Socializin'

Heading out~

After enjoying the holiday with friends who live on Lake Stevens, sitting out & watching the fireworks over the lake until late, then coming home to listen to more bangs & booms until about 3 a.m. - neither of us got much sleep.   Linda & I had planned a ride - but it ended up being more of a social event :-)  Before we'd left Linda's, Toni (who boards her horse at Linda's)  saw us saddling up & walked up to say "hi"!   After hearing my fall "story" & resulting medical issues, she shared with us her "story" - that included surgery to correct a condition similar to what mine could become.  Sobering but always good to collect information from friends who've been there & done that!

Coming out of the forest to a clear-cut

Linda had plans for later in the day - so we hoped to do a nice loop & have her back in time for dinner.  We took a newer trail through the clear-cut you see above.  Most of it nice & dry & fairly easy to follow - we'd taken it earlier this year.  Almost across though - with Linda in the lead, Count sunk into a very wet muddy, boggy spot with a lot of slash around it.  Still coping with a few nerves - I dismounted & cleared away the debris, to lead Farah through.  I asked her to go through.  To our surprise, she looked - then started out & around it through the slash!  She managed it so gracefully that she's now pointed out the way to re-route around the bog!   Guess I'll be moving some more limbs next time through :-)

How many ways can you say "gray"?

When we arrived at the Monument - we found several of our Backcountry Horsemen friends already having lunch!  Some of the same people we'd cleared trail with last weekend!  Was really fun to see each others horses & chat!  Of course I had to re-tell my fall story & Farah received many what a good girl for staying calm & getting out!  So much for our making any time today!  :-)

Count, Linda, Farah & Connie

Our friends even offered to take our photo - which hardly ever gets taken!  :-)  In return, we told them how to get over to the Lake McMurray outlook.  If you don't know - the photo below, is what an on-shore flow looks like on certain days...  At first we almost thought it was the smoke from all last nights fireworks - but no - this is a heavy layer of marine air that did it's job cooling off what would have otherwise been a hot & very muggy day.

Not the usual stunning view~

Heading down on the Ridge Trail, we came up on two people with mountain bikes.  They kindly pulled off & we chatted while they waited for their third companion.  Farah was looking down the trail & started trembling!  The couple called to their friend to;  "say something or start talking" while I patted & spoke to Farah...  Not like her at all - she seemed a little tense today, as did Count.  Like Linda said, if the birds hadn't been chirping - we would have both though that an earthquake was coming...  Just that kind of feel in the air today.  I'll have to do a post on the earthquake that hit just as we were coming in off a ride a few years ago...  or maybe more than a few?  Anyway- if things get Too quiet... watch out!  :-)

Linda made it back in time for her dinner & I hardly had any traffic on the way home.  We also decided which trail we're going to clear this week!  Good to get out & nice to have the noise of the Fourth over with!