Two days, two rides, two horses

Two beautiful sunny days, two rides, two beautiful horses.

Saturday I joined another posse member, Cindy, in her neck of the woods in Tonto Basin. I took Dawn and we rode out in the desert where she showed me the ruins of Fort Reno, a remnant from the days of the Apache wars here in Arizona. If it weren't for the sign you'd never know it was anything but a bunch of rocks, but those rocks are still piles in walls, nearly buried in desert sands, and she was able to point out the infirmary area, a stores area, and other buildings. She's somewhat of a history buff and told me about fires that had destroyed the adobe walls, leaving nothing but the stone foundations.

Also in the area are various Indian ruins and some graves. One of the graves had been opened at some point, an Indian grave, and we talked about how neither of us would ever desecrate an Indian grave. Who knows if it's true, but in the movies, desecrating Indian burial grounds brings mucho bad karma -- or loss of scalp if caught!

We had a lovely ride, most on trails or old roads, some pushing through catclaw and mesquite. The area had burned about five years ago. While there was lots of green on the ground where the grasses had recovered, it looks like the only shrubbery to survive the fire was the nasty catclaw. I still have a hole in one finger from where a claw got me through my gloves.

The next day was a mock search with the posse. Dawn had rolled in pee and manure and was a filthy pig so I took the much-cleaner Dash on that ride. We were using our GPS radios to track a teenage boy who rode his quad out in the brush, parked it, then hiked away from it before transmitting his location. We had to use our GPS radios to home in on his location and find him.

We were split into two groups riding from different directions, and it was my group who found him. Some of the ride was somewhat reminiscent of the ride up Gibson Peak in September (see one of my first posts on this blog under the October tab) -- very rocky and steep, took much skill on the part of the horses to navigate it safely, although not as steep, nor as long a trek as Gibson. Dash did great.

Rod, who was also on Gibson Peak with me that day, was also in my search group, and as we came off the mountain, I commented to him, "After Gibson Peak, this is a piece of cake." He agreed.

Anyway, two vigorous rides in two days. With tax season upon me, that won't happen very often for the next few months so I was glad to get in those two rides.

And that's the latest from the Ranch. I've got tax returns to do!