Wednesday, June 30, 2010

a few more things..

Oh I forgot to update on the horse trailer.... well the bearing was the original problem, it failed or broke or quit working.. because of that and because we drove so far on it, the bearing basically heated up so much that it welded the bearing to the spindle and you cant just replace the spindle on our type of trailer.. nope you have to replace the entire axle!! OUCH.. Now the trailer has 4 new bearings and a new axle.

And now a week later, we realize we need to get our truck in for service as well, it shakes real bad when stepping on the brakes particularly going down hill. Finally found a minute to check that out.. its the rotars, they are warped.. So the truck is getting serviced as well today. I am a little eager for Oakley to sell only because once he does, we can get our fencing done, get Derek's little pickup put together and running so we can sell the green truck and buy a car and stop driving the red truck as a daily driver.. save it for weekend trips like it should be run. :)

just another week..

Wow.. no griping from readers that it's been too long, I guess noone is following me or cares! lol

It's been a very busy couple of weeks, I feel like we live in our trucks sometimes. A lot of it is running errands, maybe some day we will figure out how to get all our errands done in one day instead of 3 or 4 so we will have more time at home to work on things. My other problem is that my days and weeks blurr into one, so today is Wednesday and I cant remember what the hell I did on Friday.. how sad is that! Let me pause for a minute, it drives me crazy when I cant remember things... Oh well, I'm just not going to remember! Oh we did build a seat for the boat for Russell and Ellie to sit on.... what an exciting life we live.. :)

We built the seat so we could take Russell out fishin with us on Saturday, he had never been in the boat and we wanted a comfy area.. Dont be thinking we went to all this trouble for some plush seat, he basically got a wood base with a carpet remnant tacked down over the top.. that's good enough! lol Otherwise he would slide all around on the boat with nothing to grip to. We didnt get out on the water til about noon on Saturday at Flowing Lake.. not a great time to try to get in some fishing.. and we only had a few hours because we needed to meet a lady in Monroe at 5 with the horses, she was driving down from Bellingham to ride at Lords Hill with us to try out the saddle we were selling.

We had ridden the horses for about 45 minutes on Saturday morning, Derek was out preparing the boat to go fishin early but he noticed the neighbors dogs ran past the house un-attended. Their owner normally takes them up on the loop through the woods, so Derek was concerned something happened to her.. so he saddled up Edgar at 8:15am and I jumped on Red bareback and we rode the loop.. did not find anything odd and as we rode home, passed the house where the dogs live and the mother-in-law was outside, she didnt realize the dogs had been out roaming that morning apparently..

So Edgar & Red were not too thrilled to be taken out a second time that afternoon.. but they can't complain, we only rode for an hour at Lords Hill. It was funny actually, when Tricia (potential buyer) pulled up to meet us, her passanger says "PIPER!!" Well Tricia's friend is Tara and Tara went to Snohomish, graduated a year behind me and worked at Dels long ago before moving up to Bellingham.. small world! So I am now friends with Tricia and Tara on FB and excited to be reconnected and to have met a new friend.. Tricia did buy the saddle, fit her and her horse Mo perfectly! It was a nice afternoon and I cant wait to ride again with them. We are helping out with the Regional Prize Ride Challenge up at Harry O in Sedro Wooley in a couple weeks and Tricia is hoping to bring Tara to do the ride.. and then in the future we'll haul up north and ride with them on some new trails.

Sunday was our dog-day.. We drove down to Eatonville with Russell and my parents with their dog Sarge.. it was a bit crowded in the truck, but it was fun! Eatonville is where Jim lives, and Jim owns the female that will be breeding his Boykin to Earl from Oregon. Earl has titles I believe in hunting/duck dog challenge type events, we've watched him on uTube.. They are BEAUTIFUL dogs!! Going down and meeting them in person really affirmed our decision and we know we are getting the right breed for us! There is nothing better than doing the work and research to pick the breed that best suits your needs and knowing it is the right thing to do. They really are sweet dogs, very independant but Jim has acres of open land and no fenced yard so of course they would rather be out hunting the field than visiting us. Derek did throw the ball into the pond many times and the one male just jumped in, no reservations at all.. he loved the water! I am even more excited now and the thought of raising 2 puppies this year has been over-looked by my eagerness to have these new dogs added to our family. We are still looking at Christmas before we will get our little Cooper. No I did not get any pics.. the dogs were far too interested in being dogs than to sit for a picture!

