The Lone Ranger!

It turned out to be a much longer day away from home than I'd planned. That being said, had a blast!

Met Jess at Greenland again and today I brought Rain for her friend James to ride. That helped Z in the trailer, which is nice. I wanted to practice my bareback riding, so I started off in the bareback pad and we headed for the obstacle course. Greenland has a great obstacle course with stairs, jumps, cavalettis, gates, boxes... really awesome. Doing those bareback was a great challenge for me. I'm riding my horse bareback much better these days and feeling a lot more confident. I helped James a bit with some obstacles and we stayed there about an hour.

After that we decided to hit the trail. I thought about it hard, but decided to go back to my saddle and not push it for a few more hours of trailriding bareback. It was interesting going back to the saddle after being bareback and challenging myself on obstacles! I know my seat was just slightly improved. We went about 8 miles at a trotting pace and to the top of the bluff. Z and I brought up the tail for a good portion - a challenge for Z. She likes to lead and being behind makes her a little flustered. There were lots of trains, probably one every hour. But on the way back, a train came that was very fast moving. I've never seen one move that fast on this trail. It unnerved Russia and Z and at the same time James cantered off with Rain. Z came a little unglued and I decided to hop off of her for a few mins. It was the right thing to do and I hopped back on when she'd started using her brain again.

At the trailer, we did our usual routine and I got the girls loaded to go. I turned around to say goodbye and Russia walked out of Jess' trailer and went back to the trailhead. She did not want to be caught! Jess followed her for about 1/4 mile then came back upset and didn't know what to do. I had been watching and kept thinking that surely Russia would turn around so Jess could catch her, but she never did. I unloaded Z, quickly tacked her back up and cantered off to get Russia. Z was a little miffed as to why we were doing this, but she obliged. We probably went about a mile before we saw Russia. Z and I were cantering up and down the rolling hills and pausing when something caught her wary eye. We were riding along humongous electrical poles and the noise from them was eery. There was snow fence blowing in the ridiculous wind and we were alone. My horse did great though and I was so proud of her.

We were able to grab Russia's lead pretty easily and I ponied her back. Thank goodness we got her. I know Jess would have been so upset if I couldn't find her. There was lots of speculation as to why Russia did this but Kime really felt that Russia was just not ready to leave. After all, this place is a horse's paradise.

I was gone a total of 8 hours and luckily my husband wasn't mad at me. I meant to get other horses moving but I couldn't ask for more time with horses after that much time away. It was a grand adventure and my horse and I are quite the team. The rescue team! :-)