Rainy day memories

Since today it is teeming rain and cold and windy to boot, I was sitting here going through the year in review. I thought about the trips I was fortunate enough to take this past year with my horsey friends. I think I will share the first trip I took this year, it was to East Fork Stables in Jamestown, Tennessee to ride the Big South Fork. I was accompanied on the trip by three other horsewomen , two I have traveled with before and one a relatively newcomer that I had done only day trips with. We decided on the May organized ride called the spring fling, a four day ride.



Since I lived the farthest away we arranged to meet up in route to the park, soon our caravan was intact and we all managed to arrive safely after some trailer tire problems on one of the other girl's rig. We were met at the office by very friendly and helpful staff. Because we had never been there before we were a little leery of our sites and what they would look like, our fears were soon put to rest. We had three sites in a row that had a gravel pad, picnic table , fire ring and panel corrals for the horses.



We had opted ahead of time for stalls for the horses not knowing what the pens looked like. We managed to set up camp before being deluged by a wicked thunderstorm that lasted an hour. We jumped in my truck with our cocktails of choice and caught up on some girl talk. The trip included three meals a day and we were pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food each time we dined. They had live music every night that we were there and for the most part we enjoyed the bands. We rode out the next morning on an organized ride, mostly to appease one of my com padres and had a lunch served on a beautiful bluff. We decided at lunch that we were going to escape the organized ride and venture out on our own. I was riding Harley and he was relieved to leave the presence of so many inexperienced riders and horses. My friend Tiffany was riding my trustee old man Tank and English to boot! We found the maps easy to read and enjoyed a day of gentle paths through woods and marshes. The next morning we were greeted again by raging thunderstorms and were unable to ride. Fortunately we had met a nice group of people from Georgia the evening before and they knew of a Mennonite store with leather goods and homemade candies not far from camp. We spent the morning shopping and socializing with that group. After lunch the weather cleared and we rode to another beautiful bluff with the Georgia crew. They were riding gait ed horses but we all managed to keep up and have a wonderful ride across streams and past an original cabin on the property. The bluff was amazing and we managed a picture of the four of us.


I am second from the left in case you were wondering. That was the end of our riding unfortunately, but we did enjoy our short trip and we decided we will add it to next year's trips again.

We found the camp very clean and friendly and the riding ranged from easy to very challenging but was well marked so you could avoid those areas if you chose. Being that Tank is 27 years young we avoided the steep trails and stuck to the easy to moderate trails. I would rate this facility a 8 on a scale of 10 .

Hope you enjoyed this recap as always happy trails.......................