Remember the Elk tree we saw up at the Region 13
CTR that year, You, me and Mary Belle!! What a great ride, me and my
sponsors!!! looking forward to doing it again. Carolyn
Bottom line, no matter what discipline one rides,
successfully completing the ride or rides sure does improve one's
horsemanship. If distance riding had not come into my life, I would not
be as good a horseperson as I am today. That doesn't mean I can't
improve, but I would not have near the knowledge that floats in my
brain. If we want to keep our trails, I figure all of us, including
those slow pleasure riders, better stick together.
This past weekend I did not go to a ride.
Instead I went into the gorgeous Pigeon River country in northern Michigan
with other distance riders as well as pleasure riders. We rode 4 days,
explored every day, and we mostly walked. It was hard but not as hard as
I thought it would be. We saw elk (I didn't), saw elk scrapes, saw elk
wallows, saw bear signs, got into arguments while using the GPS units as to
what direction we needed to go to get back to camp, ate like pigs with meals
cooked over an open fire, told ghost stories (the dogman being one of them),
had squirt gun fights, watched the kids and Walt (over 40) stand on their
horses, and just had a good time. The result? We all want to do
this again. If you have never eaten a dump cake made in a dutch oven
over an open fire, you don't know what you are missing. I didn't even
eat ice cream and I gained weight!
Jeanie
