Before the Rains~

Eerily beautiful~

I got lucky!  A second day of weather in the 50's & the rain holding off for one more day!  When that sun came up over the mountains, I hustled & loaded Farah up.  Going to out to Victoria, the clouds started moving in - but it was 52 at the bank in Arlington!  Unreal for December!

No one there - usually the case, so we took off at a good trot & had only gone just over a mile when Farah hit the brakes!  There was a horse & rider coming right at us!  Linda & Count!  Both Farah & I were thrilled!  We'd hoped to ride with another friend, but that didn't pan out.  I knew Linda was back in the saddle, she'd sent me a text yesterday with a between the ears shot.  I didn't expect that she'd want to ride again today - but she surprised me!  My good friend & riding buddy is back in the saddle again!

Linda & Count

Since fresh logging has closed one of the access trails that Linda uses to ride out from her place, she'd had to ride the longer way & I was amazed we'd manged to meet-up before I made the turn for the climb to the Monument.  So - what would have been a long - somewhat lonely ride - turned out to be a lot more fun.  At the Monument - we had our snack, then Linda headed for home, it had been almost two months since she'd had Count out & he wasn't up for the distance I'd hoped to get in today.

Amazing shrub covered with bright red berries

I left toward the deep, dark woods - Linda dropped down the other side.  Farah didn't realize that they weren't following us for a short way :-)  When she did - she stopped short & looked back over her shoulder - the "Where the heck ARE they look."  :-)  As we went on, she gave a big grunt - but didn't argue the point.

Looking down at the Nakashima Barn

As we headed down to the lower roads, I could see where we were last Wed. :-)  We managed over 2,000 ft. of elevation gain on this ride, nothing like the ease of a nice flat multi-use trail.  On the way back up - Farah wanted to gallop, so I let her & by the top she was soaked.  It was so darn warm, that both of us worked up a sweat.

Lower wetland

It was a strange, eerie day - barometric pressure dropping.  The clouds thickened, it was getting dark fast.  We arrived back at the trailer just as the rain started!