Riding Weekend

Finally! The weather straightened out, sleeping with the windows opened, low humidity, two days of no rain in the forecast. Wahoo!

On Saturday we parked at the LOMH in Marriottsville, arriving around 11:00 a.m. Surprised that more campers and trailers were not there. It had rained a smidge on Friday late afternoon, but cleared out and dried up. After that it would have been the perfect weekend to camp.

We headed out, visiting Henryton Hospital site along the way. It is in the ending stages of being demolished, swept up like rubish. The hospital has not been used in over thirty years and has had countless arsons and vandalism over the years. Rumored to be haunted, it was a creepy place, soon to be history.

We pushed on from there, passing families out fishing, it was a little cool for swimming. Hard to believe it is August! We should be sweltering, but we did that in July. Now it is mostly like September.

Now that we have the outdoor hot/cold faucet, our new routine is at least rinse them in warm water, but today we used ezAll and gave the boys a bubble bath. They really, really like this. After that we take them over to the open field, where we are patiently growing Orchard Grass, and let them dry and graze. They also really like this part of the new routine.

Sunday we got our act together earlier and rode the local park right where we live. Was surprsed to see a ranger do a drive-by then quickly leave. While tacking up a family on mules with two unleashed dogs came back to their trailer. The young boy said, " ... and we galloped all the way back." I've seen Mule Races, and can tell you they are one of the slowest races ever. The unleashed dogs are a no-no, the ranger was already gone.

The extremely wet June left the weeds and invasive plants like a jungle. The usual mud pits were in good shape, but the flora was out of control. There were lots of trailers parked in the 'cow pasture,' but saw no one out in the woods. We did see evidence of horse traffic, so the trail maintenance is being ignored, just plow through obstructions and over-growth.

He literally hacked his way into a couple go-arounds. We are slated to lead a ride for TROT/CPWHC the end of October and we have our trail maintenance requirements adding up. This is going to be hard work.

Brother Roger and Kathy Dimond came up when we were loading up on our way out.