BLOGGIN' ALONG

August 15. Our 23rd anniversary Carol wanted to drive her big fancy new truck today, which delighted us because our old Ford has about a billion miles on it and the drive up Trail Creek Road to Summit Creek is a hard pull up a steep crazy road. Should have named that road Vertigo Road. The trail starts right out with a simple creek crossing and the...

Friday, July 24. There's a funny little place north of Ketchum where an rustic old store sits on the side of the road. Behind it is a number of little cabins and trailers. The place whispers of early Ketchum and the 1960's. "North Fork Store" is what the sign reads, but the store is long closed and I'm always curious about the people that live back...

Sheila wrote to me after that ride to Grand Jean. "Great story Lisa!!! Can't call you a scardy cat! I love your reports and pictures... I agree, that would have been too big a step for Commotion. Thanks Sheila" I loved the idea that I was getting her out of her big brown chair, even if only in her imagination. Thursday, July 14 9:00 AM. Still a bit...

August 7.  For days I fretted whether to take Commotion on our three day girls trip to the back country. It could be a good experience for him, but I feared it might be over his head. The trails up there are gnarly and ragged, and if he could not handle it, the repercussions could be pretty tragic. Finally I determined that if I was this doubt...

​July 3 and 4. The fourth of July weekend can be such a nuisance, so many people, so much noise, so on impulse, we hustled to the grocery store, loaded up the horses and headed up over Galena Summit to the Stanley Basin once again. There were plenty of people camping here and there, but here in Idaho there are so many single camp sites, and sure en...

​Wednesday, July 1 We arrived at a place that I can't even tell you where it was because it doesn't have a name. We parked near a single campsite on the east side of Highway 75 about half way between Billy's Bridge and Phantom Hill. Wide open spaces, forests thick with aspen trees, beautiful green meadows sprinkled with wild flowers called to us fr...

June 28, Sunday 8:00 AM and already it was very warm. My phone buzzed as I was watching my Sunday morning program. It was Carol inviting me to go ride before the heat really kicked in. We settled on Eagle Creek, where we'd had our first ride with Commotion and all that angst with the water crossing. We wriggled the trailer into a parking slot amids...

​June 23 Big Basin. Aptly named. The last mile of road before you get to the trail head is a skinny twisty road, one lane only, with a steep high drop off on the right. It's a little intimidating because heaven forbid you should run into a horse trailer coming the other way. Turning around to park is another challenge, with a four horse trailer loa...

June 21 The temperature at Smiley Creek, where we were headed, was 34 degrees. It was only 8:00AM but I knew it would take some time to gas up the truck and get ourselves up there. By the time we saddled the horses, near Chemeketan campground, it was almost 10:00 and 50 degrees. No wind. Perfect. Quiet. Peaceful. My main objection of the day was to...

Don't you love it when your horse trots over to greet you when you walk in the gate? Armed with a new set of shoes, we were ready to get back out there. I tied Commotion and Roy to the trailer where we saddled them up. This was the first time I'd saddled him tied to the trailer, which is a different deal for a horse than cross ties. Sometimes they ...