Warm trail ride memories..........

I will say I love how green it is here. I have said before that it is the first thing that we notice when we come home from a trip. Sara was sure noticing it on this day. We went for a lot of trail rides when she came home that summer. This one is at Whipple Creek Park, in Ridgefield WA, one of our favorite places. At any given time you will see hikers, bikers, hawks, eagles(we seen a bald eagle that day) squirrels, all kinds of birds, deer, other horseback riders, bobcats etc. etc., it is a beautiful place. It is a summer ride mostly for horses as it can get muddier than heck, and deep. They have done a lot of work on the trails in the bad spots though.

The Emerald City........

The trails are all this good, when it is dry......you can see all the dust kicked up on the bushes on the side. There are a lot of hills, a bridge, and a creek, and some flat too, so it is a very varied ride

Most of the trails are through the woods........in the nice cool shade. The boarding barn where I cleaned stalls when Meg was a baby, where I bought Mickey, adjoins this park, a great perk! when you board at Whipple Creek Stables. Not only a nice size inside arena but riding trails to die for. My ex-Brother in-law manages the barn, and the old guy that owns it I have known since I was around 8yrs old, my dad used to shoe his cutting horses, and he owns Mickeys Sire. The barn owner Dick, I think he turned 75 this last year, he is a neat old character.

Emma and I taking a break..........( boy we were bad about taking enough pics then)

This is the old Grist Mill, you can ride right up to it.

Beautiful old rockwork........I dont think that it is the original wheel. Sometime I will have to ask about the history of this Mill. Water does run through here when it rains, this day it was 90 degrees, but nice and cool in the woods.

This is the upper room above the wheel.......it still has a wood floor in it. It is pretty good for anything made out of wood to survive for any amount of time around here, I assume the parks dept. does a minimum of maintenance here, so no kid is hurt playing in here, it is pretty close to housing developments on the south and west sides, which makes it all the more a special place because it is near town.

The trail up past the Mill. On the left you can see the trail we came down to get to the Mill, and on the right the trail we take back to complete the loop. There are a lot of trail loops here, you can take a 1/2 hour ride or an hour and a half, its really cool.

And time to head home again, boy these virtual trail rides are to short! We go here a least a couple times a year to ride, it is about 45min by highway away from our home. At least all the pictures were taken from horseback, and you can bet from now on I will be taking a lot more pictures of our trips!