Where did the Summer go???

Here I am sitting in my hotel room in Hawthorne at my second job, looking at the mountains with a dusting of snow, 23 days left until the most historic Presidential Election, wondering, "Where on earth did the summer go?" And, oh my goodness, I havn't written in my blog since July 12? Lazy, lazy, lazy...well, not really, more like busy, busy, busy. So, what's been happening since then? Well...

I have been riding Whisper regularly with my friend down the street, Sharon. Sharon is a 3 Day Eventer, so conditioning her horse is simular to Whisper's conditioning for Endurance. With one BIG exception - Sharon would like to do canters and gallops, and Whisper does these annoying "whoohoo" bucks when I ask her for speed, and since I would rather not get launched off my horse at 18mph, I tend to keep the speeds down. We are cantering on a regular basis, just not fast enough for Sharon's horse, Phynn, to get in a good canter gait as his stride is so much bigger than Whisper's. At least riding with Sharon is pushing my envelope and making me do things I have been afraid to do in the past.

With my rides on Whisper getting longer and faster, Mom just didn't have the ability to keep up, so Raven now has a job! After getting ridden maybe 6 times in the past 2 years, Raven is now the "mom horse". Of course, since she is fat and out of shape, Mom has had to slow down and shorten her rides for me and Raven. Raven is enjoying her job, and now winnies at me when I go out and get a horse. Raven and Whisper vie for who is going to go first.

Andi got a break from riding as I had been concentrating on training him to pull a cart. I went to a couple of clinics with him, and he freaked out over wearing blinders and went crashing thru a 16' pipe corral gate going full speed. I worked with him another 6 weeks, but I just don't think I want to put in the time to make him a driving horse. So I will begin riding him again after next weekend.

What happens next weekend, you ask? Well, Whisper and I have a 30 mile Endurance ride out at Fort Churchill. Even tho it has been snow flurries all this weekend, next weekend it is supposed to be in the 70's, so it should be perfect for an Endurance ride. She will be wearing her new saddle, a Specialized which I am able to tweak and fit perfectly to her back. She will also be wearing Easyboot Epics on all 4 hooves instead of shoes. So I will be able to see if I have everything "tweaked" correctly after doing 30 miles in 7 hours.

Bruce and I went on a camping trip in September. Bruce ended up inviting his department at work to meet us there, and we all had a great time. With disel prices pushing $5/gal. we stayed fairly close to home and went to Berlin-Ichthiasaur State Park about 90 miles away. Here is a slideshow I put together of our trip:



Last weekend, we took the Amtrak from Reno to Truckee. The train follows the Truckee river and stops just short of Donner Pass. It was breathtaking and !cheap! at $23 round trip per person. The train ride was just over an hour, and not nearly long enough, so in January or February, we will take the train on over to Sacramento and spend the night and return the next day. It should be beautiful going over the Sierra's in the snow and I am looking forward to it! Here is a slideshow I made of the train ride:



Well, that's the quick catch up! Hopefully I will have a successful Endurance ride to write about after next weekend!