Movie night!

Today I was totally fed up with waiting for the Garmin charging station (even though it's been a reasonable amount of time and it's not actually late yet) so I took the iPhone GPS thingie with me. The iPhone GPS is really quite nice, lots of features and maps and stuff, but it's substandard because if you lose cell reception, you lose the GPS function. And it eats battery like MAD. And I have to take my attention off my horse and reach down to my bag and pull it out, then unlock it, then look at it, then not drop it, relock it, and put it back in the bag. Ugh.

But here's our stats for today:
Name: Track 005
Date: Nov 11, 2009 11:34 am
Distance: 3.49 miles
Elapsed Time: 59:05.7
Avg Speed: 3.5 mph
Max Speed: 10.2 mph
Avg Pace: 16' 55" per mile
Min Altitude: 5,179 ft
Max Altitude: 5,470 ft


I don't think the 10.2 MPH is accurate! What was interesting, though - I checked several times when Dixie was walking forward quite briskly, but still loose and supple. The kind of walk she usually does when we're leading a pack of horses toward home, what I have been calling her normal walk. It's 4.7 mph!

Here's a map of where we went - the scenic trail (over the mountain) then the pueblo trail.


Then C sent me something interesting she saw on a mailing list about gaited endurance horses, and it mentioned Clinton Anderson. S had loaned me the CA gaited horse dvds, so it seemed like the universe wants me to watch them already. I just started, and it seems like I have in fact been doing it right. CA says to take them out of the curb bits, trim their feet naturally, get them bending with a snaffle, and then let them trot and canter to figure it all out. Hmmm. I HAVE REDISCOVERED THE WHEEL, YET AGAIN!

(fake edit: Dammit, I had a clever title picked out. Then I forgot to work the title joke into the body of my post. Then I forgot what the joke was even going to BE! I have the attention span of a butterfly.)