We have decided not to go anywhere special this weekend, it is the 4th. Originally the plan was to take the dog and the horses and get out of town, go camping.. but that kinda fell through and although we could still go horse or non-horse camping, we opted instead to stay home which would allow us the time to relax, watch the big UFC fights, BBQ, fish, ride, and have some downtime. Oh and I need to figure out in the next few days how to piece together a video! Shannon gave me the videos of Oakley that she wants cut down into the good clips to be posted on the internet.. I have NO idea what I am doing or how to do it, but will do my best because she's got some terrific video of him.. he is amazing! I will be sure to post a link whenever I figure it out.. the sooner I can get it done, the sooner she can advertise him and get him sold. Not that we are in a hurry... I am excited about this whole deal and thankful all the time that Shannon got ahold of Oakley and is doing such a great job.. I hope to spend more time with her in the future, she's got some plans for the barn and such and we'd like to help be a part of it all..

I will try to start taking pics more often as well, my parents bought us a used camera at a g-sale, I am having troubles figuring it all out.. its a fancy one with lots of bells and whistles.. I'm taking it to Lynda who is a photographer, going to have her help me with it to determine if its operator error or if there is a reason the camera may have been for sale! I hope its operator error, most of the pics seem over-exposed with way too much light and if there is movement at all with the subject (like the dog or goats) it is all blurrrrr... hmmm

Monday, June 21, 2010

Happy Anniversary to us!!


Ellie here is our anniversary present to eachother!

Derek took this picture with his cell phone, she was squirmy and wiggly as a 4 week old pup should be, but when we propped her up for a photo she sat pretty and we got a great picture! She feels like a kitten when holding her..

I had been contemplating whether to post on FB that we were looking for a dog, sometimes its fun to just post a pic after the fact and say "here's our new dog!" when people didnt even know we were looking, but I thought maybe someone might know of a dog and I posted that we were looking for a small female, mix breed ok. Russell has been in real need of a friend, the poor guy howls when we are outside, he doesnt run and play like he used to. So we wanted a female that will run/play with him, snuggle up with him, yet wouldnt really be much faster than him because he tries so hard to keep up and his little hips are not holding up like they used to.

Derek's sister Dawn saw my FB post and called to say that their neice Tammy has pups we might be interested in. Well they just happened to be 3/4 Papillon 1/4 Chihuahua and we had been wanting to get a Papillon, just knew we wouldnt be able to, simply because they are spendy little dogs! So this was perfect!!! And she is perfect.. she is such a cute dog, I just cant wait to get her home!! I didnt really think I wanted a brand new puppy, but we couldnt pass her up, she is exactly what we were looking for, sometimes things just fall into place...

We named her Ellie and will get to bring her home around the end of July. I think her and Russell will be perfect pals once they have time to bond. We both can hardly stand the waiting now and it's only been less than 24 hours!

So back to what's been going on.. Tomorrow we will have been married for 14 years, together exactly 19 years! Amazing!! I'm starting to feel "aged".... not old .... lol

My grandma's services were very nice, a really great celebration of her, not so much of a sad day. Of course it was very sad to loose my gramma. The day of her service was the hottest day of the year (yes I consider 75 to be hot!!) and I think the last day we had full sun all day. I dont even remember what else we did that weekend, heck that was 2 weeks ago, it's ancient history by now..

This past weekend was crazy busy! I'll just go through exactly what we did, might be funner that way..

