Been in the Saddle Since the Sun Came Up

This weekend I made a trip up to Idaho with two goals. One, see the girls. And two, ride a horse. I'm happy to say that I was able to get my fill with both (especially the horse part).

The girls. They are hilarious. Emma is able to spell a few words now and is happy to teach Jesse how to spell things. "Halloween. It's a 'h' and a 'a' and a 'i' and a 'i' and a 'o' and 'another one' and 'e' and 'e' and a 'n'." She couldn't decide what a 'w' was called, so it was another one. She is also an arachnophobe. Any spider she sees is at least six inches across. Seriously. They're huge.

Jesse is my shadow. And she loves to be tickled for some reason. (I promise, mom.)

Sara now has a noise for my name. "Dat!" Pretty close. She is full of antics... from strutting across the room like a model to trying to spell words like her big sisters to being a prize fighter.

The horse. I believe on of my first blogs was about a horse fiasco in Mexico. Refresh yourself if you need to by reading 'Blazing Saddles Part Dos' from February 2008. Saturday kind of reminded me of that day. Except that I had an obedient horse and my life was not in danger. Murphy (after whom Murphy's law was named) was definitely present in spirit.

Neto and I were to go ride up to Oxford peak with some friends of his, so we loaded the horses, tack, and food into the trailer and truck and were gone by 7:30. Just past Dayton one of the tires on the trailer blew out. Fortunately Dan was on his way to work, and stopped to help us remove the wheel to take into town for a new tire. So we rode into town, got the tire, put it back on the trailer and were to our starting point by about 9. Off we went.

The ride was wonderful. First we headed north toward Oxford town, and then found a trail that wound up through the hills there. Through a pine forest, and across creeks. We stopped once on the way up at a trough to water the horses. At about 1 we stopped for lunch only about a mile or two from the summit. Back on the horses for the last little bit to the peak. Once we were about to the top, there got to be a lot of rocks, so we tied the horses and hiked the last 50 yards to the marker. There were some notebooks to sign, I guess to have an alibi or something... We relaxed up there for about a half hour, just looking at all the mountains, lakes, fields, etc. There were a lot of birds that were floating up on thermals and other winds coming up through the valleys that were fun to watch.

Once everyone was ready to go, we were back in the saddle and headed down the mountain. Someone decided that we should not go back the way we came, but instead we should go down through Davis basin into Clifton. This proved to be enjoyable for the new scenery, but very long for the riders. We had a lot of fun playing 'tag' all the way down. This created a need to race at times, which of course was thrilling. We also had "wrestling" matches, where we would attempt to push other horses off the trail. By the time we got to Davis lodge I think everyone was ready to get off their horse, so at the bottom of the switchbacks we sent a rider ahead to get the truck and trailer to meet everyone at the bottom of the road that leads up into the canyon. Before too long, the trailer was back and we began to load the horses, but found out on the way into Clifton that it had two flat tires. We stopped at Papa Jay's to put some air in and then drove back down towards Oxford. From there, Neto and I hopped in his truck to go pick up our horses that we had left in Clifton... but going along with theme of the day, his truck ran out of gas. Luckily we were still in the driveway and they had gas, so we poured in a couple gallons and were able to make it to Clifton. After filling up and loading the horses, we were homeward bound. To cap off the day, a dear tried to hit us between Clifton and Dayton.

We got home at about 9 pm. I would estimate the trip was about 20 miles, a vertical climb of about 4,000 feet and we figured we were in the saddle for about 9 hours. It was a long day and left me fairly sore... mostly raw on the insides of my legs. But, even though the day was a bit rough, I had a lot of fun and I doubt I'll ever spend more time on a horse in one day. Unless perhaps gas prices get more out of control.