Just over three weeks and more than 130 miles into this adventure. Seems like a whole lot behind me, and yet a helluva lot more ahead

Well, I really have wanted to post more regularly. This journey is a trip, and one I want to share. Additionally there are so many I have met along the way already, and all those I carry with me from back home, so checking in allows me to keep connected and to express my sincere gratitude for that connection. Turns out that is one of the greatest elements of this trip. People. Who knew?

But between lack of cell service along my route and the desire to be present with where I am and who I’m with, my sharing online has been lacking. Bob suggested I write off line, as I am doing now, at camp, in the quiet morning while the horses are before me replenishing on belly high green grass, and behind me is the almost ever present sound of spring run off after this blessing of a wildly wet season that northern California has had. I’ve got a little fire warming my kettle and drying my gear after yesterday’s downpours. A perfect time to share with you, waiting for the sun to dry up my soaked down camp, while letting the horses have their fill.

What’s the rush? Slow down. Pay attention. Lighten up. Be kind. That’s the mantra for this trip. The dharma in eight words.

More so than usual, my hands are rough and dirty, a little swollen and scratched up, but this new phone of mine (so much more than a phone) still reads the words I swipe. More or less.

I was hoping to keep this post nice and short. But already you can see. This won’t be short. There’s so much to share. Likely a book in the works here, many of you figured that, but tell you what. This is not the story I thought it would be. See, it’s not the journey I thought it would be. I was expecting alone, maybe lonely, inward, silent. But what I’m finding is it’s more outward, open. It is reaching out and connecting. It’s more a shared journey than a solo trip. And I think that’s what I need. Maybe that’s what we all need. Finding connection. A shared space. Similarities. Enough of our dammed differences and the rift that’s grown between us. It’s time to have the courage to connect. And people are doing that. Different as so many of the people I have met and been touched by seem to be, from saints to sinners and most of us a little of both, there is this common thread woven between us all. That is what I’m discovering. That is what this journey is showing me. That thread. Like a fine silk on a spiders web glistening in morning dew out on that meadow where my horses graze.

So, updates. New horse shoes, check. Vet check, check. Canela healed and well rested, check. Then Megan trailered us across I-5 and the underpass from hell, and dropped us off at greener grasses. This walnut orchard on the far side of town where suddenly I saw we could breathe again. In the early hours into a sun just rising and leaving long shadows behind, we rode across the Sacramento and found ourselves back on country roads. The nightmare of riding side by side with whizzing semis and school busses and SUVs that don’t seem to see you struggling to keep the horses on the side of the pavement as the narrow bar ditch is littered with beer cans, broken glass and the regular appearance of old rusty barbed wire lurking like snakes in the grass.

Three weeks on the road and I can tell you. There is no such thing yet as a typical day. Every day is different. And it’s all unknown. Like really unknown. No knows. No givens. No guide books or route maps or wisdom shared by someone who went this way before. At least no one I know, you know? What lies around the next bend of the trail or mile of the road or new day that we wake in a brand new place…it’s all a mystery. A great surprise. I never know if the route I researched and plotted the day before will get me where I want to go. You win some; you lose some.

After a two day rest on some lush public (hopefully) meadows yesterday for the horses, and a welcomed visit from my beloved Bob for me, he drove off in his truck one way while I saddled up and set out at noon in a very different direction.
According to all my maps and apps I’d been counting on in my endless quest for direction and some sort of semblance of the security of a plan, we’d have a little seven mile day getting us a baby step closer to where we’re going, or rather, deep into what we’re doing.

Well, as usual it wasn’t what I’d been counting on.

First, there was the rain. My personal meteorologist (thanks, Dad) warned me it was coming. At first I scoffed at it, laughing that this is nothing like Colorado rain. But then it was. And the heavy oilskin jacket and chaps and fur felt hat I had been saying one didn’t need in California, I needed. In all my paring down to go lighter, I’m mighty glad I kept those.
So that route I meticulously planned turned out nothing is as I expected. Right: expect the unexpected.

The route took us up, up, up on these old logging roads closed off to vehicular traffic. Great to know no one will go whizzing by. But a little creepy to know there’s nothing or no one but you and the bears. And yes, there have been plenty of those. My horses have come to believe in me as their guardian angel after chasing bears away so many times. And I look around and wonder, who is mine?

But yesterday, bears were not the problem. Snow was. Seriously. After all my whining about the heat a few days ago, here were my horses crossing snow banks while holding their breaths, hoping not to fall in and find out just how deep.

Just a little further to the meadow, I promised them. That’s what the maps promised me. Wrong again. Those so-called meadows were no more than a logged clearing full of stumps and view that made me feel like we were on top of the world.

Huh.
Double check the maps and guess what? Looks like it only gets higher and harsher from here.
So down, down, down we go. New route. New way. New old logging road that fortunately had little snow and no fallen trees big enough to stop us. (Just a few to slow us down.)

You learn to adjust. Change plans. Bail out and drop off some mountain that seemed higher and harsher than anything California has shown me before. It’s humbling.

After twelve and a half miles, we ended up here. Two miles from where we started. In this lush little meadow with the rushing creek and all the grass my horses could wish for, just as I told them it would be.

Finally I would like to share this story. It’s a flashback to day four of this journey. I was almost out of Hayfork and as usual full of self doubt wondering what I’m doing out here, when an old hippy came to speak with me. With a big bear hug and tears running, he spoke of what freedom used to mean to him. Seeing me and my horses reminded him. Him telling me, taught me. Long live our collective dream of freedom. With gratitude and respect for all who fought honorably for our freedom, today and every day, remembered on this Memorial Day.

#horseadventure #alongquietride #ridingacrossthewest #spiritualjourney