Die Hard....

So, Suzie and I had set up rides last week for this week. This week started today. The National Weather Service had issued a severe weather alert, more specifically, a flash flood warning for all of our county and a blizzard warning for the high country just north of us. They were to get 12-18" of snow, which meant rain for us...and lots of it by desert standards....

Did you really think a silly little flash flood warning would keep us from riding??? Hell no. 43 degrees, cold wind,and yes, it was raining just a little at the mountain. I picked Vickie and her horse Dakota up on the way, and we met Suzie at the mountain at 9am. Afterall, if we were going to ride NATRC and AERC, the ponies had to learn to ride in crappy conditions.

It was dark, and gloomy, cold, windy and wet. But, horse people that we are, we rationalized this with the realization that we probably wouldn't run into any mountain bikers or hikers out there. Nobody else besides us would be crazy enough to want to be out in this weather when we normally have so many perfectly beautiful days to go out and play. So, we would have the whole place to ourselves, and wouldn't that be nice! As horse people, we can rationalize any condition to go out and go riding. A blizzard? Sure! "but the snow is sooooo pretty on the pine tree limbs. We wouldn't get to see this in town..." Any excuse to ride.

So, off we went. And we were alone out there. The ponies all behaved really well, as usual. Vickie and I had raingear on with warm clothing on underneath. Suzie only had on a fleece type jacket, not wind or rain proof. As we got over the first ridge and down into a canyon, the weather really got worse, and the skies really looked bad to the southwest. We opted to take the "shorter " ride as flash floods are not to be taken lightly (hey, they weren't due till 5pm) and, Vickie and I knew Suzie had to be freezing. So, we did a shorter 7.5mile loop, and then opted to have lunch at a local cowboy joint. )Lots of room for trailer parking.)

Interesting find on the trail... we took the trail that that horse got kicked on. The ranger and I had kicked dirt over the pools of blood afterthe vet took the horse. WEll, the rain and wind must have washed that dirt and sand away, because today we saw the pools of blood on the trail from that horse. Lots of blood is very sticky, and it must have really gobbed up.

It is supposed to rain all night tonight....Suzie and I are supposed to go out again tomorrow....she was buying rain gear this afternoon after lunch.....