restful for the horses. We noticed some signs of wild hogs or pigs along the side of the road coming in yesterday, and that was borne out by the fact that the horses seemed to be at attention when we went to bed last night, and were still hyper-alert this morning, though nowhere near as agitated as when we had hogs in the campground in Texas last winter. That, combined with two days off, and the fact that it was a lot cooler this morning meant the horses were quite frisky when we set out just after noon. The trail map we got from the ranger station yesterday is pathetic, though the trails are actually marked a bit better, they just don’t jibe with the map very well. Lots of intersections have numbered markers, but the numbers aren’t on the map, so that doesn’t help. The trails are marked by colored arrows, but the map is in black and white, so you have to decipher the gray dots on the map are the green trail, little diamonds on the map are the red trail, and so on. The first part of the trail was essentially open areas with lots of little palmetto palms, as if it had been cleared and never recovered. Eventually we went through a few areas of older growth forest. After several missteps, we finally found the crosswalk over the road to get to the Mustang Trail, which turned out to be very nice, with some of the best old growth forest we’d seen in a long time, but even that side had a few areas of "management," code for clearing out the old growth trees and replacing it with pines, likely for eventual harvest. We even crossed a water hazard, our first in weeks! Okay, so it was just a trickle of a creek, but at least it was running water! Did the entire Green Trail (parts of it twice) and the Red Trail in just under three hours, and found lots of places to trot and canter, in fact did some of the longest canters we’ve ever done. It’s a pretty small park, so it was hard to get too lost. The horses started out jittery, but finally settled down after a few of the canters, though they got a little on edge on the final leg back to the camping area, where the telltale signs of wild pigs grew more noticeable. They’re absolutely getting in better shape though, as are we. It feels so good to be getting back to riding more regularly, we’ve been so busy since the summer it feels like we’ve gotten off track! Got back to the campground and discovered that all four of our neighbors had moved out, but knew they’d be filled in again by the evening, though whether any of the were bringing horses was unknown. Got the horses settled in just about the time people started showing up. We discovered that we could easily reach the electrical outlet of the site next to us, so we decided to plug in, then ask later when someone arrived if they’d mind. Eventually they showed up, and after a nice chat, they said they didn’t mind, so we’re set with electric for the weekend (albeit by a bit of pirating.) Call it being resourceful...: -) Anyway, we had a quiet evening and we’re looking forward to good sleeping weather, temps down to 40 tonight!
While the night was restful for us, it wasn’t quite so restful for the horses. We noticed some signs of wild hogs or pigs along the side of the road coming in yesterday, and that was borne out by the fact that the horses seemed to be at attention when we went to bed last night, and were still hyper-alert this morning, though nowhere near as agitated as when we had hogs in the campground in Texas last winter. That, combined with two days off, and the fact that it was a lot cooler this morning meant the horses were quite frisky when we set out just after noon. The trail map we got from the ranger station yesterday is pathetic, though the trails are actually marked a bit better, they just don’t jibe with the map very well. Lots of intersections have numbered markers, but the numbers aren’t on the map, so that doesn’t help. The trails are marked by colored arrows, but the map is in black and white, so you have to decipher the gray dots on the map are the green trail, little diamonds on the map are the red trail, and so on. The first part of the trail was essentially open areas with lots of little palmetto palms, as if it had been cleared and never recovered. Eventually we went through a few areas of older growth forest. After several missteps, we finally found the crosswalk over the road to get to the Mustang Trail, which turned out to be very nice, with some of the best old growth forest we’d seen in a long time, but even that side had a few areas of "management," code for clearing out the old growth trees and replacing it with pines, likely for eventual harvest. We even crossed a water hazard, our first in weeks! Okay, so it was just a trickle of a creek, but at least it was running water! Did the entire Green Trail (parts of it twice) and the Red Trail in just under three hours, and found lots of places to trot and canter, in fact did some of the longest canters we’ve ever done. It’s a pretty small park, so it was hard to get too lost. The horses started out jittery, but finally settled down after a few of the canters, though they got a little on edge on the final leg back to the camping area, where the telltale signs of wild pigs grew more noticeable. They’re absolutely getting in better shape though, as are we. It feels so good to be getting back to riding more regularly, we’ve been so busy since the summer it feels like we’ve gotten off track! Got back to the campground and discovered that all four of our neighbors had moved out, but knew they’d be filled in again by the evening, though whether any of the were bringing horses was unknown. Got the horses settled in just about the time people started showing up. We discovered that we could easily reach the electrical outlet of the site next to us, so we decided to plug in, then ask later when someone arrived if they’d mind. Eventually they showed up, and after a nice chat, they said they didn’t mind, so we’re set with electric for the weekend (albeit by a bit of pirating.) Call it being resourceful...: -) Anyway, we had a quiet evening and we’re looking forward to good sleeping weather, temps down to 40 tonight!
No comments:
Post a Comment