Donna and Terry put together a 3 day ride in Middle Tennessee at the Circle E Guest Ranch., 11 - 14 November 2010. A friend of Ray and Donna's and new MFT owner, Casey Rogilio, wrote a nice record of her day ride with the group. I have edited it slightly to post to the blog.
"Seven riders met at Circle E, on top of the Cumberland Plateau, to ride in the woods as part of the FoxTROT ride. Terry Lea, Bob, Felix, Donna, Ray and myself. We took off across the road from the camp heading generally north and into an open logging area. We had maps, but we weren't paying tons of attention to them at times. Woo Hoo! It was a down hill jaunt from the moment we headed out of the logging area and my heart was beating rapidly. I dinna care for downhill that much; uphill is good, downhill is bad in my general mantra! Donna and I realized that our saddles were giving us some side to side motion so we made our tack adjustments and then continued the ride onto a flat road.
"We stayed on the flat road for oh, about 20 feet, if that! then Ray led us off and up the side of a hill into some trees and by a granite bluff. I still don't know if he knew where we were going or if Terry had told him, but we ended up in 'Hooterville'! Yep, we sure did! There must have been about 100 bras fastened onto the trees! We headed on from there, downhill and up again 'til Terry got to thinking we were on hunting land. Yikes. We had 2 darker buckskins that could have looked like deer, 3 sorrels and 2 black and whites. Thankfully, I had on my bright yellow rain jacket so 'I' would have been safe. LOL. No, hopefully any hunters would have realized that they were horses with people on them. We had to go back the way we had come. My heart was no longer beating rapidly. My horse, Cassey, had some of the p&v taken out of her on the slopes so far. I realized she was a more sure footed thing, even on steeper slopes, than I normally ride. She's not one to go headlong down a slope just to keep up with the other horses. She would also slow at fallen trees and carefully negotiate them.
"I took tons of pictures, trying to capture the brilliant light we saw pouring out of the sky and giving our eyes a feast of blazing oranges, bright yellows and fiery reds. At times the leaves seemed almost incandescent, they were so illuminated. There was no way for pictures to do justice to the beauty we saw at every turn of the trail.
"I felt so blessed to be able to ride on this occasion for more than one reason. It was a marvel to look at the beauty God had for us. Donna had invited me and I confess I felt a touch of trepidation at riding at Circle E. I had heard the trails could be rough. Well, Cassey took great care of me. She puffed up the hills. I know on one occasion she came to a halt and I felt she was firmly telling me to haul my OWN butt up the hill! We went down rocky places where she had to place her feet carefully and up rocky places where she had to scramble to get good footing. CW McCall's son 'Black Bear Road' kept coming to mind; there were 'rocks as big as a hall closet' that we passed and lots of grapefruit sized rocks to pick our way through. We rode past boulders as big as houses and at least one HUGE boulder that had to be 50 feet high.
"It was a wonderful day. At one point I told Ray and Donna that my cheeks hurt from grinning so much. I feel like I've come a long way as a trail rider. We negotiated some downhill and through trees/rock stuff that would have sent me screaming in the other direction with Justin, and Dino would have probably lost his mind on some of the uphills. It helps immensely to have a horse that is a seasoned trail horse and can take care of herself and her rider. Yay Cassey!!! I know I slept well last night; hopefully Cassey did too!"
Obviously, Casey had a wonderful time riding with FoxTROT! In addition to those mentioned in Casey's article, others joining the ride that weekend were Michael and Sharon Lesner, Kathy and Marty, and some folk from the area. Deb and I did not make this ride, and it sounds like we missed out!
Happy Trails,
Sam Gerhardt
President, FoxTROT
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