Trail Riding

Saturday we were headed to a friends surprise 70th birthday. The birthday party just so happened to be held down at Crag O’Lea, and it wasn’t until that evening so we decided to go trail riding during the day. Hey we had to have a cover story as to why we were there, right?

To enter the trail you have to go up a steep hill. Then you can either ride along the ridge or go straight back down the other side. I was on our old gelding (he’s 21, it’s okay to call him old) and he was asking a little fresh. Hey, it’s been a short while since he’s been ridden. So when we got to the top of the hill I asked Karen if Abug could ride with her on Rogue. I’m sooooooo glad I made that switch. We went straight back down the hill and through a little wooded area. There was a big log down across the trail, KG didn’t pick his feet up and down we went. My knee slammed against a tree and got pinned between KG and the tree or maybe the ground, I’m not really sure. The instant shock on my knee about made me sick… it was terrible. I’d say we were like 20-30 minutes in to our ride.

There was a clearing just ahead of where this happened so we all quickly moved to the clearing and Jared hopped off to check my leg. (helpful to have a paramedic with you huh?) At first I wasn’t sure if I could straighten my leg or not, but eventually I was able to move it (about a minute later) so I hopped off and we checked my leg. The best part is we were all more worried about KG. Hey, it’s all good.

On the way back, Abug fell asleep and wanted to sleep on her belly. At one point she threw her leg over the saddle horn and had herself all on Karen’s left side so Karen spread her out on the saddle so that she was “evenly distributed” :). Silly kiddo.

KG and I were both okay, although we were both slow moving the rest of the day and Sunday too. KG had a few cuts on his front and back leg and my knee was swollen and scrapped up pretty well. 1) I’m glad Abug wasn’t on with me at that time. 2) could you imagine what my leg would look like had I not had jeans on? (both sides of my knee got it although the front side was worse.

After Harriett’s surprise birthday party, the group decided to go back out on the trail. I was doing good just to walk and I was tired so I stayed back at the camper and laid down. Just before they came back (just lucky timing on my part) I hobbled out to take pictures of them. I caught them coming back off the hill and through the gate. I noticed that Jared was on the ground and I wasn’t sure why until they got closer. I guess Abug wanted to ride with Tbug and so once they were in the wide open field, they moved her over so she could ride with sissy.

Here we are a few days after that… as long as I’m not running or navigating stairs, I can move fairly well but my knee is still a little swollen, maybe why I can’t navigate stairs so easily…