Alafia River State Park

Lee and I decided last week to take our ponies to Alafia today.  We met up around 8 am, loaded our crap and the ponies and got on the road.  Alafia is about an hour and a half drive, and we arrived around 9:30 - so far, so good.  Unfortunately, immediately after mounting up Lee and I got sucked into a conversation with a very nice lady who was already done riding for the day.  Seriously, this conversation dragged on for over half an hour - long enough for me to start Strava and turn it off to wait for the conversation to be over.  I'm not really anti-social, I would just rather ride than talk, especially when riding an antsy mare that believes that no good can come from standing still.

Anyway, we had a great ride - it was mostly overcast in the morning, so was relatively cool.  The trail was constantly changing and therefore interesting.  There were a few other folks on the trail but not too many; we were having a great time.  After two and a half hours or so, we came upon a water trough so we took the opportunity for a break, during which I got this picture.

Yeah, next time we might want to remove the masks...still, they are obviously trying to be cute for cookies, which, of course, is cute!

Right after this picture was taken, we decided it might be a good idea to find the trailer - ominous clouds were beginning to gather.  It turns out we were lost and it took us another two hours to find the trailer...Two hours, with it getting hotter and sunnier but with a huge thunderhead forming in the sky.  We did trot a few stretches which brought into perspective that Ruby cannot trot a decent straight line to save her life, lol.  We need to practice this, a lot...We did eventually make it back to the trailer, not long after which we started to hear the thunder.  Ruby loaded up fine, but Copa didn't want to load, crap!  It was right around this time that Lee started having real issues with the heat.  In her defense, when we got to the trailer the air was so thick it felt like it was sticking to us - it was HOT.  Lee went to sit in the truck's AC for a few minutes while I tried to load a horse that wanted to load even less for someone he doesn't know *sigh*.  Eventually, Lee recovered a bit, loaded Copa and we took off.  The storm followed us north to the barn and rolled in a few minutes after we got the horses unloaded.  Poor Ruby probably feels like I don't appreciate her at all!  I was able to run a little water on her before the lightening started, then I threw her into her stall with some hay and ran to park the trailer. At this point, the flashes of lightening and sound of thunder were nearly simultaneous.  We got the trailer parked and unhooked, and I got the barnyard gate closed right before the sky opened up. 

All in all we had a good ride, no spooks or refusals - other than at the trailer.  I did learn that it's a bad idea to wander in the forest under the impression that you have all day.  I also learned that Ruby needs to do more trotting outside of a small arena, and I really need to work on bringing her back down to a walk on the trail as well.  We rode 13.6 miles today - a new record for us, woohoo! http://www.strava.com/activities/162122720