Friday we went to work, came home packed our clothes, loaded up the horses and the dog and headed up to the Pilchuck Tree Farm for a special horse club only campout for that night, set up camp, socialized, ate dinner, realized we had enough daylight to go for an hour ride around 8pm, socialized some more around our make believe fire until we turned into pumpkins, slept like poo, woke at 3am to check on Edgar who was sneezing a lot, socialized in the morning for a while, pitched in with our part of the fantastic breakfast of sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, ham and cheese, pancakes, fresh fruit, coffee cake.. mmm it was delicious.. pulled our stuffed behinds up and out of our chairs to saddle up the horses, rode for 2.5 hours, cleaned up camp and headed home, heard a very brief minor squeeking noise from the trailer brakes as we left the tree farm, drove home, pulled in driveway and realized one of the trailer tires was probably close to catching on fire, smoke everywhere, quickly pulled horses out (thank god everything was ok with them) called Schwab and said WTF is wrong with the trailer, they just had it in there in Oct to pack the bearings, showered, briefly checked email incase something important happened in 24 hours (which I did get 2 emails about my saddle) and headed out the door to a BBQ at aunt Dena's house, arrived at BBQ had a great time with GREAT food, stuffed ourselves again, were back home and in bed at 1:30am, woke up early Sunday (could not sleep, I think I was still a bit drunk/tipsy til atleast 3 or 4am) lol, got up and ready for the day, unloaded the horse trailer of most of our tack, pulled the one tire off the bad side, hauled the trailer to Monroe to drop off at Schwab, stopped by Marcs to help unload a compressor, fed goats, headed home, took camper off the truck, grabbed camera and drove out to Arlington to see and of course buy the puppy, visited for a while, drove to grocery store to buy food for a BBQ at my brothers for Father's Day, bought food and gift card, then just as we got in the truck at the grocery store, Eric called and asked if I could pick up another gift card since he didnt have time, so I went back in and just as I was walking back out to the truck, he called again and needed brown sugar so went back in the store for a 3rd time and then finally was able to get to Eric's, ate again more food than necessary, had a great time over there, got home about 8 pm and plopped our asses in front of the TV for the next 3 hours and chilled out!!

and this week already is panning out to be quite busy as well.. Tuesday (anniversary night and thanks to Jennifer/John we got free tickets to the Aquasox game!)... Wednesday (riding with a lady who might buy our saddle)... Friday (helping Shannon take video and post video to internet of Oakley)... & Sunday (heading to Eatonville to buy yet another dog, paying the breeder for our hunting dog Cooper who has yet to be conceived)

I love this crazy life! lol

Monday, June 7, 2010

Gramma Ollie

Gramma's body had taken a turn for the worse last week, we were informed she probably had only days left as she was no longer waking up, having trouble breathing.. the final tolls of Alzheimers were taking over. My brother asked me to go with him to see her one last time on Friday morning, so we visited with her for about 20 minutes. Of course she didnt talk back, she wasnt even awake, but she did look peaceful and I was glad I was able to go with Eric.

Talking with her is not very comfortable for me or Eric, so we chatted about the happenings in our own life at the moment, talked of course some about gramma and how odd it was to imagine that she was potentially days away from moving on... I said goodbye and hugged/kissed her and knew that would probably be the last time I saw her. Friday evening I got the call about 9pm that she had passed away. I knew it was coming, we've known for a very long time this was coming, but the initial realization that she was gone did take over and I just cried for her.

I loved my gramma very much. I look back and wish I had spent more time in the saddle with her.. I wish when I was in my late teens and early 20's I had taken advantage of that time and spent it riding/camping with her. I did not belong to the horse club then, I was in limbo in the horse world; trying to figure out how to own horses, be married, live on my own, whether I wanted to trail ride or barrel race or what.. and although I've always owned atleast one horse since I was a kid, I didnt always have a riding horse and there were quite a few years where I would go out and ride around the pasture or down the road as time allowed and that was the extent of it. It wasnt until my mid to late 20's when I met Toni that it clicked that I COULD join the horse club!

When I think back, I can see how independant gramma was, atleast through my eyes. She would just load up that horse and head for the hills.. or head off with her friends to Alaska or Hawaii or some cruise in the tropics.. She lived a full life filled with so much love and happiness from those around her!

As I look back, I wish I had realized how much I was going to get involved with the club and how much it would become a part of my life because I think her and I could have chatted about her favorite places to camp and ride, maybe listened to the stories that I now wish I knew and talked about other things we share in common.. I missed out; however I am very grateful for the few times I do recall going with her as a kid. I know my aunt Julie was a part of that too and I'm sure she is just as much responsible for my love of the backcountry as my gramma.. Actually this is how I see it.. Julie showed me the true love and passion and abilities I could attain of owning and riding horses.. I am a horse lover becuase of Julie, I can say that! I admired her growing up, she was a strong horsewomen who could hold her own. I feel my gramma led me more in the direction of loving and appreciating and seeing the true beauty of the backcountry with my horse. I always knew growing up that gramma belonged to this great horse club and they rode in the mountains and I'd hear about her christmas parties and other social events and I always said to myself "Some day I will be a part of a club like that!" Just the idea of knowing what gramma was doing and where she was going, gave me the drive/ambition to someday do that as well... She instilled the spark that led me down this road that I am now on.

