First Sunday in September

The weather continues to be gloomy, with the Sun peeking out from time to time. But no rain. The weatherman is cramping my style. We decided to throw caution to the wind and go riding instead!

On Sunday we checked out two parks that allow riding. The first is Friendship Park Farm Museum. A small gem between large tracts of farm land. The house is an historic home that was on the National Pike, a way station on the Pike that went all the way to St. Louis, Missouri.

The trail is a three-mile loop through woods and some meadows, planted with soy beans or corn. Also featured is a large metal barn with a farm equipment museum.

The woods trail had recently been bladed off, which made some of it slick, even at the walk we were sliding in the Maryland brown clay. I don't know what the plans are for improving the footing, but bringing a large hay wagon through these woods is going to be interesting if it is wet.

After that we trailered over to Schooley Mill Park. We have never ridden there, but have passed it too many times to count. Back in the day I field boarded my mare on the corner. The park did not exist at that time.

The riding is nice, but not more than two hours of trails, mostly in woods, but some open fields. The park does have a really big sand arena, a great sand round-pen and a large field with permanent jumps.

It never rained.