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Last Friday, March 20, I think, five of us took a springtime ride. The cast of characters was Shawn and Elias, Judy and Nadia, Debbie and Alex, Julie Wayne and Cal, and Al and I. For those of you who haven't seen Shawn and Elias recently, they are the bookends for this paragraph. |
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Shawn, Judy and I rode from the barn and met Julie and Debbie at Smith Grade, where we joined together and headed for Woodcutter's. We were doing well, with Judy and Nadia leading until we crossed the first of many little rivulets across the road. As it turns out, Alex is a pretty conservative guy and water crossings hadn't come up much in his life to date. As a result, he took fast and agressive evasive action to avoid crossing this one. Debbie stayed aboard, but only just barely, so we developed a "stop and walk" policy for crossing running water. Unfortunately, there's so much water on Woodcutter's that the longest we could walk uninterrupted was about 100 yards. It took awhile, but we made it to the intersection with Chinquapin. We all took a break there before crossing at Twin Gates, and Nadia took advantage of the opportunity to get a little roughage. |
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After we crossed Empire Grade, the plan was to take the UC fire roads to Pogonip and UCONN, cross Highway 9 and follow the trail to the San Lorenzo river. As you can see, we made it, but it was not without adventure. First, Debbie decided that Alex was going to learn to love cyclists, so every time she saw one (and she saw lots of them), she gave them a horse treat to give to Alex. It didn't take long for Alex to stop and mug every cyclist he saw. At least one nice young guy stopped to count his fingers after he'd done his part to train Alex. Second, another of those things that Alex took a conservative equine approach to was utility service access points - the concrete panels set in the road, with metal plates that lift off for maintenance. There are probably ten of those set in Chinquapen and Alex hopped at every one he noticed.
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Third, I could control Ali's speed fairly well, but only if she was leading; if she wasn't, her nose was in some other horse's tail. As a matter of fact, Cal got so miffed about it that he threw a (well-deserved) kick at her, which missed her altogether and brushed my boot. Elias turns out to be the strong, silent type - emphasis on strong - so Shawn was having quite a time keeping him out of the lead, because once in the lead, he was going to get this ride moving! Alternately, Alex was sort of hopping all over, so Judy and Julie had the thankless task of inserting themselves where ever there wasn't a horse that had to be in a particular position, and avoiding flying animals as various obstacles were encountered. |
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We did make it to the river without any surprizes on UCONN or Pogonip, which was actually the part I, at least, was most concerned about. It was a beautiful and warm day, so the horses were really willing to drink and hang out. I think Shawn was trying to push Elias into river, but I'm not sure why. |
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We hustled back up from the river, stopping a couple of times to graze the horses. And, yes, Ali did eat grass. She's a changed mare since she got her bit. The only mishap was that Debbie forgot Alex's hopping protocol at the utility ports and got dumped pretty near the top of UC. We dusted her off, threw her back on Alex and took off again. We stopped at Twin Gates to compose ourselves. |
| When we left Twin Gates, Debbie, Julie and Shawn went back to Smith Grade. Since Judy and I didn't have to trailer our horses anywhere, we continued down into Wilder for another few miles before returning. Another great day. |
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