- Joined
- Jan 28, 2003
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- 13,341
We went out yesterday to check out our deer unit. We loaded up the horses, the dogs, the kids, packed a lunch and headed for the mountains.
We got saddled up and started to head out. At some point my wife mentioned that we left the rain slickers back at the trailer. But the weather looked good and we all had light rain jackets with us so why waste daylight, right? She wanted to go back and get them but I assured her that it wasn't going to rain more than a sprinkle trust me. Off we went up the mountain.
It was a nice ride in some fairly technical conditions and the horses performed very well with the exception of my youngest daughters horse balking at each and every creek crossing but we worked through it. After three miles or so we found a nice high spot to glass from and set out a picnic lunch. We spotted several deer and one bruiser of a black bear and generally were enjoying ourselves.
I had been noticing a that dark clouds had been gathering on two sides and mentioned that "maybe we should start working our way back". So we packed up and headed off. I had one more bowl I wanted look at and thought it would get us on top which would make an easy ride back to the truck, so we went cross ridge and tried to get into the next bowl. It was simply too rough to get the horses through with lots of downed timber and thick brush so after about 45 minutes we gave up and decided to pick our way back from the direction we'd come.
That's when the first drops of rain started to fall. We all put on our light jackets but I knew that we were soon going to regret not having full length rain slickers. We were fighting our back through the fall area when the first rain drops turned into a deluge of biblical proportion. I'm talking a slashing, biting driven rain one of those that stings it's coming down so hard.
In about 10 minutes I am so soaked that there is water pooling in my underwear and sloshing around between my butt and the saddle. I'm wearing jeans and leather riding boots. In another ten minutes there is so much water soaking through my jeans that my boots are starting to fill with water in fact they have so much water in them that it's starting to slosh out the top. Up until now I've just kept riding and made sure everybody was safe behind me.
I finally gather everybody and explain that since there is no lightening we are better to just tough it out as there is nowhere to get out of the rain if we stop anyway. My daughters are giggling and thinking this is really fun. In fact my youngest one has taken her hood off because "the rain feels good on my head dad!". My wife is quietly taking up the rear keeping watch over everything and I'm not sure because she had hood pulled down over her head but I think she might have been sending daggers my way. No time to talk about it now, so I turn and urge my horse into a nice fast jog that way I'm out of dagger range. Just in case.
After picking our way through the fallen timber and sliding down a now muddy rocky hill that we'd come up we have a bit of a bother at a stream crossing where my youngest girls horse doesn't want to cross. The older one yells at her to "Just get off and lead him across you idiot!" To which my youngest replies "SHUT UP I'm going to win this, leave if you want, but I'm riding him across!" And she did, and there is no doubt that who their mother is! The women in this family don't take kindly to unwanted advice or are they keen to ever loose a fight with a horse or anything else for that matter.
Finally we are on the last stretch to the truck my young one is riding to my side and older one to my other side the rain, if anything has gotten stronger and we way past being concerned about being wet and cold as we are so saturated now it really doesn't matter. My wife is behind us about 100 yards and I think she had to stay that far back so as to keep herself from choking me out as she had mentioned early in the ride that we should go back and get the rain slickers and I told her not to worry about it. At least that's her side of the story..
At this point I'd mentioned to the girls that while it was raining at least there wasn't any lightening so that was good. As if on cue, KABLOOOM, a lightening bolt slashes through the sky above us. It's about 500 yards to the truck and I know that you should never run in the lightening and I also know that you should never run a horse back to the trailer but guess what folks? That event started the Colorado version of the Kentucky derby we covered that last 500 yards in record time.
My wife arrived calmly at a walk several minutes later and went around to the other side of the trailer without saying a word unsaddled her horse and never mentioned a word about the incident for the whole drive home. She'll probably start talking to me again before the week is out I'm guessing.
Deer and bear spotting area and picnic grounds.
Nice place to park the horses.
Getting back to the trailer. Even my dog wouldn't talk to me last night.
We got saddled up and started to head out. At some point my wife mentioned that we left the rain slickers back at the trailer. But the weather looked good and we all had light rain jackets with us so why waste daylight, right? She wanted to go back and get them but I assured her that it wasn't going to rain more than a sprinkle trust me. Off we went up the mountain.
It was a nice ride in some fairly technical conditions and the horses performed very well with the exception of my youngest daughters horse balking at each and every creek crossing but we worked through it. After three miles or so we found a nice high spot to glass from and set out a picnic lunch. We spotted several deer and one bruiser of a black bear and generally were enjoying ourselves.
I had been noticing a that dark clouds had been gathering on two sides and mentioned that "maybe we should start working our way back". So we packed up and headed off. I had one more bowl I wanted look at and thought it would get us on top which would make an easy ride back to the truck, so we went cross ridge and tried to get into the next bowl. It was simply too rough to get the horses through with lots of downed timber and thick brush so after about 45 minutes we gave up and decided to pick our way back from the direction we'd come.
That's when the first drops of rain started to fall. We all put on our light jackets but I knew that we were soon going to regret not having full length rain slickers. We were fighting our back through the fall area when the first rain drops turned into a deluge of biblical proportion. I'm talking a slashing, biting driven rain one of those that stings it's coming down so hard.
In about 10 minutes I am so soaked that there is water pooling in my underwear and sloshing around between my butt and the saddle. I'm wearing jeans and leather riding boots. In another ten minutes there is so much water soaking through my jeans that my boots are starting to fill with water in fact they have so much water in them that it's starting to slosh out the top. Up until now I've just kept riding and made sure everybody was safe behind me.
I finally gather everybody and explain that since there is no lightening we are better to just tough it out as there is nowhere to get out of the rain if we stop anyway. My daughters are giggling and thinking this is really fun. In fact my youngest one has taken her hood off because "the rain feels good on my head dad!". My wife is quietly taking up the rear keeping watch over everything and I'm not sure because she had hood pulled down over her head but I think she might have been sending daggers my way. No time to talk about it now, so I turn and urge my horse into a nice fast jog that way I'm out of dagger range. Just in case.
After picking our way through the fallen timber and sliding down a now muddy rocky hill that we'd come up we have a bit of a bother at a stream crossing where my youngest girls horse doesn't want to cross. The older one yells at her to "Just get off and lead him across you idiot!" To which my youngest replies "SHUT UP I'm going to win this, leave if you want, but I'm riding him across!" And she did, and there is no doubt that who their mother is! The women in this family don't take kindly to unwanted advice or are they keen to ever loose a fight with a horse or anything else for that matter.
Finally we are on the last stretch to the truck my young one is riding to my side and older one to my other side the rain, if anything has gotten stronger and we way past being concerned about being wet and cold as we are so saturated now it really doesn't matter. My wife is behind us about 100 yards and I think she had to stay that far back so as to keep herself from choking me out as she had mentioned early in the ride that we should go back and get the rain slickers and I told her not to worry about it. At least that's her side of the story..
At this point I'd mentioned to the girls that while it was raining at least there wasn't any lightening so that was good. As if on cue, KABLOOOM, a lightening bolt slashes through the sky above us. It's about 500 yards to the truck and I know that you should never run in the lightening and I also know that you should never run a horse back to the trailer but guess what folks? That event started the Colorado version of the Kentucky derby we covered that last 500 yards in record time.
My wife arrived calmly at a walk several minutes later and went around to the other side of the trailer without saying a word unsaddled her horse and never mentioned a word about the incident for the whole drive home. She'll probably start talking to me again before the week is out I'm guessing.
Deer and bear spotting area and picnic grounds.
Nice place to park the horses.
Getting back to the trailer. Even my dog wouldn't talk to me last night.
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