Solo ride

Two weeks ago I was out of town. Last weekend I was sick and the weather was sooo windy I decided not to ride. Today I had no excuse. Mid-50s weather and sunny, it just doesn't get any nicer! I had my hesitations about riding by myself on the road when Sinwaan had a bit of time off. I thought about going to Bennington Lake but that is a long way to haul when you only average 6 mpg. So I took Sinwaan over to Heather's and rode behind the water treatment center. It was beautiful.

In the beginning we had a really good spook at a Mallard, but after that Sinwaan would just stop and look and then the craetures would appear - we first saw a small herd of three white tailed deer bounding away. Then three wild turkeys. Then three more deer. Then a herd of 8 deer. Then a raptor flew overhead. Sinwaan was really feeling good and once we had warmed up and gone about a mile he wanted to canter. Forget trotting, that was too slow for him. As long as he behaved himself I let him go. It was really glorious.

We rode for about an hour and 15 minutes, enough for him to work up a good sweat with all that racing around. We finished our ride with a steady trot all around the trees, it only took 15 minutes so it was probably not more than a mile or two. On our walk to cool out a red-winged blackbird flew right across in front of us and I got a good look at him. So pretty.