Derek and I spent Saturday morning at my parents for a little bit, we ran some errands and decided late afternoon to go for a ride.. It was 70 degrees and HOT, we were roasting as we saddled up the horses. We were in the saddle at 4:30pm at Mann Rd, it was such a nice peaceful quiet ride. Just the two of us to reflect on how great it is to just be able to go out and ride as we please, that we have 2 great horses to do that with.. we explored some, talked about gramma and thought that our ride was our way of paying tribute to her. It really felt good.

Sunday we slept WAY in, worked on the boat so we can get it out on the water soon and catch us some fish... spent the day relaxing and doing nothing more than that! This week will be spent helping to plan services for gramma and moving forward and remembering all that is great about life.

Here are some pics I had of gramma:

Her & I 2003 at the Ladies Ride at Silver Ridge Ranch, Hawaiin theme obviously! :) It was really great that she was able to make this camping trip and although she didnt ride any horses that weekend, we had a great time! Below are a few more from that same weekend...

I love this picture of Gramma & Aunt Julie!

I found these pics of Gramma & Carrie, we had gone sledding up at Silver Ridge Ranch in Feb 2002, a horse club social day of fun... I think Nadine is pushing them down the hill and then I have this sequence of pictures of Carrie & Gramma trying to get up and out of the darn tube, I think that is why they are laughing so hard.. gramma just couldnt get up and out! :)

Here's a picture of gramma after she fell in a creek! Her horse put it's head down in a creek to drink water and gramma must not have had a back cinch on cuz her saddle popped up off the horse's back and gramma tumbled straight down the neck and into the creek! :)

and here's gramma on her mare Favor... what a great horse she was, she packed gramma around for MANY years, they saw many things together and traveled to many places.. The best word that I can think of that describes my gramma is Radiant, you can see that from the first to last pictures I have posted.. she just glows with happiness and beauty...

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Saddle for Sale

Memorial Weekend

Well it was not looking to be a very promising weekend of good weather! We had accepted an invitation to go to Beaver Creek with Scott/Barbara for the holiday weekend, they were taking their young green horse and wanted it to be a low-key time and since Red had never been highlined or ridden on steep trails yet and it would be Derek/my first together real mountain camping experience, we thought that what they were looking for was exactly what we were looking for. It was us/them and then their brother in law for the weekend. Beaver Creek is just outside of Twisp.

When we left the house Friday morning, it was raining.. pouring actually! It rained off/on over the Hwy 20 pass and as we came through Twisp, the weather seemed to be clearing up.



Initially we had planned to get a short ride in on Friday afternoon, but by the time we finished setting up (around 4pm) it was time to gather some wood, get a fire started, think about dinner, socialize.. As we sat around the fire, it did rain on us for a while and then let up and quit before we went to bed. When we first arrived at camp, we realized that one of the camper vents was so old and brittle from the weather, it had cracked so Derek had to climb through one vent to Duct-Tape the top of the other vent, looks like something we'll need to replace.. and we also discovered we need to re-seal the windows as just in the drive over, the front cabover window leaked enough to soak the edge of my sleeping bag... The vent Derek is standing through actually is broken too and needs replacing, but atleast that one does not leak! :)


The boys all settled on the highline. Red took to it very quickly, he did great although he never did realize he could still lie down on the line.

