Lets Practice!

Yep, couldn't help myself...  After getting all the laundry pretty much done, Oscar and I had to do some practicing.  He's a big 8 months old now and 125 lbs.  We practiced in the grass tonight.  Next show will be Sept 10th!  Can't wait!  Such a handsome boy.

Time to head home

Like everything else, vacation has to come to an end....  It was Friday and time for us to pack up and go...  Dora and Apple were sad to leave dog heaven but they both did their best to reduce the grasshopper population around the camp site.

So we loaded up and hit the road.  It was fun trail riding and for the most part (except Rev :-) the horses did fine.  Actually Rev came around with Mike too and did fine...  Mike did a great job with the 2 yr old and I enjoyed riding my Lucy.  As fun as it was though, the horses were ready to head home.  Everyone jumped on the trailer no problem and off we went.

Max, Rev, and Lucy

I think this will probably be our last trail riding year.  We just don't have the time and my knees won't cooperate with me much anymore.  It's too bad but I really am not good for anything over a 2 hr ride anymore so it's time for me to retire.  And I really have no desire to ride the young ones up anymore...  So Mike and I talked about selling the horse trailer after this trip and allowing me more time to focus on Oscar and the dog shows which I think will probably be our best option.  Maybe I'll even get a female to show...  I don't know.
But it was a good time and now back to reality!  We got home at about 6:30 p.m.  All the dogs including Oscar got bathes...  Today Mike is scrubbing the trailer to get the for sale sign on it.  I'm a little sad but it's all good...  Maybe I'll get me a dog showing camper now.  :-)  That sounds exciting!!  thanks for joining me on my vacation!  Talk to ya later!

Fort Robinsin Day Five... Let's Ride to Town!!

One of my favorite rides is the ride into Crawford.  It isn't too far, maybe just 5 miles round trip...  Mike decided he was going to ride Max today so I promised I would take all the pictures so he could keep his hands free.   Never know what a 2 yr old is going to do...  Plus that and it's was going to be 105 degrees on Thursday so Mike would need to pay pretty close attention to Max.  When young horses get tired, bad things can happen so you have to be ready to go pretty much all the time...

crack!!

Mike's back still isn't the best so here he's trying to play his own chiropractor on the bench in the horse barn.  I did get a pretty good crack out of him so hopefully I helped align things a bit.  :-)  So we got all saddled up and headed off to town... 

Mike and Max

You get to climb through some cool buttes on this ride.  It's not super tough riding but it helps if your horse can climb up and down hills with no fighting you.  Max did pretty well!

Max climbing his first big hill

Remember, it's 105 degrees so we did stop at the top to give everyone a rest.  Everybody was really sweating it up by now.

Hollywood and Cindy taking a break in the shade

Lucy snacking like normal

We continued our ride into town and got there probably around 2:00 p.m.  There is a cute little corral in town so after we watered everyone up, we tied up in the corral and headed to the bar!

Cindy and Jeri

Here's me and Cindy outside of Diamond Jacks. 

Rosie still trying to avoid having his picture taken

So we sat and cooled off and had a pop or two while the horses rested.  It was so cold in this place, I had to go out in the 100 degree temp to warm up again!  No kidding!  But then it was time to head back so we headed back to the corral.

Rosie, Cindy, Conrad, and Jeri

Then we mounted up and headed for home again.  It was a great ride and Max continued to do great for Mike.  Unfortunately we did have one casualty.  Rosie ended up biting the dirt on the way back.  Cindy thought maybe Little Joe got stung by a bee or something.  All I saw was Little Joe went right and Rosie went left.  I told Rosie, I would have done CPR on him but Mike would have to do the breathing...  Mike told him he would just kick him to see if he was breathing...  After a few, laid back Rosie got back up and we continued home. 

And that pretty much concluded all of our riding on our Fort Robinson vacation.  It certainly got better as we went along and we enjoyed our company.... 

Fort Robinson Day Four! Part Two... Rattlesnake!!

Rosie and Little Joe

It was such a nice day and now the horses had their snorting worked out for the trip, we decided to go ride up a creek bed and around the northwest side of the camp.  We all took off later in the afternoon.  Rev was riding pretty good for Mike by now. 

Cindy, Conrad, and Rosie

It's wide open in Nebraska.  Lots of prairie to ride through.  You can get on a cow path sometimes but most of the time you are just riding through knee high grass.  Still lots of gates to open but that's not so bad.  It allows you to stop and get off for a bit and rest.

