Came to a Conclusion

We finally took "The Girls" for a camping trip last weekend. Went to Tippecanoe State Park here in Indiana. We have been there before, and to be honest, I never really liked it. However, this time the park won me over.

When we were there before, it was one of those freak weather things -- a weekend in October that turned out to be 90 degrees. It was AWFUL! Too blasted hot, too many mosquitos, too many flies (doesn't everyone use the fly control feed thru pellets? Evidently not....). The trails seemed too sandy and tough on the horses. Plus, the horse camp is primitive -- no showers, only pit toilets....and the park "gendarmes" will not allow the equestrian campers to use the nice facilities in the family camping area. So I had a bad experience, and therefore an attitude about the park.

But since then, we developed a "shower" system to use in our horse trailer (see my post from last October), and last weekend the temperatures were mild and perfect for riding. In fact, we had three great rides......really had a chance to explore the trails there, and to my surprise, they are really nice trails. It was great riding.

But, I had an epiphany -- I did realize something........

All this time, I knew John and I were different. But now I have actually put my finger on it, and understand the reality of the situation.

Most horseback riders have a certain look and demeanor about them. They ride past our campsite, looking very much "together." Immaculate tack, riding at a slow, calm, relaxed pace....just really civilized and proper.

Quite the opposite of John and me -- no matter how hard I try, or how much I get prepared, we just always look like a couple of maniacs on our maniac horses.

This is everyone else .....

This is us.......

It finally dawned on me....if the horseback riding world was like the motorcycle riding world, John and I would be the "Hell's Angels." Everyone else is the nice, together, sensible family type motorcyclists, and we are the bad boys of the road.

Pretty strange.....

Videos and Photos - this time for real!

Tuesday, October 26 note: What a moron!! I started getting this post ready on Sunday while we were visiting a friend in Indy -- we had had a couple of beers and some rakija, and like I moron instead of just saving it as a draft, I posted it and I did not have the video's and photos uploaded... DUH!

My apologies to anyone who read this on Monday or today.......

We were in a campground without shower facilities. We knew ahead of time there would be no showers, so John came up with a solution.... This is our horsetrailer.....





Here are the Allegan County Riders!





John was operating the video camera, so we had to make a separate video for him...

The parks in Michigan require securing the horses with a high line. We never had to do one before, but thankfully Karen knew how....

High tech camper in a primitive campsite!!!!

The last bottle of Giacamo Mori Chianti! Thanks to Tom and Dolly for sharing!

Potato Creek Camping Part I - Everything worked out OK

I got out of work early last Friday so we could go camping with the horses. Our reservations were made on September 3, so we were glad the weather was cooperating. Upon arrival at the gate to Potato Creek State Park they asked the question they always ask, one to which we believed we knew the right answer: "Are you bringing in firewood?" Of course we told them "yes," because we were. Next question (also one they always ask), "From which county?"

Indiana is at war with the Emerald Ash Borer. In an effort to keep it from spreading and destroying our beautiful woods, there are residents of certain counties that are prohibited from bringing in firewood. LaPorte county does not have an Emerald Ash Borer problem (or so we thought). So our answer was "LaPorte."

Then we heard something we never heard before "LaPorte county has been quarantined. You will have to unload your firewood here." Shocker!!! Turns out that LaPorte county went on the list of Emerald Ash Borer counties on September 4 -- one day after we made our camping reservations. After much whining on our part, the DNR person told us that they would have some "safe" firewood brought to our campsite. So that turned out OK after all. Whew!! A late September weekend in a tent in Northern Indiana is no place to be without firewood. We proceeded to our campsite.

Once there, after everything was unloaded, I noticed the low tire -- back tire on tbe right side of the trailer. We figured we would deal with it the next day. Drive into town, go to a gas station and fill it up. No big deal. We set up camp.

First we took a quick ride around the area, just to get acclimated. It is always so neat to see all the horse, the different rigs and camping styles of everyone in the park -- just really enjoyable.

