McKinney Roughs ride

About 30 minutes away is a lovely state park with several miles of sandy bottomland trails that are open to horses. We haven't been there in years, but decided to go last weekend since we couldn't go foxhunting.

Reddums was his usual star pony self, blazing trails, marching past terrifying (for Oberon) fallen logs, and being only mildly interested in the armadillos.

 

Ear pictures are always cute, don't you think? When leading, Red's ears are constantly swiveling to keep an ear on everything around him. His ears are my "early warning system" for approaching horses or hikers.

 

 

Oberon mostly played follow-the-leader. 

 

Red tromped right through this mess of fallen tree branches; Oberon took a moment to decide to go. Doofus.

 

The park is right along the Colorado River (not that Colorado River, the other one), and the trails by the river go through an old bottomland pecan grove. This is the trunk of an enormous, 200 year old pecan tree we rode past. Beautiful!

 

ERMAHGAWD! A picture of ME!

According to Runkeeper, we rode about 7 miles in 2 hours and 30 minutes. I don't think we'll be doing any endurance rides any time soon, LOL! However, it was pretty warm out and the boys both have full winter coats, so we were having to be careful about them overheating. We also spent most of the ride walking, although we had two good gallops and a super-fun trot/canter through the woods. 

Hubby and I have made a pact to go riding here if the weather is reasonable and we can't foxhunt. I think next time we're going to pack a picnic lunch and eat at one of the lovely scenic spots!