Monday, December 28, 2015

Monday Ride Time!

We parked at Marriottsville at the railroad crossing, and before we even had a minute to get the boys out of the trailer, a train came by! It has rained nearly six inches since Christmas Eve, but the trails were not as bad as I thought. The rivers and creeks were a little high and fast, and I could see the high water mark on the banks, but it was manageable.

It was cold, to me, and I wore a long-sleeved t-shirt, a fleece overshirt, a Melton wool vest, and my Carhartt jacket, my riding jeans and leather chaps with my insulated, waterproof boots. I wore my riding gloves, but took my work gloves. Later I put my work gloves over my riding gloves. When it rained, I pulled my hood up.

While it did rain or heavy mizzled during the ride, it was a great ride. Ran into a man with his son in the park, who also saw three deer run down the steep incline, cross the trail and jump into the river, swimming across to the other side. They then ran up the even steeper incline like gravity did not matter. The man took pictures of this event.

When the deer had cleared out they approached us as we sat on the boys, catewampass across the trail, being indecisive about which way we would go.

Turns out, long story short, he is from the general area, but now lives in Columbia, and his daughter goes to my high school. Go Raiders! Both of them pet KC, who loves the attention, and he took our picture, but swore he cut off my head! We talked about the way the area has 'grown up' over the past decades. Urban/Suburban areas in old cow pastures and corn fields.
We didn't run into anyone else all the way to Woodstock, but it was evident that others had used the trails between rain events, and the ATV and motorcycles had been out, too, creating new trails and tearing up the park.

We had lunch at the Woodstock Inn and were pleased to see a whole new section of hitching post installed on the hillside. There has been times we had to wait to tie up because of the amount of horses at this restaurant. BUT THAT'S A GOOD THING!

Coming back we went through the river at a point that has a water fall, which wasn't much of a fall with the high water, and was a little deep! But KC did not have to swim, as he's done in the past, and I didn't get but my toe wet, so we're good! I swear I can tell the days are getting longer!

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