Catch Up

This week, boyfriend and I headed out to Pinnacles National Park to experience what turned out to be way too much nature.

Enjoy the few pictures I have managed to edit!

The mountains around us were really cool!

We got there in the middle of the day and set up camp. The campsite we chose was on the far side of the park with a lot of privacy, which was nice, and a lot of wilderness around us, which was nice until it wasn't. My big tent managed to fit in the small space under a tree surrounded by bushes. Lots of privacy but a tiny bit cramped.

We headed out to Bear Gulch to hike a short loop which promised to take us through some caves and up to a reservoir. The caves did NOT disappoint. Highly recommended. They were dark, winding, and included climbing up rocks, ducking under rocks, twisting around rocks... lots of rocks. It was so nice because we had to hike a mile up a hill to get there (on our short hike, longer on the long hike) so in the 80 degree heat, hiking through a nice cool cave was excellent.

On the other side, we found the reservoir, which was beautiful. We climbed around the reservoir and hung out on a big rock and then saw a water snake! It was so cool swimming around.

Part of the reservoir 

That night we settled in for the night- making a fire, eating soup, roasting marshmallows, playing a board game, and generally just relaxing. I also took some night pictures. During one of these pictures, I heard a rustle on our table. Like a big rustle. As we fumbled for lights, the rustling got louder and when we finally got the lights on, we saw a BIG raccoon stealing a bag of marshmallows from the table! We chased it off and put everything away. It had been 3 feet away from us! Yikes. Lesson learned I guess.

The next day, we woke up, made breakfast, and headed out on our long hike: 7 miles which lead us through Balconies Cave and over to the west side of the park. This trail was much flatter and wove across what would have been a stream/river had California not been in such a nasty drought. Balconies Cave was amazing, even more climbing and crazy turning than Bear Gulch. We hiked a while longer to a picnic area and had lunch. Boyfriend's knee was hurting so we headed back slowly.

So pretty

So many rocks

We were walking along the trail about a mile away from our car when I saw something in front of us that made me grab boyfriend's arm. He thought I was grabbing a bug off of him so pulled away from me and turned to face me. Apparently something about the look on my face and also probably my screaming of "OH MY GOD IT'S A SNAKE A SNAKE A SNAKE GET AWAY GET AWAY" led him to believe that he should run away with me rather than from me.

A big rattlesnake had been sunning itself on the path in front of us. It had to be about 3-4 feet long and was PISSED at us. It was hissing and rattling and rearing to strike. We stayed well away from it and tried to figure out what to do.

We don't know anything about rattlesnakes so we made poor decisions until a man came along the path the other way. We told him about the snake and he quietly walked by it and it ignored him. Uh wtf snake whisperer man!

I managed to sneak by it very carefully because I kept calm, but when boyfriend tried to follow me, the snake got mad. He has a snake phobia so was clearly distressed and I think the snake picked up on it. Luckily us being close enough made the snake turn around and leave. We booked it out of there.

Pretty trees

Nature wasn't so bad some of the time... 

On our way back to the car, we couldn't NOT talk about snakes and how terrifying that was. We tried to change the subject but couldn't. I was torn between keeping my eye out for more snakes and also not wanting to know about more snakes so I just kept my eyes on the path. Every branch, stick, twig, and moving slithering snake-like object that turned out to be ANOTHER FUCKING SNAKE (but a cute, harmless one) looked like a snake.

Ugh.

We came back home that day, we had planned on two nights but the first night was so cold that we decided to come back the second night rather than stay until the next morning. Good choices, we enjoyed our nice warm bed at home that was free from raccoons and snakes.

Ugh Pinnacles, you are pretty but you have
too much nature

Coming home a tad early also allowed me to join Ali to haul up to Mt. Madonna county park to ride TC out in the mountains! He had never been there before so I was interested to see whether he would be okay in a brand new place.

He walked off the trailer like he lived there. He quietly looked around, sniffed a picnic table, snuck some grass, and stood quietly to be bridled. We headed out with Ali and her horse and baby TC (who is now 4 btw) was on the buckle the whole time.

He never spooked, he walked up to everything he found scary with genuine curiosity. The only small incident was that he swung his haunches a bit wide during one turn and almost tumbled off the path.

Other than that, he was perfect the whole time. I was blown away. What a good baby horse.

Our first hike

Mountains

Today I spent most of the day at a horse show (where my client debuted at Second level with a 65% to win the class and also won her First level class with a 68%, whaaat) and then zipped down to ride TC.

I took him out right around dinner time so the person who feeds left the whole pasture's food out for me to feed them later. TC is a bit on the thin side so I'm glad he was able to get his whole meal.

I've never had him out around feeding time so I wasn't sure how he would be. He spent much of the tacking up time looking out to his pasture and hounding me for treats, so obviously he was a bit hungry. I opted not to longe him and mostly wanted to do our Intro B test (which we're doing on Saturday at the show- I decided to go but only do one test to save money and keep it low key), canter a little, and do some leg yields on the rail.

He was fucking amazing. He was super soft, round, and long in the neck. He did all of his transitions perfectly. He cantered on the bit, picking up both leads on the first try and never breaking. He leg yielded both ways with no kicking and only stopping once to sniff my foot. He ran through the test totally clean aside from overshooting centerline once. I can't really say much else, it was an amazing ride.

So I gave him his grain and put him away! I'm glad he was so good despite having to be fed late. I hope this is a good sign for the show on Saturday!

From inside one of the caves