A Great Trail Ride And A Little Bad Luck

Last week we planned to go on a trail ride on Sunday. We knew the weather was going to be beautiful and since we hadn't been on an actual trail ride since last fall, we were really excited. We get the horses loaded and drive to the trailhead, which is approximately 10 minutes away. We knew the trailhead would be packed, so once we got there and saw that there was really nowhere to park, we had to squeeze in between 2 big trucks and trailers, but we made it work.

Unfortunately, we only had enough room to use the 2 tie rings on the passenger side of the trailer, luckily no one was using the hitching post that is right behind us, so my sis took her boy over to it.

My OH took the initiative and groomed Fritzy, he even picked out all 4 of her hooves! Looks like my OH is ready to start lifting saddles for us girls! He was ready to hit the trail, so he was trying to hurry us along.

The way we usually start out on our trail rides, the trails were closed, at least that is what the sign said. So we decided to go the other way. Fritzy is very interested in the horses she see's up ahead.

Look how happy my OH is! I just love seeing him ride! Ok, this might not look like a happy face, but believe me, it is his happy face!

Here is my sis and my OH. We are heading the opposite way than we usually go.

We make it to the bathrooms, and we find out that there is a 4-H ride going on. They have to ride trails and there are judges placed all over on marked trails. There are different things they are judged on. They have different things set up on the trails, and we ended up running into one of them on our ride. Brandy actually had a difficult time with it, which kind of shocked me. Only because it involved a tarp. There was a woman, who was a judge, sitting in a chair with a tarp placed behind her, with a pretty Golden Retriever. Once Brandy saw the setup, she panicked. A couple minutes later, we had it all worked out, after some crowhopping, small rears and basically wanting to turn around and run the other way! Typical Brandy reaction. I have done alot of tarp work with Brandy, but I think just seeing it out on the trails, where she and I have never seen it before, made for a great training situation!

This is really funny to me, we can go out on a trail ride, even with a packed trailhead, and never run into anyone! But today, we ran into so many horses and different situations, which made it an for an interesting ride, but also a good time for training!

I was actually very happy with how the horses did, considering that they haven't been on a trail ride since last fall. They actually had quite a bit of energy, even with the heat and being out of shape.

There are a couple big, sand hills out here on our trails. The horses want to run up them, but I prefer them to walk. We actually don't run on the trails. I don't want my horses to start anticipating the "hills". Or for that matter, that they get to run on the trails. We do jog in certain areas but no running. I know alot of people that like to run up the hills, or run along a straight stretch of trail, but with the issues Brandy can have, at any given moment, I have to play it safe and do the responsible thing, especially if my OH is with me. He is still new to this horse thing!

Heading back to the trailhead.

This is the bridge where the ducks like to sit in the stream below. Once they here us crossing the bridge, they fly up, and away! Guess what happens? Brandy spooks and nearly takes us over the rail and into the stream below! This did not happen today! Yeah! I didn't see my life flash before my eyes!

We get back to the trailhead, we are now able to tie all 3 horses to the drivers side of my trailer. As I take the bridles back to the tack room, guess what I see. A flat tire on the truck. You have got to be kiddin' me!! What the heck? I yelled to my OH, that we had a problem, we have a flat tire on the truck. He is NOT happy. He pulls out our air compressor and tries to fill up the tire with air, the tire is fine, it is the valve stem that is toast, and the tire will not hold any air. This actually happened last year, with my horsetrailer. But luckily, my trailer was at home when we noticed. The valve stems, almost all of them, had leaks. They were the rubber valve stems and they were cracked. I took my trailer into the shop to have very nice valve stems put on, valve stems that were not rubber. I am wondering if our weather around here causes this. It can get cold than really warm very quickly, what is causing these dang valve stems to crack and leak?

So we move the horses over to the hitching rail, so they don't spook while my OH is jacking up the truck. He ran into a problem trying to release the spare from under the bed of the truck. Of course the spare has never been used, and is origional to the truck. To top things off, we have 35" tires on the truck, the spare is smaller than that. But at least it would get us home. We had a friend come up to help and he followed us home to make sure we got there ok.

Here we have made it home safely! Whew!

Brandy wants to know if we are home yet! After a 3 hour ride and a 2 hour delay, they are tired, grumpy, hot and very hungry! I don't blame them one bit! We were too!

Here is what our tires should look like on our truck.

Here is the spare. Looks like it lost some air on the way home. My OH filled it up before we left the trailhead. I am so glad we live only 10 minutes away from the trails! I also think we will be buying a new spare for the truck. You just never know what could happen. You always have to be prepared in any situation!

Once we got the horses bedded in for the evening, we put a ton of pork chops on the grill, grabbed a much needed beer and had an excellant dinner! All in all, it was an excellant day, with a little bad luck thrown in, to keep us on our toes, no less!