Conrad is good enough at gates that he doesn't have to get off though.  It's pretty fun to watch him work his horse through the gates.  So we just rode along having fun.

Sometimes we just stop to talk a bit so I'm nice and I let Lucy have a little bite to eat...

So we are walking along having a good time.  Lucy and I usually bring up the back because we are slow.  Cindy was riding a bit in front of me next to Mike and we were all chit chatting a bit.  All of a sudden I hear a loud rattle and the grass starts moving about 4 feet in front of me...  Between me and Mike and Cindy.  I was caught a bit off gaurd by the grass moving.  There are a lot of cicada's that make that kind of rattle sound but this was a little different.  It was quick and hard and then all of a sudden a rattle snake lunged out of the grass at me and Lucy mouth open.  Scary!!  Lucky for me, I was on Lucy and not the two year old.  Lucy went straight up in the air and to the right away from the snake while I was just trying to stay on.  If I had fallen off, I would have landed right on the snake, it was that close to me and Lucy.  It's amazing how far a snake can launch themselves.  Cindy said later I was really lucky she didn't start bucking because Lucy looked pretty frightened.  I did give Mike heck later because as soon as he knew it was a snake, he was out of there...  But Mike responded that if he were riding and a huge spider jumped out at him, he was pretty sure I would be out of there.  I told him, I would be gone in a heart beat so touche!  Guess it's good to have perspective.  :-)
So, that was easily my closest brush with anything like this before when I've been trail riding.  It scared the holy heck out of both me and Lucy.  But what a rush and a really good story to tell the kids when I get home!  I better not tell my Mom though....  That would not be a good conversation.
So after all the excitement, we continued on, happy to be alive and not calling 911 for the helicopter.  :-)

Happy to be alive.  Better start working on my bucket list.

When we got back to the barn, I gave unsaddled Lucy, brushed her out good, and put her away with some extra feed for taking such good care of me.

Then we sat around the horse barn just yakking some more and messing around.

Willll-buuurrr

Later that night, Mike started up a fire and and we sat around until I pooped out around 10:00.  It was a pretty exciting day at Fort Robinson that day.

Fort Robinson Day Four! Part One

Okay...  It's Wednesday, and we are ready to get out and enjoy.  The day was a pleasant 93 degrees...  That's what they call the 90's in Western Nebraska....  Pleasant.  :-)  Mike wanted to loosen up a bit so we went out for a morning ride just the two of us. Our riding buddies were still unpacking and relaxing from their drive...  Rev was still pretty snorty and Lucy was a little snorty too from being penned up in the trailer and then the stall all night.

When we got back to the barn, Rosie and the Cooks decided we should take our horses up to the rodeo arena and let them stretch and burn some energy.  So we unsaddled and turned our horses out with all their new friends to run.  We had fun watching them play...

Lucy and Rev

Max

Lucy and Rev

Lucy...  looks pretty sharp doesn't she!

Rev, Lucy, and Montana

Little Joe...  Rosie's Oreo paint

Cook's Gray getting up from a roll

Cook's Hollywood on the inside and Montana on the outside

 They all ran and bucked and snorted for quite awhile while we sat in the shade and relaxed some more...  Here's a picture of me and Rosie.  I was grateful he brought me my Lucy.  He was smiling so big because he said he knew as soon as the picture was done I would go away and leave him alone...  nice Rosie....  nice!

Here are the Cooks sitting on the back of their pickup enjoying the shade.  Conrad has come to Fort Robinson for his birthday for 31 years straight.  Thursday is the big 63 for him!  He's enjoying his last day of being 62. 

Here's Mike and Rosie.  Mike's still trying to get his back to relax a bit but not having much luck.  Rosie is in his normal pose.  Rosie doesn't get worked up about much of anything...  ever... 

So it was a pretty good Wednesday morning...  We all decided for a Wednesday evening ride...  check out part two!  :-)

Fort Robinson Vacation Day Three!

Well, no riding today.  Mike started suffering from his tweaked back so we spent the day trying to find a chiropractor.  I thought I would be nice and cook breakfast which normally doesn't happen because I am such a bad cook....  I know I've mentioned before, when I'm cooking I tend to forget I'm cooking and then end up scorching whatever delicious meal I'm trying to prepare...  like frozen pizza...  or boiling water....

What do you mean should we move the stove away from the trailer??

So here I am beginning breakfast.  I can tell Mike is concerned but I assured him yes I will pay attention this time and breakfast will be fine....

