Challenging Horse Camping Weekend

With our reservations made at Potato Creek State Park earlier this month, and a favorable weather forecast for the weekend (sunny and temperatures in the 60 degree range), we set off to go camping with The Girls. Here is a summary of what we had to deal with:

Friday

• Our Firewood was confiscated upon our arrival at the park
• When we arrived at our campsite and got out of the truck, I noticed one of our horse trailer tires was really low on air
• The pork steaks we cooked for dinner ended up in the camp fire

Saturday

• Woke up to find we had a flat tire on the horse trailer -- not the tire that was low, but a different tire
• We forgot the coffee pot
• It was really windy, and temperatures in the 50's
• We bought a Coleman stove for this trip -- could not figure out how to adjust the flame, so it was an absolute inferno that burned everything we tried to cook!
• I fell asleep on the trail ride
• Batteries went out on both flashlights
• Divna got loose in the middle of the night

Sunday

• Divna got loose in the very early morning
• There were some mules on the trail, and Divna freaked out
• Repaired the low tire McGuyver/McGruber style

Details and photos to follow........

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!!!