A Balmy Lake Ride

Blaze and I finally made it out to the lake trails this morning for the first time in literally months! It was a glorious, exciting, nostalgic, familiar feeling to be cruising my rig out to these trails that I've spent hundreds of miles on with my horses in the last few years. Life is definitely GOOD when I'm getting to spend a gorgeous week day on the trails with a good friend and our steeds!

My Blazey boy, eagerly looking for an equine buddy at the trailhead 

 We met up with N and Willow and had a pretty darn relaxed 12 mile cruise that took a full 4 hours. After highs some 30 degrees lower not even weeks ago, today it had to be at least 80-85 degrees, with a hot, sometimes gusting wind that seemed to be coming from many directions at once. Not entirely comfortable weather and certainly not in April! Still, the trails are gorgeous, the sky was blue, and the horses were safeish, sound, and *mostly* moving forward.

N and I caught up over the miles and we had a few nice trots on the shady horse camp trails. Willow's occasional uncertainty and Blaze's lackadaisical--read FarmPlugNearDeath--walk made for a maddening couple of miles after the turnaround that had N and I wondering aloud if we'd get back to the trailers before dark. I think Desire and Willow are a much better combination for trail rides; Desire's bold forward march keeps Willow confident and things moving along pretty efficiently, generally. I hope to have time to ride Desire tomorrow, speaking of, and might be getting out to a new riding spot with a friend on Friday! 

It was great to be back on the lake trails with my Blazey boy, who ate, drank (at the very last water), pooped, and even peed out on the trail, though I'm pretty sure he was trying his best to hold his pee til back at the trailer. About a half mile out he all of a sudden dove into the grass and took a pretty epic pee. He had plenty of chances to do it before then as we stopped on the grass a few times and were generally meandering on a loose rein, but he has that annoying habit of holding it if he can.

I brought a baggie of carrot bites for him to reward his peeing and drinking, and keep his gut sounds going. 12 miles isn't a long ride but he doesn't ever take quite as good care of himself as Desire and I need to get and keep myself in the habit of being aware of that and compensating for it. I figured the sudden hot temps and trailering out after a haitus earned him some snacks, anyway ;-) I do enjoy my Blaze, he's just my goofy fat little guy, so good natured even in the hot winds after time off.

It's great to be back on the trails and I can't wait to get to my first endurance ride of the year. We're tentatively planning on Cache Creek which is on my birthday weekend in early May again this year. It's only a few weeks out though and I'm still waffling..we'll see!