We awoke to dry weather on Saturday morning, got the horses loaded up with lunches and rain gear and headed out at about 10am.
The ride started out nice, the area is rolling hills and mountains with some great views. We first rode to "Death Valley" which is an area so named because of all the carcasses that can be found down there most years, this year it must have been a good year for the deer because I didnt see any. An occassional bone here/there is all. After we rode through the valley shown above, we started climbing and soon realized we were riding the edge of the Pipestone. The pictures I attempted to take do not do justice to the steepness of the area, everything in pictures appears flatter and easier than reality! :) This picture below, we are looking down into a much larger valley, to the right of us is the Pipestone which is really BIG huge rock cliffs.
Here is a part of the edge of the rock cliffs. In some areas, you are literally riding a foot or so away from the edge, very invigorating at times.. heart stopping at others.. at times you could look straight down to the left through the rocks to the valley below.
Still on top of the Pipestone..
Here we are with the main rock cliff behind us. You can see by how Edgar is standing, just how steep it is.
As we continue on riding the edge of the Pipestone.. You can see the trail ahead that follows the edge of the rock cliffs. Very beatiful trail to follow.
We have just ridden to the end of the Pipestone, standing on the top of the biggest cliff on the other end. I took this picture and then in the picture below put in a yellow trail marking that gives you an idea of where the real trail was along this entire section. There were areas that were VERY uphill! Actually at one point, Barbara had indicated it helps to grab the mane to keep yourself leaning forward on the really steep areas, well this one section we rode up, I grabbed mane and half way up my grabhold of mane pulled right out, Red was working so hard to get up the climb that he jerked his neck forward and my whole handful came out! I didnt know how he would react to such steepness, I would say of the entire weekend, that was my least favorite moment, but definately worth it for the rest of the riding.
We are still standing at the same place, just now looking the other direction to the valley below that we will be riding to.
This picture below is very dissappointing because basically after riding the cliffs, we came out to an area above this lake and ran into another group of riders. We decided to venture away from that group and head straight down to the lake and follow a trail that had not been used in a very long time! This hillside here is actually very steep and it was interesting following it.. I think the fishermen in the lake were probably in awe of these 5 horses forging a new trail down this hillside because standing back, you clearly cannot see that there is a trail there. We all joked about the "pop" factor of our undies unplugging at the bottom of the hill.. lol I asked Scott what he would consider that hill to have been on a scale of 1-10 (1 being easy) and he said he'd call that a 9!
The rest of the ride that day was pretty laid back and easy in comparison to the first half. We had lunch overlooking the lake, got sprinkled on just a bit but not really enough to warrant putting on rain gear. I did put my rainpants and poncho on, realized quickly that was a mistake because there were sun breaks inbetween the sprinkles and when that happened, I felt like I was inside an oven! :) We rode for over 4 hours that day, the horses did really well. I realized that Red needed constant guidance on the trails, he tends to venture off on occassion and when on the steeper trails, he is a little careless with his feet placement and he really needs my legs to help guide his legs to keep us both safe. He was not trippy at all, which was great because sometimes he is very lazy as well and doesnt always pay attention.

I was very impressed with Derek that day, riding on the edges of hillsides and cliffs did not bother him at all and he never was uncomfortable with anything we did that day. I think at times over the weekend, he and I both may have been comfortably uncomfortable. That is how I like to put it.. we were pushed to about the max of our zone and mostly because we both had not been in those situations before on our horses. I've ridden very steep trails, but not on Red. I dont know how Red will react to things yet, I dont trust him 100% yet so there are some miles he and I need to establish before I can have confidence in him to get me from A-B safely! Edgar did awesome.. that horse was a real trooper for Derek and didnt give him any worries or concerns or issues the entire weekend. He really couldnt be any better of a horse for Derek to be riding and Derek feels the trust in his horse that he will keep him safe.

This here below is our watering hole just across the road from our campsite, we led the horses down here multiple times a day for fresh water, even though we brought water as well. It was nice to get the horses out for walks in the early morning or late afternoon, there was a potty about 5 minutes down the road, so we took advantage of that as often as we could by stretching the horses legs while we used the potty.
We awoke again on Sunday to even nicer weather! Look at the sun shining through the trees at the creek! It probably only reached maybe 70, it was not quite warm enough to be in just a t-shirt, definately perfect riding weather. This picture below is after we rode up to a watering tank, a great view!
Scott was not too thrilled to have his picture taken, but it was too funny that this was the only rock in site to use as a mounting block! :)
We contined on past the tank along a pretty decent trail that was not always for the faint of heart! :) Stopped at a nice spot to sit and eat lunch.
Derek eating his "MAN"which! So called because of all the meat he loves to have on his sandwhichs..
Our view.. On the ride up to this spot, we saw an airplane flying circles and realized "smoke jumpers" were practicing and jumping out of the plane, we were about 15 minutes too late to have had a perfect viewing of that from this spot. We did see some hangliders that jumped off a hillside lower than us. The hillside they came off of, was the same hill that a group of horses were running on, they seemed to be spooked by the rather large "birds" that were soaring around them! It was really neat to see them all running (although they were quite a ways away).
I just thought this log and wild flowers were really pretty.. These yellow mini-sunflower looking plants were all over the mountain!
Derek most likely has a handful of Bacon flavored sunflower seeds in his mouth! :)
The trail back from lunch..
This was towards the end of the ride, Scott was looking to see if there were any trails that way. I wish the picture had been clearer.
When we started out on our ride Sunday, we rode up behind our camp up to a drainage ditch, which was WAY up high above the campgrounds and VERY steep. The ditch part was OK but it hadnt been used in a long time by horses, so it was overgrown with a lot of sagebrush. So more than half of that section, was riding on the very edge of the ditch on ground that liked to sluff off, the ground was soft. And the horses (Red in particular) did NOT like having the sagebrush on his legs, so I really had to work very hard to convince him that he should risk his legs to save my life! It was pretty hairy up there. We followed that for atleast 30 minutes. When we were almost to the end, Scott's horse did a young green dumb thing and all I will say is that I have never been so impressed with one's ability to avoid disaster and I will never question whether or not Scott can ride! :) It's his tale to tell if he so chooses... Barbara and Rick did not see it as they were in front but Me, Derek & Scott all had to change our undies after that one!

