Fly Solo!

I flew solo with Flyboy today!

After picking up the repaired trailer tire I dropped off at the tire repair place this morning, I drove home and put the tire back on the trailer. That accomplished, I loaded Flyboy, and drove back to the tire place to get them to tighten the lug nuts. I must say poor Flyboy was not too crazy about the air gun being used on the tire under his hind feet! I calmed him through the window, and told him what a brave boy he is, and we headed out.

Dog Valley is a wide desert valley full of sage brush and cedar trees. It's extremely dry and arid right now and overrun with grasshoppers, but it's one of my favorite places: relatively level (compared to mountain riding), open 4-wheeler trails, and good cell phone reception. The beauty and serenity and stillness of the desert is very therapeutic, too.

Flyboy looked around with big eyes--woohoo!--something new! But he was relaxed and interested, not anxious and excited. He stood still for saddling and mounting and away we went. Tentatively. At least at first. After the first half mile he started walking out a little better. But then we saw The Rocks. He decided that we could not pass The Rocks. Not that there was anything unusual about those rocks in my opinion--just typical Utah boulders--millions of them everywhere. Finally after he tried backing up, turning around, and side stepping, I got him moving again. We went off-trail through the sage brush over some nearly indentical (but not scary) rocks and back to the trail again.

We followed the trail between a couple of low hills and came out into the open valley. Now it was time to trot. This was my first time asking him to trot out and keep trotting. Mostly we've walked on our trail rides, with just a tiny bit of trotting here and there. He was brave and trotted out very nicely. It's harder to be tentative when trotting and he was going quite well, nice and mostly forward, and I was starting to really relax. Then came The Big Spook. I have seen that old piece of sheet metal lying in the same spot in the sage brush for the last ten years and I should have expected him to look at it, but I was having too much fun so he surprised me. The horse can spook! Flyboy suddenly jumped sideways about six feet and whirled around to look at that scary piece of tin. He immediately realized it was not a serious threat, I rubbed his neck and we carried on trotting down the trail. That was it: The Big Spook. Not too exciting, huh? I love it.

I tried to choose trails that were good footing since he has been a little ouchy on the rocks. We trotted for a long stretch and then walked a ways. No more spooking. He did very well, and I was really proud of him. We trotted up to the top of one of the hills to take in the view and I think Flyboy was suitably impressed!

The only trouble I had was on the way back to the trailer when we were headed toward the area where The Rocks were. He just stopped on the trail and said, "No way. I'm not going up there. End of story." I let him stop and relax and look, but he had made up his mind. I used my leg and said, "We will go." Didn't work. I even used my crop (which I was carrying for the first time) and said, "We WILL go." Nope. He backed up. He got a little excited and tried to spin around. So I decided circles were a good idea, and we did some small circles in both directions through the sagebrush until he decided that going down the trail was probably easier than all that work. When we actually came to The Rocks, Flyboy didn't even look at them. I have no clue if it was the memory of the rocks or some other something that bothered him, but we worked through it.

We got back to the trailer after the hour and ten minute ride in good spirits.(That would be an hour riding and ten minutes of working on getting unstuck!) Flyboy seemed happy and relaxed and barely sweaty. I, on the other hand, was hot and dripping wet with sweat. Wearing a black crash vest in 88 degree sunshine in the desert just doesn't seem normal for the end of September. But hey, I'm not complaining. Not a chance! It could stay like this all year and I'd be happy! Dehydrated, maybe, but happy. It was a great ride and a fun test for Flyboy. He'll learn to love Dog Valley. That's where we go to fly!