Lake Sonoma
October 30, 2004

Obviously, I'm addicted to this sport as two weeks after hitting Grand Canyon, I'm riding again. But I left Tank home on holiday until his Thanksgiving coastal trek and took the new boy James Dean for a spin. I'd been told this was one of the prettiest rides and I shouldn't miss it. And it indeed was pretty. Can't wait to go again next year.

This year's trip wasn't my best ride. And what you see here for pictures is all I took. James is not a camera horse yet! To the left is a picture of the lower camp from the back of my trailer. What a view. At night the full moon was orange and sat center of this shot.

James deemed it necessary to be a total mental DORK for the first two hours of the morning. And even though he's sailed through his two other 50s this year with flying colors, this time he stressed himself out so much that he just literally wore himself out. We tried to ride with our camping neighbor since the two horses had bonded. That was a mistake. And even though we started what we thought was late enough to be in the back of the pack, we were passed by 30 or so horses. So far, my best rides on James have been alone. I think they'll have to remain that way. We parted company with our riding buddies long before our first half hour hold and it was poor judgement on my part to continue as long as we did in that fashion.

After our riding partners went on ahead, we soon became the last ones out. It took about 15 minutes for James to wind down and then he was a poor dejected soul until the hold. Unfortunately, the hold was back at camp and he became totally high once more and it took about 10 minutes to get his pulse down and we'd only been walking. Everyone had come and gone and I was even thinking of quitting at that point. He got all A's except guts which were a C. Hmmm .... had to think on that one. But I finally decided to at least try to make it to lunch.

We went out totally alone over the same course we'd started on the morning. This time James saw all the spooks he totally missed in the morning when he was throwing all his jigging, head-tossing temper tantrums. But as the morning wore on, he got more dejected and my biggest fear was that I wasn't able to get him to drink. I finally remembered that I'd never been successful getting him to drink from natural water and got off and filled my little collapsible water bucket with my last two water bottles which he sucked dry. I'd been on foot walking for some time when we came across a muddy creek and I got him to drink three buckets of water from that. Wouldn't drink from the creek directly but he'd drink the same water from my bucket. Dork. It wasn't long before the drag riders caught up with me. They could see James was feeling really sorry for himself and we all rode to lunch together.

I contemplated pulling then because I knew he was tired but the trailer was already full and he ate and drank big time (there was a water trough there) and vetted through with all A's. The first loop is longer than the second, so I knew we had less distance to go. The suggestion was made that if I let him quit now, he'd learn he could be a total jerk and not have to continue. So since he was EDPP just fine at lunch, we continued on.

The afternoon was LONG since we were going so slow and I kinda felt for the drag riders who, I'm sure, thought they'd be back to camp long before they ran up on me. But it turned out I wasn't "the last man standing" as there were three right up around the next corner from us and we all finished together.

James drank and drank and drank and drank from the water trough at the finish and was trying to eat the whole box of apples they had there. He vetted out great but seemed a tad off on his right front. However, I discovered he had packed rocks and dirt in his hooves so hard it was like cement. I had to really work to clean them out. Whether or not he learned anything from his experience of wearing himself out, I don't know. But I do know, next time I take him to a ride, I'll be riding alone again. He still has a lot of growing up to do. And it certainly made me appreciate Tank The Wonder Horse even more!!!

:) Jackie