AZBCR & Old Friends

Last weekend we headed off to Lake Pleasant to enjoy a weekend around the fire and on the trails with a group of folks who began us on our Arizona trail riding experience. The Arizona Back Country Riders website is run by a young woman, Tishri, who has facilitated many long lasting friendships amongst horsefolk here in the Southwest. Each year about this time we all get together to do a lot of socializing and little fund raising to keep this site running.

Unlike most of our weekend adventures this one started with the potluck on Friday night, because on Saturday we were eating a catered dinner are part of the reward for contributing I guess. As usual the food was great and the company better. Both evening were beautiful Arizona evenings with an almost full moon and clear skies. I stood around with my Sky Scout both nights enjoying the night skies and actually learning what the names of many of those stars are. I have it rigged up with an external speaker so others can listen in the descriptions of what we are looking at.

Two fine horseman in the shot below, K Rogers and Bill Roberts.

Below is Lynette and her menagerie.

Saturday we took off on a ride over to the Lake and that was also where we decided to eat our lunch. I believe I got everyone in this panoramic shot but if you look closely this program added a couple of extra heads to folks and legs to their horses. Oh well tough to get forty mounted folks to stand still.

Sunday we had a clinic with K demonstrating getting your horse to ask for you to mount as well as a few tips from Bill about getting your horse to recognize you as the leader, then K worked with another persons Saddlebred who was not great around the trailer. By the time he was finished both the horse and its owner were a lot more comfortable with getting in and out of the trailer and the reports from the owner as the week goes on are that they are practicing daily and applying what they learned.

After the clinic wrapped up it was time for us to make our rounds and say our `catch you down the trails` as this was our last ride for Arizona this spring. We will be back in the fall cause we got a lot more of this state to see yet.

The last few days have been taking up with putting Dogpound South to bed for the summer, but today we had a visit from an old friend from back in the North Country. The first time I met Heather we were up in Tuktoyaktuk, on the Beaufort Sea, doing some work, and she was working for one of the other companies active up there. Over the years we crossed trails and eventually she came to work for Shell and when I retired back in 2007 she took over that Arctic portfolio. Now she is doing some stuff on SE Asia and is based in the Netherlands.

But the Netherlands is a little cool this winter so she jumped on a plane and headed for Palm Springs for a little R&R. So what brought her 5 hours over here to Dogpound South. Lunch, yep that`s right. 5 hours one way just a drop in the bucket for a girl from Old Crow, in the Yukon Territory, where it is five hours to the road and then another five to the nearest restaurant. But it was a great lunch and we really enjoyed seeing Heather and catching up on her new globetrotting portfolio and hearing about all those friends we left behind to follow the sun.

Tomorrow we head to a “land just north of summer” and just “down the road from Dogpound”.