The Desert Rides!!!

So...how many of you have had this happen? You are editing a post...and somehow part of it "just disappears"!!!

Rather than try to reconstruct what I lost (who knows what and how much that may cost me!) I will just start from here. This is my 5week (since I left Jesse in the desert) visit to Jesse...and the Bossman!!! Temps are 115 on the desert floor so we will go up high!!!
This will be a 2 day ride trip! I will post one ride at a time!

Ya...by now you all know the drill...no mounting up till the fresh OJ Mimosa's are gone!

Since my saddle is in the PNW The Bossman has loaned Jesse and me one of his 3 Crates! This is the only one that fits me even though the Bossman says they are the same size. The are beautiful tooled leather including the seats!

Here is the part I thought I lost!!! LOL pretend it did not happen please!!!

So...most of you know that Jesse needed to stay in the desert this summer to be near the "shoesalesman"! With his terrible hoofs and the 1/4 cracks that start from the top and go down, the Bossman, The Doc and I all thought he should stay in the desert this summer to have a "rest" from his "bad" farriers!
I was so fortunate to have my 2 dear friends...the Ghost rider and the Bossman offer their horses to come home with me to the PNW! I love The King and Little Lady both dearly and feel so safe in their saddle that...I brought BOTH of them home to the PNW with me this summer!!!However...even with these 2 great horses in my "stable" I still had to go back to the desert to get a Jesse fix! The Bossman and I had made plans for the trip and 5 weeks after our return to the PNW, I returned to the "hot" desert for 3 days of rides. Because the temps on the desert floor would be well over 100 degrees we were planning on riding in the mountains and even hit the PCT again!

1st ride is Friday...and we need to drive to the state horse campground where we would stage our ride from. Arriving at 8am with coffee and our "BLT" lunch for the day Jesse greets me all saddled and ready to load for our hour drive up to to the top of the mountain!We have to climb up to the top of this hill to get out of the campground and cross the highway to get to the trail we (I) picked to ride today! See that white, high peak in the middle of the picture behind the lower mountain? Yup...that's were we're headed!

We see an old weapons depot and Jesse wants to get himself a gun in case we see a "BIG BEAR"!
Don't worry about that bear Jesse...some of us are "packing"!!!

These are some pictures of the trail we had to ride after we crossed the highway to get to our main trail!!!

NOW... What is This ??? Oh it's just an old water tank ...with water running along it's side.

However...Silly Ol' Slick wants no part of being next to this tank even if it has water! Why I missed shooting the "rodeo" part of this is beyond me. I guess because I have NEVER seen Slick
be naughty in any way ( the foreplay leg bites don't count) that I was dumbfounded for a few minutes. All I got was the Bossman giving Slick time to decide to do the right thing!!!

Shortly after the video...Slick sided up next to Jesse and had a nice long drink. Guess he figured it would be pushing his luck if he tried some foreplay with me after his battle with The Bossman!!!We came across one last house and the woman was so happy to see us cause she just loves horses...she took some photo's of us!!!

Finally...we reach the trail head!

Now why do they always have to put this sign up on EVERY trail I wanna ride??? It usually does not mean that there are killer bees buzzing about or piranha in the streams on ahead...so why tell me over and over again!!! (we did not know that we needed a permit...oops the Bossman fuckedup! (25 cents in the cuss jar) Luckily we did not get caught!!!

What a beautiful trail we are riding!

Great views and a variety of footing!

Big Rocks! "Fuckinghugerocks!!!" (Ya Ya, 25 cents in the cuss jar!) The creme de la creme of rocks! How would that be for a picture window view??? Or this!!! Really neat tree!!! Quite a lot of shade on this trail...good thing, it was close to 90 even in the mountains! Certainly, there have been obstacles but nothing that raises a hair on our necks!

TILL NOW!!!

Yes this is the "MOTHEROFALLFUCKINGTREES"!!! ( Are you really gonna make me do it here???) It's hard to tell from the picture...but there is no way around it to the low side and the high side is all rock with a steep jump down on a very narrow ledge! However... this is the trail that The Desert Rose wants to ride and the Bossman walks around and finally comes up with a solution!

Now... this is where the story will differ...depending on which one of us is telling the tale!

The Bossman asks me (I have the maps and trail guides) IF there is a loop??? I say "YES, there is a loop"!!! What he meant to say (but didn't) is there a loop that will get us home a different way??? Cause there is NO TURNING BACK once we get over this "obstacle"! We proceed!!!

We have now dismounted and The Bossman has taken Slick up and over the high side of the trail and Slick is now ground tied up ahead! The Bossman is leading Jesse and for once I have my camera out and am shooting the action! I am very grateful that The Bossman has "Cowboyedthefuckup" ( ya ya...get used to it cause it only gets worse!) to lead Jesse up over the rock.

OH SHIT JESSE...don't scramble...Slick didn't...please be careful!!!

