Riding in Alaska

So we have this competitive trail ride on July 16, 17 and 18. This past week we have been flagging the trails with bright surveyor's tape in four different colors so that the riders can follow their designated trails. Our Trail Master is super organized and has color coded maps for us to follow. On Monday evening our group of four set out to mark Saturday afternoon's ride. All went well until I couldn't find the field marked "Clover" on the map. So we didn't mark that and continued to the P&R location. The Open ride went one way and the CP/Novice went the other so Christy and I took the novice flagging while the other two riders did Open.

This ride is on trails we only ride on every other year. I don't know all the specific trails and there were times Christy and I backtracked taking down flagging, then re-flagging correctly. We finally met up with the other crew who had the same problem on their Open trails. It was getting late so I said that Briar and I would finish the flagging on Tuesday.

Tuesday was rather hectic and we didn't get on the trail until almost 8 pm. We got to where I thought "Clover" was but the field was full of an excellent stand of timothy hay - not a clover in sight! Thank goodness for cell phones. When I called out Trail Master she said I was in the right place, that the field was full of clover 20 years ago when they named the field. It's a 2/3 mile trot around the field into the P&R. So we trotted!

Then I second guessed myself and unflagged to reflag. I KNOW better than that. So I had to unflag the reflag and put all the flags back. ARRRGHHHH. By this time Briar was tired, my horse was tired and the poor Mare (who is not in shape at all) was tired. We got all the flagging completed and will do a dress rehersal this weekend to see how well we did.

Our at the most two hour ride became a four hour ride. We got home at midnight.

Here's Briar and the Mare. I took this picture with my phone so this is really what it looked like - no flash or artificial light, Can you guess what time it is? 11:30 PM!!! Now do you see why I am so tired in the summer? When it is daylight until midnight or later your perception of what time it is is very flawed. Moms in Alaska in the summertime do not tell their kids to come home when the street lights come on.