Noways & Sully 2008This year ~ Mary Lynn and Greg decided not to go even though the weather was beautiful...Zelda is out with a bad back, and Buzz isn't quite there yet...Amy has thrown in the towel for the year...being a Mommy is time consumming...I remember those days. And Brenda suddenly had other plans. I stooped to whinning... Vickie was going but Boo came up with a cough...bummer. That left Paige and myself so no chance of a team. I wasn't feeling all that great, but Paige was finally able to get to a ride, and the promised sunshine pushed me along. So, Vickie and Biscuit, hitched a ride with us, (she couldn't stand to miss such a great weekend) and boy was she a help... and as always, great company. She can talk horses, as long as me...
The weather was as promised, just beautiful and more riders showed up for the ride. I believe there were 17 in the 55 and around 10 in the 30...can't really remember. I thought we'd have a nice enjoyable ride so as to get Paige and Sully through another 55 this year and hopefully put her back in the Jr SE region standings. So we left last so Noways wouldn't get race brain and make for a difficult ride for me and pull Sully along too fast. Sully isn't quite ready for much speed yet. Karen was to start the controlled start. We of course didn't see that, and just were looking for the orange ribbons we were to follow...never did see any turn off ribbons so went back to camp and questioned Steve. Then went back out of camp and turned in where he told us and followed the obvious trail...no ribbons...wrong trail, for a l o n g time, wrong trail. Went back yet again...Ottis pointed the way this time and there they were, way up on the next hill across the creek....now I remember this part...sigh.. already more than 30 minutes behind and we hadn't even started... Now we are paranoid about missing ribbons and continue to second guess ourselves as we wound through the woods eyes sharp. The trail is covered with fallen leaves, so impossible to see the trail without ribbons guiding the way. And sometimes, there weren't many... We start catching up with the 30 milers who started while we were out on the wrong trail... Not having fun yet, but getting along OK. We hadn't intended to place up front anyway, but it made for a more stressful ride for sure. Got back in, and Vickie was worried about us...Took us 2 1/2 hours to do the 19 miles...horses were doing great. Went back out to do the Pink loop, another 19 miles. Guess what...we missed the turn off for the Pink while it followed the red and blue. Blue was to be our final loop and red was the 30 miler's final loop...Went and went...no orange. Connie suggested that Steve had got short of the pink and the trail was the same for a while...well, after a few miles we decided we missed the turn off, and we would just go on and do the blue loop out of order and just get a completion and finish with doing the pink last... Blue loop wasn't too hard to follow, although it sure was a muddy mess with lots of ankle busting rocks to add to the difficulty. There was one gravel road though that had me second guessing...after the turn (three blue ribbons) we went and went without seeing another ribbon, except on the wrong side of the road...but they didn't look like Steve's blue...I was dreading making our boys climb back up that road looking for another turn that I missed...but alas finally there was a ribbon in the right place...what a relief. Again, the boys vetted through fine..Sully was a bit tight in the rear, but sound. I was getting quite tired, as much mental stress as physical. Dreaded going out on a loop that the other riders had already done, so we would be alone out there. I studied the map and made sure it was in my pack ready to pull out, and as it turned out I had it out a LOT!
Pink loop...with explicit instructions from Steve, we found the turn off we had missed earlier...it was obvious, so can only guess we got distracted about the time we got caught up with some 30 milers who happened to be Connie and her neice and a few of other riders. So even though we were on the wrong loop at the time, we were in good company..although I'm not very good company when I'm frustrated... Paige was quiet too...just trying to get through it all at this point...she's a trooper and never whined, what a competitor! Now we are going along good, just fighting the very, very deep mud and rocks. Occasionally we could get up a good trot and canter and went as fast as we could when we could, being careful of the ribbons...But, guess what !!! Again we missed a turn and followed the obvious trail instead of getting the sharp turn off...I was near tears, but Granny Jan can't cry in front of such a brave and trusting granddaughter can she... I really hate getting lost and really, really hate back tracking. I flagged down a ranger on one of the paved roads we crossed and he, bless him showed me where we were on the map. It was really tempting to take a short cut and go in, cutting off many miles of the loop...but, no, back we went until we found the turn off. The ribbons had blown back a bit which is why we must have missed them, as we were really keeping an eye out for them. We were near the end of our endurance and hadn't even gotten to the out and back (password). It took us two hours to get to that... Paige was crestfallen when she saw that we had finally gotten there and were to turn back... We were not happy ridders at this point...but, onward we went, getting some better trail at this point and the boys were still game. On and on we went following the pink ribbon without trouble at last. Then the pink joined with the orange and Paige let out such a whoop that I thought she'd fallen off...Now she knew were we were and we were close!
Finally, finally we were finished...I was beginning to worry about getting stuck out there in the dark..If I couldn't follow the trail in the day light, we'd be lost for sure in the dark... We finished at 4:30...started at 7, Lord what a long day...
I have to say that the highlight of the whole day was when Ottis turned to me (Vickie trotted Noways out for me, bless her...) and said just two words..."Good job!" Sad isn't it...
To our surprise, as we got to our trailers to unsaddle before going to the vet check, there was Brenda!! Yeah she had come up anyway! So glad to see her.
She had decided, after going to Cave Run and riding the leatherwood loop, that she wanted to go to Cave Country, so packed up and not even stopping at home, drove on up...wow, what inspired her to do that I don't know, but there she was and we were delighted to see her.
Turned out she couldn't ride, after all that, but, she and the rest of us Ducks got to do our routine Cracker Barrel Breakfast after the ride, so as to discuss the adventure more throughly...
At least Paige got another 55 miles, and hoping to do Die Hards, and Noways also got another 55 miles for his record. We sure missed the other Ducks, it would have taken all of them to help me see those ribbons...
Looks like Paige is going to come up only 5 miles short, for her 300 mile award, even if she getts to do Die Hards...so the weather has to be 'good' before Granny Jan is willing to ride again...getting old is the pits...:-((
Lets hope good weather blesses Jim's ride this year and we all can ride that beautiful country!
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