We came back and started in on dinner after a couple of libations. We had bought a new camp stove, but it was still in the box, so we were cooking over the campfire. At one point, things got frantic -- the fire was a bit high, the steaks needed to be turned, the smoke was blowing in, our faces. In an attempt to help, I moved the foil-covered cooking grate, but made a wrong move -- the food flipped around. Two steaks at the edge of the fire, one ended up wrapped in the foil and on the ground. But after retrieving the two from the fire and washing them off, we put them all back on the grate and everything was OK. We had a great dinner and settled in for the night.

Next morning we were ready to make a wonderful breakfast on our new Coleman stove. First thing I saw when I got out of the tent was that we still had a low tire on the trailer, but now the one in front of it was completely flat! Then we discovered we forgot the coffee pot!!!

We needed to eat first, so the tire we have to wait. We had the coffee and filters but no pot!! We had to make what my mother used to call "jailhouse coffee." I have also heard others refer to it as "cowboy coffee" which in this case is more appropriate. By putting water and grounds into a pot and cooking to a boil, we had coffee after all. So it worked out OK.

John started changing the tire on the trailer, and with the new Coleman stove set up, I started to make breakfast. It was windy, which made it difficult to light the stove. It was sunny, making it difficult to see the height of the flame. When I turned the control down, the flame would go out. This happened several times, and I was going thru matches like crazy because of the wind. I decided to just make the best of it and cook on the sky high flame. It was a challenge, and though slightly burned, breakfast was edible. So it worked out OK. John got the tire changed in spite of not having the proper jack.....

Our friends Tom and Dolly came out with their horses, and the four of us had a great trail ride.
The trails are really pretty, and thanks to Dolly we did not get lost. Tom had a cool phone witha GPS gizmo that actually mapped out our course. Our horses behaved, and even walked with the quarter horses. We were all so calm and slow, that I actually fell asleep on the ride! I woke to Tom yelling at me to be careful, as I was about to strangle myself on a low hanging grapvine.

Back at camp we had a great lunch and a lot of fun just talking and laughing. It was a great trail ride. John and I took another ride later that afternoon and also ran into some people we know from riding at the Dunes and our saddle club.

It was a little colder than it was forecasted to be, but we really did have nice trail rides and a lot of fun with our friends. So it worked out to be a great Saturday!

Part II -- Sunday's adventures......

Camping with "The Girls" at Potato Creek

The forecast for the weekend was cool and overcast -- here in Northwest Indiana the weather can be brutal in August -- 90 degrees and humidity to match. So we decided to take advantage of this unusual break and take the horses camping. It may be one of the last chances we have to ride before the heat takes hold again. Last minute plans -- John had to scramble on Friday to get everything ready to leave as early as possible on Saturday.

Potato Creek is only about an hour away from our house. It is a really nice state park -- the horse camping area is great. There are nice clean showers and bathrooms, and the trails are good. Some of our state parks do not have shower facilities for horse campers, which really sucks...but Potato Creek takes care of the horse people.

When we got there on Saturday we set up camp and then took a ride. It had been a while since we had been on the trails, and it was nice and cool, so The Girls were pretty excited and wanted to run. There were not many riders out there late Saturday afternoon, so we let them lope quite a bit. It was great, as usual. Even though the trails are not very long, we always manage to get lost there. The map doesn't do us much good, and the signs labeling the trails are confusing -- maybe it is just us....But we enjoyed it.

It rained a little on us when we were making dinner, but nothing too bad. Dinner was great -- grilled a lot of our own fresh veggies from our garden. What is it about camping that makes the simplest food taste so good???

On Sunday we rode again, and it was a much calmer ride. The Girls were tired from the ride the day before, and I am sure they did not sleep much. Good thing they were calmer, because the trails were much more crowded on Sunday. We talked to a lot of other horse people, and saw some beautiful horses. We even saw one with an eye problem -- we stopped and talked to them for quite a while. They had noticed Divna's eye patch, so we traded horse eye stories.

So for a last-minute planned trip, it turned out pretty good. It was nice to spend time with the horses. I even had the time to comb out all the tangles from manes and tails, which is something I rarely get to do. Just a nice weekend...... Take a look at this photo -- this is the leg and boot of someone who rode a horse, and has the dirt to prove it!!!