Fort Robinson Fall 2016

This past week we went to Fort Robinson, outside of Crawford, Nebraska for a few days of trail riding.  I took Highboy, Kim H. took her mare Rain, Kim's sister Kathy flew in from Florida just ahead of a hurricane to ride Beauty who was generously loaned to us by her owner, and Joyce brought Khreed.  Rebecca and Owen came with us to hike and run trails. 

We had a wonderful time exploring the trails and charging up and down steep terrain.  Everyone enjoyed splashing around in the little river water crossings, and Highboy even nearly went for a swim in the lake.  I'm thinking we will make this a regular spring/fall trip.  I love going when the weather is nearly perfect and the bugs and humidity are minimal.

We had a big enough group that we took two vehicles.  Owen and I rode with the border collies and horses, and the others took Joyce's truck.  We were on our way!

When we arrived we got the horses settled into their stalls and ourselves settled into our cabin for the long weekend.

The dogs love to travel, and usually when we go places they get to sleep on the mattress in the gooseneck of the horse trailer with me, or in the bed at the hotel with me.  Miles was quite indignant when Owen declared that HE was going to sleep in the bed with me instead.

I feel like Rebecca is skeptically observing Kathy love on Highboy, thinking "Clearly you don't know this horse and his lip-wrestling tendencies very well!"

The first day we did a short ride around a large pasture just to get out.  The second day we went on a longer ride playing in the river and water crossings.  Rain and Kim H. did really well, she kept her eyes up and her leg on and Rain crossed everything like a champ.  Highboy played of course, and eventually decided placid water crossings were for weenies, and started charging through the water at the trot then canter, and finally jumping OVER the water from one bank to the other.  Beauty really wanted to lie down in the water after pawing at it, but Kathy was able to keep her upright.  She tried climbing into some stock water tanks as well but thankfully never quite made it in.  We were so busy actually riding these water adventures that we didn't get any photos of them, but the colors in the trees near the river were pretty.

The third day we rode out to the lake.  Highboy got in and nearly went swimming, the water came up over my ankles and probably halfway up his chest.  Joyce got some video of him splashing around.

We would ride in the morning, then wander around the fort in the afternoon.  It used to be an old cavalry base in the "cowboys and indians" days, and there were cool historic buildings to explore.

On our last day we rode in the morning before we headed home.  In our four days of riding we only saw a very small portion of the trails and places to explore, so we're planning to go again in the spring.

Our group photo at the end of our last ride.