Don't worry, all is under control!

Here's my thumbs up of confidence and yes, I made a delicious breakfast of scrambled egg wraps...  I'm not a total cooking loser...  Just a frequent cooking loser.  :-)  But I'm okay with that.  ha ha...  Dora and Apple always appreciate my cooking because they tend to get more scraps when I cook.

So here's Mike before we found a chiropractor.  We actually drove around and talked to a couple maintenance guys who referred us to a chiro.  We made an appointment and drove into Chadron, Nebraska which is about 25 miles away from Fort Robinson.  It was either a 25 mile drive or a 75 mile drive.  We opted for the 25 mile drive.

We got there and waited for over an hour.  Mike thought he got adjusted pretty well though so I guess it was worth it.  By this time it was 102 degrees so it wasn't such a bad day to sit in some air conditioning for awhile.  We made our way back to our camp site and I pretty much sat out in the sun for the rest of the day.  Mike laid down in the trailer in the air conditioning while Dora, Apple and I enjoyed the sun and heat.

ahhh...  feels good!

I sat around and played Angry Birds on my phone for a long time!  (love the angry birds)....  It was a nice relaxing day for everyone.  Then good news!  Rosie and our riding companions the Cooks arrived.   Yay!  Lucy was here!

So we pretty much just hung out and cooked on the campfire and crashed for the night....  Riding tomorrow!  With all the sitting and relaxing I had too much time to get homesick for all my peeps...  I wonder if Oscar is missing me....  :-(  I miss him.....

Fort Robinson Vacation Day Two!

Well, our second day (Monday) started off a little shaky.  Our first ride didn't go so hot.  As you know, I've discussed that Rev and I don't hit it off so well.  Mike had talked me into bringing Rev as Rev does ride very smooth and I have knee problems.  Mike thought I could maybe ride longer with Rev.  So I started off on Rev but we definitely didn't hit it off.  I'm a different style rider than Mike is so I thought it was me...  Mike tried to give me some pointers with Rev but it wasn't working.  So Mike and I switched horses fairly quickly.  I continued on Max, the two year old, and Mike continued on Rev.

We went out and stayed in some of the grassy land below the buttes.  Here's a picture (from between Max's ears) of a ravine we rode around in for awhile.  Such beautiful scenery...  All you can hear are the cicada's and Mike yelling at Rev.  :-)

Unfortunately, as we were riding up the hill to leave the ravine, Rev decided he was going to try to plant Mike in the dirt.  Mike didn't get bucked off but Rev tried to launch him and jammed Mike's back up pretty bad.  So, Mike and Rev had a come to Jesus meeting while Max and I did some work ourselves trotting and loping up hills.  I have to admit, riding the green broke, vision impaired 2 yr old was a heck of a lot easier than the ride Mike had with Rev.

Jeri and Max doing some trotting....

Mike doing the "I think I might have messed up my back" dance

When you ride around the land at Fort Robinson, there are lots of gates to separate the long horn herds...  Here we had gotten off to walk through a gate and Mike was showing me how he was jostled around in the saddle....  He thought that hopefully Rev had loosened him up a bit and Mike decided to do a "maybe my back is messed up" dance...  Mike found out later, that he had in fact messed his back up...  :-)  I did feel kind of guilty for switching horses but since Mike has been the only one who has really ridden Rev for the past two years...I had thought it was just Rev and I that weren't going to get along...  In reality, Rev was just being a jerk...

 Here, Max and I were taking a break at the gate too.  Max actually did real well even though riding a two year old isn't very relaxing.  You never know what is going to make a 2 yr old spook or bolt..  Max did quite well for me though.

Smilin' cuz I'm not riding Rev!  :-)

After Mike and Rev had their "let's get on the same page" meeting...  Things settled down quite a bit and we kept riding.  We saw a large number of antelope on this ride.  Mike got a few pics of a herd from a ways away.

Well, our first ride finally concluded about 2 1/2 hours later.  Rev straightened out eventually but then I was really regretting I didn't have my Lucy.  I was looking forward to some relaxing riding...  Not fighting with Rev or working with a green broke 2 yr old...  I was tuckered out after our first ride and not very perky.  It was about 100 degrees and I was whipped from the day already.

But lucky for me!!  Rosie said he would be happy to bring Lucy out with him.  He was only bringing his paint so he had plenty of trailer room.  So things were starting to look up.  Yay!