A little extra room

Ok, this one's being written Friday and I'll set it to post on Saturday.

Today I hooked up MY TRAILER and hauled Dixie out to Red Rocks. (I may obnoxiously and conspicuously refer to it as MY TRAILER in all caps for months, possibly years to come. I don't know if this will ever get old!) I dithered, quite a bit, loading and checking and hooking up the trailer, but once I was ready to load Dixie I just took a deep breath, loaded, and hauled. It went fine. The truck hauls my tiny little trailer like a dream!

MY TRAILER has the collapsible slant divider, so I can close the door with the slant "open" and use the trailer like a weird-shaped stock trailer. I tried leaving Dixie untied, so she could stand any way she liked, and you know what? She rode a lot better. She likes to stand backward, with her nose at the hinge side of the gate. She appears to like having a little extra space.

She usually kicks when the trailer's stopped and she thinks it should be going - at a stop sign or a light, she's thunking the trailer wall with a front foot. It's slightly charming (oh, look, she hasn't had a heart attack or fallen over!) and mostly infuriating (STOP CAUSING PROPERTY DAMAGE, MARE!) It's also why I won't load her in a trailer with a manger or breast bar - she can get that front foot incredibly high. Anyway, she didn't actually kick at all this trip. Very cool.

So now that I have this trailer, I have realized that I'm not really sure where to go. I mean, obviously I can go to e-rides and events, but I don't know many places to go condition. Today I headed to my #1 place, Red Rocks where Rides of March is held. It's got good parking and miles of good trails, it's actually legit for horses to ride there year-round, it's fairly close to the house, and I can see enough landmarks to not get lost.



I parked back by the cow pens, in the usual ridecamp area. Of course there were no cows in the pens. Dixie knew where we were, but she was a little confused being the only horse out there. We tacked up with no fuss and headed out.



Let me know how you like this google map import gps track thing. You gotta zoom in a lot, but the loop should show up...

View Red Rocks training ride in a larger map

We did 14.5 miles in 3:04, which is a terrible 4.7 mph. There were lots of cows down in the valley, and you know what Dixie thinks of cows, but she bravely motored past them. Things in general went great til we started up the canyon out of the valley - it's a long hard climb, so I let her graze and walk it.



But then, somewhere after the first canyon, in the couple of miles of trail along the ridges, my poor horse (bless her heart) got lost. She was convinced that we were going the wrong way, that we were going to be eaten by cows, that she was going to fall off a cliff and die. I recognized the trail from ROM, I could see Peavine and Mt. Rose so I knew we were going the right way, and once we got to the top of the last hill, I could see the trailer. Dixie dragged her feet and I mercilessly flogged her onward. I kept telling her that we were going to the trailer - I'm pretty sure she knows that word - but she was sure I was lying. I mean, when we got to the crossroads a half-mile from the trailer she made a frantic break to go left! Bless her heart. She really would die in the desert without me.



The cow pens were packed full of pairs when we got to the trailer. No other vehicles, no people, no horses or quads - just an angry herd of momma and baby cows crammed mysteriously in the pens. They were unbelievably noisy and they'd brought a million gross flies with them, so we loaded up and headed home pretty quick.



Oh, and we saw two more antelope! No pictures of them sadly.

I felt kinda bad for my poor tired horse til we got home. She smelled terrible and it was plenty warm, so I gave her a bath. And she gets dirty plenty fast on her own, so I left her tied to the trailer until her washed and conditioned mane and tail were dry. My poor tired lost horse, the one that couldn't hardly trot, glared at me and pawed furious holes in my freakin' driveway the whole time her hair dried. That's when I realized that she wasn't particularly tired, just lost and despondent. And that's when I dropped the Wild West entry in the mail!

She's not out there doing her Arab Impersonation right now, but she's certainly not worn out. I've been doing electrolytes in applesauce and honey (is she a Jewish horse?) and her appetite is good. She didn't drink well today, but there were demon cows at every trough, oh no!

So the thing about all those pictures is that it's just me and Dixie (and the cows). Nevada (even this close to Reno, the second-biggest metro area in the state) is so empty. It's amazing. I love it, and I thrive in it, and I try very hard to respect it. Someone (usually my husband) knows roughly where I went and roughly when I'll be back. If I'm going exploring, I'll drop him a text message before I lose cell reception.

The first thing I thought when we moved out here was "Wow this place is awesome." The second thing I thought was "Wow this awesomeness could really be lethal." I've tried to respect that, unlike those poor idiots up there by Idaho. Don't blindly follow your GPS off the paved road in a 2 wheel drive vehicle without telling anybody where you are. Just use the tiniest smidges of common sense. I clearly don't have much to spare but even I can consistently tell someone where I'm going.