After lunch on our way back, we went a different direction and headed out to this sloping meadow and back up into the hills. On the way up the hillside (again on a pretty steep trail) Red was acting a bit more persnickity than earlier in the day, he was irritated and working hard at not staying on the trail. Well as we climbed up, I'm really guiding him with my hands and legs and up ahead I hear Scott say something about Blue Flowers.. I wasnt paying much attention because I was entirely focused on Red. Well apparently just as Scott had said something like "these blue flowers are really pretty, Piper do you know what they are called?" Well all he hears is me yell out "Fucking Horse!" lolol Derek who was inbetween us, says to Scott "Well apparently they are the Fucking Horse Blue Flowers!" It was hilarious to someone who was not me! At that moment, I was pissed off obviously at my horse because he had stepped completely off the trail onto the downhill slope, all 4 feet off the trail, I dont know where the hell he thought he was going to go, but I quickly jabbed him with my leg to sidepass him back up onto the trail and yelled out in frustration "fucking horse!" ;) I can laugh now at the way the situation unfolded but I was having a moment with Red and was trying to stay alive!

We did A LOT of up/down riding in 2 days, got in 9 hours in the saddle and the boys were tired and sore by Monday morning. We decided not to ride on Monday because they had worked their tails off for us for 2 days and their backs both were sore. And although I had a few moments of frustration at Red, overall he did really good for me. I just have to really pay attention when on the tuffer trails and really focus on keeping him centered. The good thing is that he knows his leg aids VERY well, so a little leg keeps him ontrack but it does somewhat suck that I cant just sit back and relax in areas where one really should relax! ;)

I did ask Scott since he had indicated he wanted the weekend to be relaxed and low-key, I asked if that type of riding was his idea of Low-Key? Because if so, then I wasnt sure I wanted to know what his idea of non low-key was!! :) He said Kelly was doing so well on Friday and Saturday's rides that they felt comfortable doing a little more difficult riding.. whew cuz I was worried that maybe his idea and mine were completely skewed.. I'm not sure Derek and I were 100% ready to jump in 2 feet with the hard riding we did, but we both left the weekend happy with the riding we did and happy we pushed ourselves to go with the flow and just do it.. It allowed us the chance to really see the capabilities of our horses and where our "line" is on the type of trails we will do in the future. I think that the trails we rode, we'd ride again (except maybe the drainage ditch unless it was cleared out and we didnt have to ride the edge).

We both really enjoyed Beaver Creek. Scott indicated that he and Barbara cannot seem to get club members to want to go there. After spending a weekend there, I have no idea why! One can do VERY VERY easy easy riding there.. I would say a green horse and green rider could do a lot of good riding without ever going near the trails we did. And I hear there are maybe even tougher trails than what we did, so there is something for everyone.. The best part (okay not best but a definate great thing) was that the traffic over Hwy 20 going over and coming home was fantastic! We did not hit 1 backup at all, infact we were the backup most of the time! lol I hear there was a 27 miles backup on I-90 on Monday's return and I'm sure Hwy 2 had a large backup as it always does.... From our house it was a 5 hour trip and that was taking it pretty slowly.

We returned home to Russell who was very upset with us for leaving him behind! :) We look forward to more riding and pushing the horses a bit more on our rides to keep them in shape and ready for the next mountain to climb.