In which we finish the LD and are tired, so here are pictures

We spent a long, fun, tiring four days at Home on the Range this weekend.

Lisa and Roo climbed the cliffs north of camp to shoot this photo

Don't let the blue sky in the photo (above) fool you--we had all kinds of weather (except the white kind) while we were in camp.

First came the rain.

We anchored these canopies between the trailers and
dragged the firepit underneath to huddle up and stay warm.

 It was relatively dry while we set up camp on Thursday afternoon, but in the evening a blustery monsoon moved in.  We huddled together for a while, and finally gave up--we bundled the horses up in their blankets and the entire camp was dark and sleeping by 9pm.

Jim and I no longer have the camper, so we tried out the new version of the SS Illegible:

This photo taken at the summit of Snoqualmie Pass on the trip over to camp.
The roads were bare and wet both directions,
but we got sn*wed on coming home. I didn't cuss.  Much.

Inside the truck canopy, there's plenty of room to sleep out of the weather.  Hooray!  

More deets about the camp set-up coming soon.  Short answer: awesome.

Friday morning, the sky was clear-ish, so we saddled up to take a look at the trails.  Last year, they were soggy, even by Swamplander standards.  We were worried.

Dory and Dean both had to hold onto their helmets in the gusty winds on Friday.
Not very visible in this photo: a herd of mule deer.  If you biggify the picture
you can see their white bums at about 11 o'clock.

This year, the wind blew so hard that the rain evaporated fast.  Trails were damp on Friday, and mostly dry on ride day.  Hooray!

The skies continued to clear.  Patty and Roo and I climbed up "Telephone Booth Hill" to use our cell phones--the only reliable place to pick up data and make phone calls.

Camp is the white blob in the distance.

 Roo likes being a ridecamp dog.

Good girl!

 Ride day had a some of everything, weather-wise.  Some rain, a lot of wind. Not too cold, mostly.

Ears at the bottom.  Lost Lake ahead...also some cows.

Not too warm or humid for my big dark horse.

photo by M. Bretherton

And the trails were beautiful.

photo by M. Bretherton

There weren't very many trees.  I took a picture of this
so I could remember that there was at least one.

photo by A. Hurn

 We made good time, and finished the LD in about 3 hours, 45 minutes--a little faster than I'd planned, but a nice, comfortable pace given the weather.

photo by A. Hurn

Now, we're all pretty dog-tired.

Being a ridecamp dog is lots of work!

But hey.  It's all good, you know?