Anyhow, Duce and Denise showed up on time and ready to go, so Sunny and couldn’t claim imminent darkness as an excuse, and the weather was great, so I loaded up with 5 carrots, a GPS, my cell phone, a camera, and metric socket wrench set (okay, I didn’t really take a socket set - but I took the rest of the stuff) and off we took. 

Leaving the barn was interesting: Sunny would have let Duce go off by himself, she lagged *yards* off his tail and clearly felt that she was responsible for her own safety: her ears were in full radar mode and her feet were touching the trail lightly.  She got more relaxed as the day went on, which I think is a great sign.

I got off Sunny and walked her through the Hippy Village and to Morning Sun.  Duce and Denise waited for us while I got on again, then we headed by the arena and down the hill.  On the way, we had to pass a woodpile, which turned out to be the only thing that both Duce and Sunny objected to; the rest of the trip, one of them would be brave while the other one was worrying.  In any case, I hopped off and led a very dubious Sunny around the pile - she did that “compass nose” thing, where she kept her nose pointed at the pile for the entire 180 degree walk around it - and Duce followed until he was by the pile, then took the lead again.

The trail down was singletrack and quite steep by Sunny-standards, but she did very well. She didn’t panic when Duce got ahead, and she kept her feet pretty much underneath her.  We followed the path as it wound down to Senda Ladera, where our next challenge presented itself:  there was a gate across the road, and we had to drop down off the road and go between the gate post and a tree. Sunny watched Duce carefully as he navigated it and, I guess, figured that if he could make it, so could she, so she sauntered through the opening in a completely casual fashion.

After that, we rode some flat trails, then headed toward Yellow Brick Road. I’m not sure Sunny knew that such a high mountain existed in all the world - she was hammered at the top, but she got me up there. Going down was a different story - she just couldn’t figure out where to put her feet, so I hand-walked her most of the way down. 

At the bottom, we were parallelling a pasture, she looked up and saw something (Denise and I speculated, but didn’t come up with any good candidates - yet another thing we’ll never know) and went about 5 yards to the left in about 3 milliseconds. Fortunately, I must have been leaning that way because I didn’t come off, and she calmed down and off we went again.  This was her only Big Goof on the entire ride.

On the way back, Sunny clearly knew that we were on the way home. At one point, on a narrow singletrack climb, Duce stopped and started backing up. Instead of backing up to avoid him, Sunny dodged left and we went *around* Duce and Denise and led to the top of the path.  Sunny even led the last mile or so home. Whoo Hoo!

Denise and Duce were wonderful, and set us an example of responsible and considerate trail riding.  They ended up, in essence, donating a day to us because it couldn’t have been fun for them - I didn’t feel comfortable doing more than a walk with Sunny, and they had to wait for us while we worked out how to cope with the many new situations and obstacles that presented themselves.  (Okay, maybe there was some entertainment value in watching us).  In any case, I had a great time and Sunny did, I thought, magnificently. I’m not sure she would have called it fun, but I am sure that it was a great adventure for her!

Again, thanks to D & D.

Schedule is still pending, but payment is due early (Oct 25) because apparently this clinic fills with auditors quickly.  $40 for CDS members/$50 for non-members.  Let Shannon know if you’d like to be part of this field trip!

Happy Trails!

“What lies before and what lies behind us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us” -Emerson