This week I had to ride on Saturday, which meant I was riding alone. Usually it only works out for me to ride with Heather on Sundays. I miss the company, but decided to plan out a ride that went the opposite direction in order to see some new roads that I might not otherwise see.
So, I headed west on Stovall, instead of the usual eastern route, going up Forest and then turning right onto Frog Hollow to see what we could find. It was a lovely evening to be riding. I then turned onto Rainville and found it to be a most delightful short road, with many horses on either side, a great blue heron and small hills.
From there we ventured west onto Stateline and enjoyed the sights. Sinwaan decided he was feeling good and we had a nice gallop along the roadside for a bit. When we pulled over to grab a bite of alfalfa I turned back and saw a large semi-truck, loaded to the hilt with hay on both trailers, turning onto Rainville. Talk about good timing. There was a Jeep bouncing across the fields, going to meet up with some farm equipment in the distance.
Sinwaan seemed happy to turn off of Stateline because this felt like the direction towards home, heading north again towards Frog Hollow, up Fredrickson Rd. This was a nice curvey road with crops on either side and the occasional horse pasture. There is a rickety wooden bridge over an irrigation canal at the crest that Sinwaan was not too sure about. It took about three tries and then he finally went over it. At the T in the road, he thought we should go right back home, but I had other ideas. Wanting to put in more miles today than usual, I turned him left, having mapped out the route ahead of time, and we had a little disagreement about it but soon he was back into his trot, heading west on Frog Hollow.
McDonald Rd was a welcome site, finally we both agreed on the direction we were headed. More hills than I remembered. Some cattle on either side, lots of things for Sinwaan to look at, and we did some walking down the hill. Turning onto Detour road we were finally headed home. Sinwaan got to do some walking as I got a phone call and had trouble steering him and talking at the same time. He is not neck reined! We stopped for a couple of minutes at a new development, there were some boulders and I put the camera up on one with a timer set for 10 seconds, but just could not get a decent photo, so I gave up, hopped back on board and we set off for home.
Once back home, I used a fence post to get this nice shot of us all decked out for the ride. The ankle cuffs are highly reflective and a safety precaution I got for my early morning and late evening rides on the roadside. I was disappointed that the "breathable" material seemed to catch all the small gravel pieces and it took a little time to clean them out when I removed them. So the next ride I put them higher on his legs - the front ones are long enough to go above the knee, and had better results.
12.5 miles ridden today in two hours, five minutes, and he had "gas left in the tank" when we got home. I was tempted to ride him up to my friend's house and back for another two miles but it was getting late in the day and he had given me a good ride, so instead I hosed him down and cleaned my tack and called it a night.
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