Trail Ride In Iowa County - Saturday 6/7/08

Julie (from down the road) invited me on a trail ride with her in-laws on Saturday. It was to be about 15 miles along the Iowa river and then an evening pot luck at the in-laws house. Well, with as much rain as we've had the roads we were to ride on were under water. We were fortunate however as the ride was still on!!! An alternate route would be used.

We met at one of the "wagon team's" house and everyone got tacked up and ready to RIDE!

Here's Julie and Nellie sporting her new "chinks" - those leather chap thingies. Nellie wears those rubber boots on front vs shoes. Adam thinks he wants a pair.



Of course there's always ONE redneck in the bunch and thankfully it was NOT ME!!! G Apparently one of the axles of a wagon needed a bit of welding. Of course the mules were already hooked up and the people were already loaded, so what the heck, we'll just weld it right now and someone can hold the mules steady!

I didn't get my camera out in time to get the "real" action, but as you know welding makes lots of snap, crackle, pops and there were a few tense moments at first. The mules got use to the noise and the Axle was fixed. WE'RE OFF!


It was a small group, 4 teams and 4 individual riders. A total of 4 mules (one draft pair, one horse pair), a team of Spotted Drafts and a team of Perchons.

The scenery was very pretty. We took a few "B" access roads - aka dirt, but most of our travel was done on the gravel. The horses were all very well behaved and luckily for Adam, not a PIG in sight!! We crossed Highway 6 at one point on the way to the "turn around spot", but other than that we didn't see any blacktop or much traffic on the first leg of our journey. We went over several bridges of all kinds, from solid cement construction to wooden bridges with that pine oil smell to them. I just love the sound of the horses hoofs crossing those wooden bridges. There are some pretty steep hills in Iowa county back on those gravel roads! WOW! It was just beautiful.

The weather was a little "iffy" going into the ride. It was suppose to rain, but we were hopeful it would wait until evening. Luckily, we never did get rained on. It was freaking windy however! YIKES! Everyone knows how much I love the wind!! NOT!! I did not complain however and Julie was impressed. G One nice thing about the wind is that it kept the flies and gnats off the ponies. It was hot enough without being eaten alive by bugs! When we got into valley's were we lost the wind, it got very warm, so the wind helped with that as well.



A one point Julie needed a bottle of water, so I "ponied" Nellie from Adam and Julie made a run for the trolley. I of course had my camera at the ready!! As you can see there was PLENTY of room on the trolley, so let me know if you are interested in going this fall!!

After about 3.5 hours, we arrived at the "in-Laws", Jean and Don's house. It's just AWESOME!! It's an old barn style and the inside is wide open!! LOVE IT! Huge beams are exposed and Jean said they have a 12' Christmas tree every year. PRETTY!!



Everyone unhitched or unsaddled their ponies and we dug into our coolers for lunch.
Adam happily hung out with Nellie and shared her hay. Julie said she much like him because she doesn't just share with ANYONE!

A couple "pee" stories. Poor Adam, he really had to "go" on the way there and as we were stopping for something he decided to squat and GO!!! Never had a pony pee with me on them before, Julie said that he'd had it hanging for quite awhile. POOR GUY!!!

Then on the way back, one of the other gelding had to GO. You can just look at Adam and Nellie's tails above to see how windy it was. Well, this gelding "let loose" and a young girl was standing on the wrong side of the wind and her legs got totally sprayed! It was pretty funny! G


We spent an hour or so and then headed back. The weather looked a bit unstable and we wanted to get back before the storms. I left my camera behind in one of the trucks so it wouldn't get wet. Hind sight I wish I would have had it, it was just my little camera, so easy to carry, but oh well.

We took a shorter trip back which required us to get on the highway shoulder for about a mile. Everyone did really well and most of the cars were fine. You of course have some "IDIOTS" out there, UGH! The riders on horseback were in charge of watching the traffic from ahead and behind and "trying" to get people to slow down. Most of the time we were successful, but again, there's always those "few" that are in some huge rush. We ended up cutting through the town of LaDora and headed back to the trailers by about 5:30. We figured we'd gone about 12 miles. It really makes me wonder how people kept moving West. Honestly, that would be an amazingly LONG trip!!

We loaded up the ponies and headed back to Jean and Don's for a pot luck dinner. Bill of course showed up for the FOOD! G It was a long day riding out in the wind, but it was a lot of fun too.