Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - Rainy Day at Kelly Pines

Rain came in before we went to bed, and continued intermittently throughout the night, sometimes quite heavy, with a few bolts of lightning and rumbles of thunder. We were VERY happy the horses were under cover, and I’m sure they were too! Didn’t clear up until late in the day, and we needed the rest anyway, so it worked well all around. Spent the day getting caught up on my computer and my blog, seems like there’s never any end to stuff that needs doing, even when there’s no internet connection! Took a ride down to the Ranger station to find a signal and to get any maps they might have. A lot of very strange and conflicting information there. One young man indicated there were NO trail suitable for horses at Kelly Pines, that we’d have to ride cross country if we wanted to ride. Sorry, but THAT wasn’t going to happen! He also said that he couldn’t give me a trail map, he could only let me look at it (it was just a photocopy!) After pointing out to him that I had been speaking with the rec guy Joe, and that he said there were trails, the young man finally brought out a rec woman and we had a nice chat, though not as helpful as I would have liked. On the kiosk at the campground there is a map of trails, some of which had a notation NOT to ride. She explained that this was because they were disputing the work of some contractor they had who was supposed to be "reconstructing" the trails, and they weren’t happy with the work, so they didn’t want to trample on it. Then she said they had recently re-thought that strategy, and figured it would better demonstrate that the trails wouldn’t hold up if they actually let riders ride on them, so THEN they could argue the point that they wouldn’t hold up! So all trails were open, but the trail map was, theoretically, not accurate. Then I finally pulled it out of her that the trails had been there since the 50’s, so they were THERE, they just weren’t as safe as they wanted them to be... I’m beginning to hate a government that thinks it’s their responsibility to keep ME safe. I can take care of myself, thank you very much. Anyway, she DID give me a copy of the map, so at least I had a starting point. Between that and my GPS, at least I’m hoping we won’t be getting COMPLETELY lost this week! After spending some time in their parking lot, where I could get a good signal, I did a little internet work before heading back to the campground. Not sure how this will all play out, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough! Ride planned for tomorrow!