Potato Creek Camping-Mishaps Continue-Part II

John woke me in the middle of the night -- there was a full moon outside, and the dying campfire was still glowing. "I just saw a big black shadow go by. I think one of the horses is loose." I jumped up and out of the tent, and sure enough, there stood Divna. All I could think was, "Please don't run. I am not up to this!!" Luckily, she just stood there. I took the lead rope (soaking wet -- it must have fallen into the water bucket) and got her back to the hitching post and re-tied her. No big deal, no horse-running-full-speed-through-crowded-campground scenario -- so it was all OK.

Back to sleep.

Very early morning. Sun just barely coming up -- that real dim, grey light. I woke to a sound....strange sound...a crunching sound. Then I realized it was a horse eating grass. Immediately I knew it had to be Divna. Sure enough, once I was out of the tent again, there was Divna grazing. Zora was still tied to the hitching post and she was not happy. I could see on her face that she was upset that Divna was grazing and she wasn't!! So once again, I got lucky -- Divna did not try to get away. I just grabbed the lead rope and put her back in place, this time tying a better knot!

Back to sleep.

After an uneventful breakfast (I cooked over the campfire rather than the out of control roaring inferno of a Coleman stove), we decided it was time to deal with the low tire situation. Some other folks in the campground told us there was an air pump at the Camp Store, located near the family campground on the other side of the park. Potato Creek is a large park, and it is quite a ways to the other side. So I took off to go get air while John took care of things around camp. I got all the way over there on a low tire, and was told that the place to get tires aired up in at the Service Center, near the Horsemen's Campground! The park employee at the family campground called the Service Center and they said for me to drive around back -- they would be waiting for me.

So back I go to the Horsemen's Camp and the Service Center. The guy was real nice and filled the tire. As soon as he put the valve cap back on we started hearing a hissing sound. Sure enough, the valve stem was leaking. Not good. So I drove back to our campsite and gave John the good news/bad news. We noticed that if we held the valve stem to one side, it stopped hissing, so we started brainstorming ways to keep the stem in place. We came up with this......

It was John's idea, but with me being a former Dental Assistant, I think it is very appropriate. We tied the valve stem in place with dental floss -- mint flavor at that!! Got us all the way home with no more loss of air. Take that, McGuyver/McGruber!!!

We were able to take our final ride of the weekend without any worries about the tire.


We did not know, though, that we had to worry about the donkeys.

More and more we are seeing donkeys/mules (which is it??) on the trails. I think they are becoming pretty popular. There were some at Potato Creek that weekend, and we came upon them on the trail. The people riding them had children with them. One woman had a small child on the saddle with her -- there was another child on the donkey/mule alone, but another woman was ponying it.

John and Zora were in the lead, as usual, and the group moved over on the trail to let us by. Once Zora got past, and Divna was close to the group I could feel her getting nervous. I think she knew these were not horses. With Zora now out of sight, she got scared of being near these "creatures" by herself. I was talking to her and coaxing her to walk past them, but as we got close to them she did a half turn and kicked out. She did not make contact, but it scared me because there were children on these animals. I immediately turned her around and walked her back down the trail in the direction we came from.

I told the group that she was afraid, and that she might kick them, so I was going to keep her out of the way. I thought it might help if she could see Zora, so I started calling for John. All the time I am apologizing to the people in the group. They kept saying it was alright, it was not a problem, they were really cool about it. But I was not wanting to let Divna walk past them with those children in the saddles.

John and Zora appeared, and the people in the group said they would move off the trail, over into the meadow area. They did, and we went by them safely. All the time with me apologizing all over the place. They kept saying it was no problem, but I did really feel bad about it. I was just really nervous because of those young children.

The rest of the ride was beautiful, but uneventful. We got back to camp, ate lunch, packed up and went home. A good camping weekend all-in-all, in spite of the many mishaps.

Next weekend, camping in Michigan with The Girls and friends....

P.S. Dolly sent me the GPS map that Tom made on his Droid when we were trail riding. It is really cool -- you can see the whole route we took. I cannot figure out how to get it uploaded here. I am going to work on it and see if I can post it.....

We Are Idiots -- Part I

John and I are idiots, and have no business being married to each other. Most couples balance each other out -- one is reckless, the other cautious; one is extroverted, the other introverted; one is impulsive, the other calculated...you get the picture. John and I are both reckless and impulsive....bad combination.


We took The Girls out to the trails at the Dunes about 2 weeks ago. It was after the bout of bronchitis I had. As I said on a previous post I have my chronical order all mixed up here...

One good thing -- Divna had been having trouble in the trailer ever since our friend hauled cows in it. John had an idea. He thought it might help if when he was cleaning the pasture to put some of our horses' manuer in the trailer. This way, perhaps their "smell" would overcome the smell of the cows. So he did that a few days before we went riding.


I am happy to say it worked! We loaded The Girls, and Divna did not dance around the trailer like she has the last few times. So that was a victory. At least we did one thing right....

The trails at The Dunes are one way -- because we share the trails with hikers, equestrians are to keep to the right. We have ridden the trails backwards with our friends, Dee Dee and Karen a time or two in the past. We have never done the trails backwards on our own. You see, John and I get lost in every State Park in Indiana. We get the maps with the squiggly green lines, and after about 5 minutes of riding we have no idea where we are. We turn the map in every direction, look for guideposts, and inevitably have to ask another rider how to get back to the trail head.

So this day, I don't know what possessed us to ride the trail backwards without someone to help us, but we did. And sure enough, we got so mixed up we could not figure out where we were.

One good thing though -- we saw a couple of wild turkeys. They were so neat...very close to us so we could really see them. They were beautiful. I did not get a picture, unfortunately.

We had been out there for a while and were getting tired (The Girls were tired as well). and we came upon a street. Believing it was the street that runs perpendicular to the parking lot and is essentially a short cut, we decided to take it.

Turns out, that was not the same street. It lead to U.S. 20 -- a 4 lane, U.S. highway that is heavily travelled. Believing we were only a short distance to the parking lot, we both believed it was OK to ride along side U.S. 20 to the parking lot of the park.

Bad idea. Dumb, actually. Very, very stupid.