So....now The Desert Rose is in BIG trouble!!! There have been a few times in the past that I asked Jesse to do something that he was not really interested in doing and then he was proved right and has gotten hurt! After this scramble...he would not look at me and I had to ask him to cross over obstacles 2 or 3 times before he would do it. He would turn his head as if to say...are you sure I'm not gonna get hurt??? It took him a good half an hour before he just went first try. I tried to wiggle out of the responsibility for his owie by saying that the Bossman was the one that led him over the rock...but that did not fly with Jesse! hard to see in the picture but he scraped the hide on one leg...poor baby, I know that had to sting, but he's done so much worse rolling in his stall and getting cast!!!

Jesse thought it was only fitting that the Bossman also got a scrape!


These next pictures are just fantastic...the views were beyond belief!

Wow...even Jesse was impressed with this view!!!

Three hours into this ride we come upon this delightful young lady just sitting on the rocks enjoying the view! We explain our dilemma about the "loop" and she tells us how it is that we can get back to the staging campground...about a 6 hour ride from here!!! We are pretty much at the top...don't ya think???

Yippee...here's the trail sign, good news only 6 hours to go! By the way...the PCT intesects here at this sign! Jesse takes a pottty break while the Desert Rose and the Bossman try to navigate the sign!

Ready to get moving!!! Sure do miss the SHADE!!! Hope to get lunch up there in those trees! Great "lunch" rock! Tired horses wait patiently for their lunch!!!

Back on the trail after lunch we follow a fairly easy trail along the creast of the mountain
for an hour or so. Who's got an empty glass??? Yes the trail ahead is that blury!!!

So remember that beautiful Crates saddle with the tooled leather seat? I have only used it for a few hours at a time in the past and now that we are heading on 6 hours in the saddle it "fuckinghurtslikehell"! (this one is a freebe!) I think I am missing skin in places no man has gone before!!! Good thing I have the first aid kit with me and The Bossman brought 2 bottles of wine instead of one!
Here are some trail shots!

Jesse and Slick get a nice cold drink of water from this mossy stream!

See the bossman at the very bottom of the picture??? He is pointing and saying to me "yup, we were way up there"!!!One more drink of cool Mountain water for the boys!!!
The hiker that took this picture confirmed we were near the end of the trail!

Now "whatthefuck" (25 cents in the cuss jar)...where's the trail back to the campground??? And is it just me...or is it getting a bit dark out???

Oh...so it's just 5 miles up this highway in the dark...and though this may not be to some of your best trail riding it sure beats what we came up on later!!!Ya...downhill to boot! Well just as the sun went down we all breathed a "bigfuckingsighofrelief" (25 cents in the cuss jar!) cause here was the campground trail!!!

Hay mom, keep taking pictures so I can see the trail! Hay...where's Slick???

Good thing his tail is white or I might loose his ass!!!


Alas...this is the last picture I was able to take that night because things got real ugly very soon after these shots.
It was so dark we lost the trail because there were so many shoot offs from the trail we were on that we kept going around in circles and kept ending up off trail going down into a gully! The Bossman and I began to disagree about how to get back to the trailer. He had been leading...so we switched because Jesse acted like he knew the way home...only just like Slick...we kept getting down into that gully!!! It has now been half an hour and not only is it dark, the Bossman and I are now...fighting and...I am getting nauseous! I tell him we have to stop so I can BARF!!! I hate that word...but it really is the only one that fits this exact feeling I am having. You see, I am having an attack of "Seahorse Sickness"!!! After the 3rd time of dismounting to BARF...I tell the Bossman I cannot go any futher. Well instead of the sympathy I was sure I would recieve from him...I get tough love!!! He says things to me that I can not repeat in this blog because even I don't have enough money for the cuss jar if I did repeat it!

Fortuantely...when we realized we were going to be very late, I had called the campground and explained why we would be late so that they would not worry (on the answering machine). Now I had to call them to say...where the hell is the trail that will get us back to the campground. Thank goodness they called me back, but we kept getting disconected because of no sesrvice. The Bossman was soooooo mean to me he insisted that I mount back up and we head back up to the highway and ride it back to the campground. We reach an entrance to the dump...and yes I have to BARF...AGAIN! Then the campground calls back and are very willing to come and pick us up there. Here I am laying in a ditch BARFING, holding Jesse's reins and he is standing over me and thinking that I am getting what I deserve. Very soon I hear the truck and trailer pull in to pick us up. The horses are loaded while I am put into the truck and in 5 minutes we are back at the campground next to our rig. I am helped into The Bossmans truck while he loads our boys into the trailer. When he gets into the truck I turn and say to him...I'm cold and roll over and go to sleep. I snore (he says) all the way down the mountain! He offers to drive me home ( after he has unsaddled both horses and puts them to bed) but I "Cowgirlthefuckup" (25 cents in the cuss jar!) and drive myself home. I fall into bed with out getting undressed ( 10 hours in the saddle today, my personal record!) but not before I set the alarm for 6:30am for our 2nd days ride!!!

Your Desert Rose!!!