Santa Fe - Here we come!

Finally, our first fall 'away-from-home' ride.  It means the busy season is winding down for us...and we can spend time on our horses in somewhat good weather.  You see, sometime in Oct. we close down during the week and go to weekends only for business.  So what do we do for our first 'closed' week?  Pack up the horses and head out of town, this time to Santa Fe. A friend is currently living there and offered up her place for bedding down; it happens to be only a short distance from the Santa Fe Rodeo Grounds, so we reserved space there for our three horses.

Bill graciously sketched their abode (as we forgot to use the camera).

We let the horses rest the first night, after eight hours in the trailer (child's play to our crew, who will do 15).  They marched off the trailer like pros and started kicking up their heels in the nice, roomy corral.  The next morning we loaded up and headed for the Santa Fe ski area.  Our friend had been waiting for us to bring our horses for this particular ride, as they are already accustomed to the altitude (around 9000').  We caught the tail end of their colors season; the yellows were so bright as to be blinding.  The weather was fantastic with the rains holding off until after we were back at the house.

 

This one's for BECCs, who love aspen shots.

As we got nearer the top on a fire road - oops, the ski trails sort of disappear with the snow - we did locate small patches of snow.

On the second day, we trailered to Diablo Canyon and rode through the cliffs, in a sandy arroyo that ended at the Rio Grande River.

Our friend threw a stick in the water for the dogs to chase, and Sophie dog got her first experience with deeper water.  They went bounding after the stick, only Sophie sort of 'disappeared' a short ways out.  She came to the surface sputtering, dog-paddled to shore and refused to go more than knuckle deep after that!

The horses did well - they had never been near that type of deep water before.  Ranger was happy to watch, but seemed unconcerned.

Washoe, bless  his soul, waded right in on first request and wandered along the edge without concern either.  Jesse, the wart-hog, didn't want to stay at the side.  She headed straight out into deeper water and was all set to roll when I caught her before my saddle got wet.

We rested for a while, then climbed back aboard and headed lazily back in the sun.  Sophie was pretty pooped by then, so she spent a lot of time trying to stay in Washoe's shade.

 Even though we were in an arroyo, the ride was not boring.  We were between some really high cliffs and had lots of scrub to ride through.

As we were getting near our trailer, rock climbers had started up the cliff face.  Jesse heard their voices and was getting quite frustrated at not being able to locate them.  It took a bit to convince her to look up to see them; she definitely did NOT approve of humans on rock walls!

From there we hopped back in the trailer and headed for home, with two very tired dogs.

 Amazing riding in 70-something weather and then getting home to 39 degrees and snow on the ground.  It was a great break.