And the Ride goes on...

Horray for another day of trail riding.

Tuesday:

We got up and headed down to eat breakfast at 8 o'clock to find that the lodge wasn't open! oh no...we're all going to starve! ..yeah right. So, we headed into Deadwood and found that the Tin Lizzie Casino had a breakfast buffet for just 4 dollars- heck yes! We stopped and ate breakfast there and then a few people played the machines...but the only winner was Bob. He doubled Kay's money! Woot woot- big winner of 6 dollars! How can you go to Deadwood and not gamble I mean really?

After we made it back to camp, got our act together, and tacked up it was already 11 o'clock. The four of us from Tuesday headed back out on a fire trail. The plan was to take the fire trail until it eneded and then meet up with the others on the Mickleson Trail.

See, the originial plan was to ride the Mickleson, but we couldn't get the permit to ride because it was too wet- but by Tuesday we were able to do so. It didn't make a while ton of sense because the trail is really well gravelled and taken care of- but whatever they say! So, we took of and followed fire trail number 7 in a totally different direction. We came upon lots and lots of mud in a "road contruction" area- yeah so imagine this...you're riding through the middle of the black hills in the forest of a trail and you come up on an orange sign the reads "Road Work Ahead"! I'm not kidding...haha it was funny. But, we saw some snow and water and all sorts of things again. The trail wasn't quite as steep becasue there was no huge peak to climb but we did see plenty of hills. We stopped once and got off for a short lunch on a log and then headed out. We had to laught because Bob was able to chill his water in the snow- it's not real often you can do that on a trail ride!

We hopped back on and kept on riding. At one point we thought we had found the road that lead to the Mickelson, but upon further investigation it only led to a private driveway...crap. So we turned around and headed the other way just to find out that we had taken a wrong turn and gotten off of our trail number 7 for just a few feet which led us the wrong way. Eventually we got back on the trail and it did finally lead us to the Mickelson. Kay was pretty convinced that we were just giong to have to take the fire trail to Wyoming by the looks of it- but we found it! We got on the Micleson at at the Edgebrook? trailhead and travelled 5.9 miles to the next one where the trailer was waiting. We could see John and Pat's tracks so we knew that they had already come that far and turned around ahead of us. So, we just kept going. Thost last five miles felt forever- we decided that we liked our fire trail much better. The Mickelson was really nice, but too boring! haha :) It was a fun time. There was only one challenging part for Ace- the big bad bridge. He was pretty darn sure that he was not crossing a bridge with water running underneath it...no way! But, upon further investigation he decided it was not an HKO (Horse Killing Object: which can be anything from a tarp to a rock, to a non existant horse seeing thing) and crossed it after Rowdie. When we rode up to the next trailhead Mom, Pat, and John were there waiting for us with the other two horses. Mom had taken a nap in the camper while the other two rode adn they only ended up about two miles ahead of us after hauling out the the trailhead and riding to the next one and back. All in all it was a fun ride, but it was nice to get off after 14 or so miles! Kay's funmeter was lowering so it was a good thing we were done ;) We hopped off adn sent a couple of the horses back. Martin, Mom, John, Me, Ace, Rowdie, and Dancer stayed back to wait for the second load to go home. There was some water and grass their to munch on and Mom had brought some chairs out so we just hung out for a few minutes. Well...within just a few minutes Mom's phone rang and it was Bob asking if Martin and I could ride up the hill because the truck could hardly make it up with just two small horses in the trailer. So, rather reluctantly on our parts and the horses we hopped on...then to top it all off Ace had to pony Dance along. He didn't seem to mind at all until about halfway up this ginormous hill. I mean the hill had a name- Simon's Hill. Any hill that gets a name must be ridiculous and it was! This hill was super long and really steep- to boot you couldn't even get a running start at it because there was a really shart curve down at the bottom. So we headed up the hill. About halfway up Dancer and his tiny little steps were falling behind so Ace just pulled harder and Dancer just went slower...it was quite funny! But, eventually they got over themselves and we made it to the top! So hooray for another couple miles for Martin and Sara! We loaded the horses in the trailer and headed back to camp. After unloading and feeding we went straight to supper at the lodge. They had some pretty amazing steaks down there! We ate, designed a dollar for the "Hags on Nags" and had him hang it on the ceiling with all the other crazy dollar bills and headed back up to the cabin. The Campground manger was supposed to bring us some firewood but he must have forgot so we just went down and helped ourselves to a little pile. Pyro Pat started a campfire and cooked someMexican s'mores that were excellent. Then, everyone decided that they were tired and went to bed. Bob and I sat out and talked until the fire died- which took quite some time. Then, I showered the smell off of me and headed to bed.

Before I close this blog I have to tell a story I forgot about. When we first got to Mystic, John decided that he needed to get some gas so we stopped at a station on the way into Deadwood for supper that first night. John has this "speed pass" for Mobile stations that is just a little plastic thing that hangs on his key ring. He waves it over this little red horse on the pump- it lights up, and automatically charges his Mobil credit card and allows him to fuel up. Well, Kay (the one who absolutely loves tchnology...not) saw this and decided that "that damn little red horse" was probably the coolest thing she ever saw. You had to be there to understand it but it was hillariouse and referenced all weekend long.

On more thing- Pat had this idea that they must now be called the "swingin hags" because she rides with John and Kay rides with Bob...wow. What can I say- I decided to go camping with my mother...what did I expect, drinking games?! haha