6.31 miles on Jan 30

Organizing the media for this post has taken a bit of time. I had almost an hour of video footage that I cut down to 11.5 minutes. I probably could have cut it down more but, meh...

Last Tuesday I had the day off from work in my new part time/4 day schedule. I am a member of a plus sized rider facebook group and one of the members lives extremely nearby!  We decided to schedule a time to ride together since she works from home and has some flexibility mid week.

Her parents are landowners in the Metamora Hunt Club and she grew up here so she knows all the MHC trails like the back of her hand AND has permission to ride on them whenever.

Score. For. Me.

Gwyn loaded reasonably well. I did make my temporary fence around the trailer again, anticipating that the cold weather and wearing a cooler and generally being not normal conditions that I load her in would cause issues. She did try and spin and tear away but the fence was a good enough barrier and she self loaded after that.

Goober.

Honestly I think once she decides to get on she likes self loading because she doesn't have to worry about where I am in relation to the relative small space of the trailer. Once she's on if I feel her weight shift backwards I just have to put some pressure on her butt and she rocks forward and just stands. It's the "I'm gonna give you shit to see if you REALLY want me to load" crap that's the problem. And only at home. Otherwise? Self loader.

The roads were snowy and not the best so I took it slow with the truck. Right after I finished recording that first bit in the video I slowed down to turn into the friend's driveway and a fucking asshole went ZOOMING by me on the left as I was turning. So I'm braking, the trailer is still going because snow and I'm starting to jackknife thanks to the bastard who couldn't wait a minute for me to get off the road.

It's been almost a week and I'm still pissed off about that.  I've got a video compilation of clips and then some screen grabs. It all looks the same because it's fucking winter and there's snow. But New Friend has the most floooooofy icelandic gelding and he was just fucking adorable. He's for sale, btw, if you're looking for a great, stout little horse. I can get you in touch. He was a solid equine citizen the whole time.

Some road riding, which Gwyn was great for. Yay more good experiences!

FLOOFY

We were right by Kaylee's school at this point

Gwyn liked the Floof.

We rode through the Shenanigans Farms property to get to a pipeline that's partial trail and runs through New Friend's property too. Super icy on their private roads. 

The corner of Hosner and Oakwood is where Kaylee's school is. 

I really had a great time with her and I'm hoping we can get a few more rides in together before she leaves (She's moving to Germany at the end of April!)  I may have convinced her to try the endurance ride in April before she goes :D 

While it's super nice to be 'in the know' with someone about the MHC trails, it's even better to have a peer (she's just about my age) who's so close that I mesh well with. I was positively glowing all day Tuesday. I was fucking freezing cold but it was so nice to be out and about. I've already done more riding than this time last year and that's wonderful. I can keep this up and I won't feel so ill prepared for the first ride of the season.

I wanted to ride today (Sunday 2/4) but my body had other plans when I came down with a sudden stomach virus on Saturday into today. The temperature got up to 30F and it was just snowing and would have been amazing to ride in! Curse you, stomach virus!