Happy Birthday Ride

My birthday was yesterday. For my present, I wanted to have a full day's worth of trail riding at Wildcat Mountain State Park.

And we did.
It was overcast, warm, and humid. It was gorgeous riding weather. As we got into the deep woods, there was a nice cooling breeze to ward off the gnats and some of the bugs--which really were not too bad.

We had the State Park to ourselves as we were the only vehicle in the equine parking. We rode past the campsites and saw not one person. What a great way to ride!

Our ride was quiet and fairly uneventful. We had a 'mishap' at the trout stream crossing, but I think that was a commentary by Sunshine on the fact that she was having to 'work'.

My son had told me the night before to have a great ride and be careful.
Good thing he didn't see the last 2 miles of our ride.

The Roscoe Johnson Trail.
2.25 miles of very rough very slippery, very interesting trail riding. We came across two places where we could see that other riders had turned back. Did we?
Nah.

Climbing up a steep slippery slope [I felt the downside was better] to go around a huge downed a maple tree, then across 10 ft of slippery wet moss covered stone...that was enough to start the heart thumping.

The new twists and turns from last years heavy rains and wind storms kept us and our mules on our toes.
Then there were multiple places where we had no choice but to go over downfalls in the trail. I was in the lead and as we stepped over the tree my stirrups bumped the log. I went a few steps and thought, no way is Sunshine going to make that!

Rich apparently had the same thoughts, because he was getting ready to dismount to see if he could 'jump' her...when Sunshine decided to make a go of it. She reached one leg over then the second. Her belly was resting on the log...she grunted and popped her hind legs up and over.

I must say, I was impressed by her bravery and fortitude.

We made it made it back to camp just as the raindrops began to fall.
What a birthday gift, what a fun ride.
I'll post a link to the video clips I took during the ride on a later post.