Hope your holidays were filled with sweet moments worthy of lifelong memories. I have to admit I am more than a little happy they’re behind us once again, with a new ‘promise and possibility’ filled year spread out before us. So weather permitting, it’s time to start loading the ride calendar. Please remember to check the website often as weather and other factors will/do play a large role in our plans. 

The Christmas ride was held at Saguaro Lake Ranch this year and could not have been prettier or filled with more good old fashioned fun. Greg even brought his guitar and entertained all with background music during the gift exchange—thank you, Greg. Both the riding trails and the facilities really are just stunning and personally I can’t wait to go back and explore more terrain. I contacted the ranch and unfortunately they do not, at this time, have ‘overnight’ provisions for ‘boarded’ horses but they assure me those ‘facilities’ are in their near future. I hope Sis and I are among their first overnight visitors-- in fact, at last count, a dozen of us agree and are waiting patiently for the time when we can go and take our horses with us. Good job on the selection, Cindy.

I cancelled the Usery Ride at the last minute and was very politely informed I could have phrased the cancellation a tad more courteously. Bluntness, while my curse, was not my intent—an unexpectedly closed freeway, two sick animals and all the stressful twists of last minute holiday preparations are no excuse for rudeness and if I did manage to offend anyone, I am truly sorry and do apologize.  

Having said that, we moved the ride closer to home, to FM1058 above Camp Creek waterfalls, and with Rik leading the way we arrived at the falls in literally record time (someone said 18 minutes!) to an over-full pond, complete with ‘roaring’ waterfall and running stream. To ‘stretch’ the ride, Keith took the lead and we found more meandering trails back to our trailers.

Sheree, myself and Keith elected to keep going. So while the other five or six riders opted to call it a day, the three of us found a somewhat hairy and certainly technical, but not particularly scary (as Sheree noted, most trails do seem less intimidating when headed uphill for some reason!) narrow switchback trail that lead us into the peak and heart of the big Sears Kay Ruins—a treat, I think, for Sheree and Keith, who had never seen those particular Hohokum ruins before. I confess, we did sneak down the less technical hikers’ path without managing to bother anyone I think.

We have some good rides on the calendar in the coming months—hope we see many of you on the trails!