F8 Family Farm Adventures: Wenas BBQ Flats

Memorial Weekend, we spent over at BBQ Flats, outside Selah WA. We had not been to this area before, arrived Thursday afternoon and came home Monday. 5 days of relaxation, riding, spending time with friends, eating, enjoying nightly fires and just plain down time!

We prepared Edgar for the trip, gave him his "hopefully will help to not colic" paste, loaded up Red, the dogs and headed out of town. Well Edgar never did come to a full-colic but he definately had an upset belly at times, spent some time laying down on Thurs and Fri, looking at his belly, he quit eating.. he got a dose of Banamine on Thurs and Fri, which seemed to keep him stable. Saturday morning he seemed fine but as Derek helped Sara Jane I was holding Edgar, he started acting really odd, he appeared to be cramping. 5 minutes later he seemed fine.. so Derek got on and about 15 minutes down the trail Derek had to get off because Edgar was cramping again and contemplating going down. After a few minutes, Derek got back on and we had a nice 4 hour ride with no more instances. Very odd.. Very frustrating! He seemed to be crampy after he was given his grain (which he is normally fed twice/day) so I quit giving him the grain for the remainder of the weekend. I will call the vet, talk to her about what happened, see what other ideas may come up. I'm wondering if he has ulcers that flare up when we go camping.. Really not sure. Was thankful to have not had an emergency vet visit once we got him home, but still concerned for future camping trips.

Our setup at camp.. clearly Edgar is down and not feeling great. We had our potty-room between the camper and trailer (hard to see since it is green) and then a screened in shelter to the right of the camper, we hung out in there a lot with the dogs, we called it our living room where the dogs could roam free supervised since they figured out how to go under the screen if we were not paying attention! :)

BBQ flats is a great area to ride, lots of up but you can do gradual climbs. Derek, Sara Jane & I rode out Friday, got our bearings from the map we had, the ride was okay, a little rocky and boggy the first half of the ride. Saturday we had a great ride, able to navigate the map a little better, did a really good loop and Sunday we went out with Jenny, Becky, Tamara and Eric for a good ride. The first half of that ride was good, with some cross crountry type riding, the second half was not as great.. ran into a lot of boggy areas and we eventually broke away from the group to avoid those areas since our horses were working harder than we wanted them to and we wanted to avoid potential injuries to muscles etc.

As we rode out Friday, I had said to myself "I hope we see some wildlife". There is lots of elk in the area. Well as we were getting back on the horses at lunch time a coyote jogged down the hillside not far from us.. My heart skipped a few beats, I was waiting for Derek to come over and help me get back on my horse when my brain went into slight panic mode and Derek had to calmly talk me back to reality! :) Saturday I bravely told myself I wanted to see some other form of wildlife.. We saw a single Elk on the ridge over from us... Sunday I hoped again for wildlife and we came up on a few deer. So nothing overly exciting like a big pack of Elk that others had come across, but I was satisfied!

The weather was perfect.. 5 minute spotty rain showers on Thurs/Fri with sun breaks, a tiny bit of hail on Friday, thunder storms in the afternoon. Saturday we got caught in a big hail storm while out riding, lasted about 20 minutes.. us 3 huddled the horses under a tree to get out of it for a little while.. Sunday was perfect, overcast/sunny no rain or hail. Sunny on Monday as we left. I would definately go back and look forward to it.

This was our weather for most of the weekend Happy to be home, but definately looking forward to our next camping trip. The dogs did really well, suprisingly. Took Ellie about 24 hours to get in the camping groove, but she quickly learned to sleep soundly and relax when we were away. Russell did most of the whining. We were able to do some off-leash work with Ellie, I was happy she listened 90% of the time! :) A few times she slipped away from us when she knew she was going back in the camper.. But I was proud of her.

My back did GREAT all weekend, we had to walk the horses to water multiple times a day... the riding was good, got in 11 hours in 3 days, our butts were a little sore since we've not had much saddle time this year so far. But I woke up Monday hurting so badly with lower back issues, I couldnt even put on my shoes! I was in tears and felt really bad for Derek because he had to do 80% of the work. I helped where I could with easy things.. It's taken a week to get back to almost normal.

Heading out on Saturday's ride with Derek & Sara Jane & I

One of the cabins you can find out on the trail, the only one we found. This one is about 15-20 minutes out of camp.

The start of the hail.. We quickly realized it was more than a few minute passing of hail and sought shelter under a tree.

In the middle of the hail storm, huddled under this measely tree!

This is about 15 minutes after the hailstorm.. We rode down out of the clouds and found a great little spot to have lunch. Lots of animals tracks leading up the watering hole.