So, what's your number for the weekend?

So far this long weekend my gauge of how good it's been is a 3, for 3 is the number of times I've peed in the woods. It's Sunday afternoon, about 3:30 p.m. as I type, so I doubt I'll be upping the number as opportunities to pee in the woods are diminishing. Above are the woods along the Ocmulgee River at Horse Camp/1099.

Yes, I realize that my gauge of weekend goodness is kind of weird and might offend my readers with delicate sensibilities, but this is my blog and hey, if you're here reading it, I doubt your sensibilities are delicate. I don't think I know many people, if any, whose are. You all tend to be horse, dog and bike sorts. My tribe, and if you spend any amount of time riding a horse or bike in the woods, it's inevitable that you'll find yourself peeing in them. There just isn't indoor plumbing out there. I like that. You have to know about poison ivy and watch out for snakes and I always see a lot of pretty bugs and fungus as I'm picking my spot.

Yesterday I meet JoAnna at Horse Camp/1099 and we rode for almost three hours. Horse Camp was packed. We got there at 10:00 a.m. and had a hard time finding a spot to park our trucks and trailers. Kids, there was a humongous, fancy RV parked there, one with slide outs. I know the economy is tough right now and "staycations" are all the rage, but really, taking your humongous RV to Horse Camp for your long, holiday weekend? Weird. Maybe they also had a tow vehicle and trailer and were staying in luxury, but criminy, that thing took up a lot of room. They were parked in the larger area on the left, but sharing our smaller lot on the right was a family with a small trailer, one that looked to be 30 years old and barely big enough for two people, camping out. They also had a large tent, a pavilion tent, scads of kiddiewinks on bikes, and a generator. They looked kind of surprised to see all these folks on horses. As usual, JoAnna and I were the only ones there wearing helmets and riding on English saddles.

Here I am after getting off Asia to fix her bridle. This is towards the end of our ride and she'd put her head down and rubbed, rubbed, rubbed it on her foreleg and managed to drag the poll strap over one ear.

I got off her to fix her bridle. She got it rather muddy and sweaty rubbing it on her new brushing boots, so I really need to clean it. I got her the boots as I've noticed our last few rides that she's nicked the inside of her cannon bone after long ones. I was going to get black boots, but Jann proclaimed that boring, so I got the royal blue ones. Dover had them on sale really cheaply and I got two pairs. I wish now that I'd gotten one in blue and one in black, especially as I'm taking her to a hunter pace next weekend and although it's casual, I prefer the black for that sort of event. More formal than the blue. But blue is what I have and what she'll wear and I'm pleased that they stayed on and didn't shift during the ride, even after she rearranged her headgear on them. No nicks on her cannon bones at the end of the ride, either, so that's $14 well spent.



JoAnna and her TWH gelding, Saber, out in the woods.

I'm not as happy with this wee, Sony camera as I was its predecessor. It's more complicated to shift between video and stills and the pictures don't seem as crisp.

This morning I met Shane, Diana and Kim for a ride at the Dauset Mountain Bike Trails and we had a blast for a solid two hours. For those of you familiar, here's the route we took: Bootlegger (yes, Bootlegger! I know I always vote for Moonshine as the way in because it's so much fun, but Shane voted for BL and I thought why not? It's been a while since I went in that way and it was fun. Not as fast as MS, but very swoopy and still quite fun) to Fern Gully then regrouped at 5 Points, up Wagon Track to Turkey Trot, then down Pine Mountain (and oh, but I flew down PM and caught bugs in my teeth I was grinning so much) where I opted to stay on PM while they cut over to Sandy Creek and we all regrouped at 5 Points (Shane likes that section of SC and I agree that it's pretty, but I prefer to power up that small ridge line at the end of PM and then bomb down that last bit because going really fast on my bike is FUN), then up the doubletrack past the entrance of Huff-n-Puff to the H-n-P extension, left to the doubletrack, right on the doubletrack to Sandy Creek, bombed down its terraced drops to the creek, regrouped, then out to the double track to Fern Gully and out to the pavilion then climbed up to the trail head on Moonshine. Glorious fun, Diana's bike computer showed that we did right under ten miles, and as an added bonus to all that I upped the gauge at Dauset.

Really, I don't understand anyone who doesn't love to ride a bike or a horse in the woods.

I left Dauset and drove the 30 minutes from there to where India lives (pretty drive through Indian Springs and the Piedmont Wildlife Reserve) and had a good visit with the POTU. Didn't ride her, didn't work her, just walked out to where she was grazing near Tomcat and said hello. I groomed her and scratched along her withers and chest, those itchy spots she can't get on her own, and she loved it. I loved seeing her. I may ride tomorrow morning as Elaine will be out at the barn.

Finally, Dave has built up his Niner single speed and I met him and Craig for a ride last Wednesday night at Thomson. Here's Dave at the top of Dan's Bastard on the Thomson Trail talking with Craig about his new Niner.

I have the Niner lust, but my Klein is still the prettiest bike on the planet and today at Dauset it performed like a dream. I hope to get a Niner within a year, but really, I should be in no hurry. The Klein may be 9 years old, but it still works great and rode like a dream. I am so very lucky.