And the Ride Goes On

We have finished traversing Utah and are now camped on the Nevada border.   We are actually quarantined there, giving the horses a chance to clear out anything but weed free hay and giving us a chance to power wash everything east of Nevada BLM off our trailers and trucks.  We haven't had any cell coverage since Park City and won't for most of the rest of the ride, so we bombed into Wendover NV this morning.  We will also fill up with food and diesel.  We have no place to dump so I forsee us digging a hole sometime in the near future....

I'm doing a terrible job of getting pictures onto this blog but I"ll make up for it from the comfort of my deck.  This was in Wyoming, coming out of Esterbrook.  Western Wyoming was less beautiful, but still full of grass and water along the way so the horses were happy.  Utah was much drier and the winds were huge, equal almost to Wyoming.  The rain continues sporadically, but lasts only a little while.  Scarlet and I came into lunch the other day white from hail, but by the time we left 40 minutes later were dry (and clean!).

Utah went fast - just 3 days with me riding 2 of them.  I'd intended to ride Pema the middle day and got up, saddled, and started out, but she was limping so we quit after 3 feet.  She has scratches (a fungal infection from the alkaline soil here) in her healing rope burn.  Who knows if she will get ridden again.  Meanwhile Sage and Scarlet continue to thrive - they look great and are going strong and sound.  We have 11 riding days left and after tomorrow, 3 of them are in the Schell mountains.  We will do loops there on trails that had been part of a regular 5 day ride.  Steve will finally get to ride - we will take the two healthy horses and ride together.  The dogs are now comfortable staying alone so no problem there.

The dogs went 2 whole days without a swim and were much relieved to find an irrigation ditch where we are currently camped.  They too are thriving and love the freedom of these wide open spaces.

Great to have Steve back - Morgan was wonderful but she wasn't him.  Crew is getting ever more critical as they do have to find us on the trail between start, lunch and finish to get us water.  We did have some water on the trail (flooded ditches and rain puddles) which we won't from here out, so I'm happy Steve is so good at finding me at the right time.

Last bit of news:  Scarlet did most of the ride by herself (well, with me) yesterday - a first for her.  She is pretty herd bound and this is particularly tough as she doesn't know where she is.  But she did great and we came in 3rd, just behind the first two.  Best of all, she looked and felt great.

Got to get back to camp and our horses.  Love from the 7 of us!