A day of surprises - not so good

Today we went for a ride with the Back Country Horsemen. It was a beautiful day. There were about 30 of us. A real surprise. Lots of mules on the ride. Am glad our horses don't came.

Pepper is always towards the tail. He wasn't too far back today but far enough the leaders had made a loop in front of us.

I was kind of in the middle at this point.

Now to the surprise. Not fun I can assure you. About half way into the ride there was a seep pond over the trail. Pepper goes through water without a problem. Well, not this time. He went in just fine. About half way across he dropped and was going to lay down. I got wet on one leg but got his pulled back to his feet. THEN he just flopped down on the other side and tossed me face first into the very cold, very muddy water. Physically I was not hurt, have lots of black and blue spots on my thighs and my left side but nothing serious. However, I was really embarrassed. I had to crawl, literally on my hands and knees out of the water. I could not get on to my feet. Pepper ran off, he new he was in very deep, I mean very deep doodoo. A nice man helped me to my feet, and out of the pond. Bob got back to me at that point. I was really starting to shiver. He began stripping my clothes. I kept grabbing them, what was going to do out in the middle of no where with no clothes. I got down to my undies, he put his jacket on me. My friend Marilyn, bless her heart had on two pair of pants and she gave me her outside pair and helped me get them on. I was shivering pretty good by that point. She also had on two pair of socks. They dried the inside of my boots with my shirt and I put on her socks.

Someone returned my horse, he had broken my favorite reins. Wiped the mud on my saddle, Bob tied my wet jeans, t shirt, sweatshirt and vest behind his saddle and off we went to finish the ride. I was pretty done by the time we got back. One good thing, my cell phone was in my vent pocket zipped in and it is OK but my small camera was on my wrist and it got drowned. It is dead, full of water. I did get the card out of it though and it is OK, that is where the pictures came through. I feel so bad because my sister got it for me a couple of years ago and I loved it. I love my big camera but I could take this one in my pocket places its difficult to take the big one.

While I was recovering, my sister called from Maui. I didn't talk to her. Bob had my phone in his pocket. She said they were having fun and it was beautiful. I would sure rather been there than crawling around in a giant mud puddle.

Lots of great people though that were concerned and stood around with their backs turned. I didn't care. Just had to get warm.

That is my word today WARM.