Sedona

I thought I better get out and try out those new shoes and where better than the Red Rocks of Sedona. A month or two ago I joined a Facebook page called “Horse Trails and Camping in America” and started seeing pictures from other folks around the continent and shots of their favourite ride places. Some of those folks were looking at heading towards Arizona for a little winter riding break so our resident “ride coordinator”, Linda Modahl set her sights on arranging a ride up in the Red Rocks for those out of staters. Now she had everything arranged perfectly, camp sites, ride plans, meal plans, even right down to a truck moving plan for the one day we had to trailer out and drop off then ride back to camp. The only thing that she didn’t figure on was the weather, she seemed to get Sedona confused with Dogpound North cause the weather was very Dogpoundish. That cold weather and a sore shoulder convinced Brenda that she would be better off staying at home here in the valley and avoiding most of the icy winds. Not sure that worked but she did miss a great ride.

I headed up on Friday morning and found my parking spot at the Horse Mesa Ranch. Blue got himself a great covered pen to hang out with all his trail riding buddies overnight. Soon all of our ride participants started rolling in and getting set up. The party consisted of Ken and Verna Pohl from Ponoka, Alberta, Ted and Julie Errend from Irrigon, Oregon, Joyce Cotten-Roberts from Kennewick, Washington, as well as the Arizona folks, “K” and Teresa from Goodyear, Dave and Linda, and Linda Lord from the Phoenix area. And of course Blue and I from Dogpound South. Below is a group shot “K” took along the trail.

This a beautiful ride and begins over by Turkey Creek below Cathedral Bluff/Rock and winds it’s way along the base of that picturesque place which forms the background for the both shots above and below.

Then we crossed the valley floor and headed across to Chicken Point where this shot of our head photographer “K” and his good little mare Delta Dawn was taken.

Once we left Chicken Point we wandered our way back down the valley and skirted both Baby Bell and Courthouse Rock on our way back to our rigs just off Jack’s Canyon Road. Below is a collection of other shots from that ride.

Sedona 2013 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Once we got back to the rigs we loaded up and headed over to the other side of Sedona where the others were going to ride on Sunday, Blue and I decided on route that we should head on home and check up on Meg and Brenda.

This week around Dogpound South has been a pretty lazy one, with the exception of yesterday. We got ourselves all gussied up and headed into meet our cousins Mickey and Jeff for dinner. Other bloggers may recognize Mick as a stalker on your sites as she is pretty aware of what all the folks on our sidebar are up to and keeps tabs on you all. If anybody gets within reach of either of the Dogpounds, North or South, and she is in the area she would never forgive us for not giving her a holler and inviting her down to meet y’all.

After dinner, and a ton of laughs, we hopped in the Jeep and headed up to Scottsdale to meet up with the Modahl’s and Rogers to enjoy the horse opera Odessyo from the the Cavalia bunch. It was a great show with 60 well trained horses, 39 geldings and 21 stallions, along with a great bunch of riders and acrobats. They did some amazing things. Great show and well worth the money. Thanks “K” for rounding up the tickets and all.

One word of caution about the Cavalia show, take your own snacks, Brenda bought a bag of popcorn and a bottle of water and we had to have our credit limit raised to manage to pay for it all. The bag of M&M’s I bought was just a little pricey I thought, about 20 or 25 cents PER chocolate covered peanut, but then whose counting. Nevertheless it was a great time and we would, and probably will, do it next time we cross their trail.

Now that should catch you up on the goings on around Dogpound South and we will see where we end up this next weekend and what the horses and us will get up to.

Here is a map of last weekends Sedona ride for those who like that kind of stuff.

The dotted line is this years ride with the darker solid red line being the tracks we followed last spring.