June 24-26th, 2017 - Farewell Wyoming, Hello Montana

G&C Summer 2017

Blogpost 009

June 27th, 2017

“Farewell Wyoming, hello Montana”

It’s been awhile since my last report. Well, I suppose it hasn’t been that long of a stretch. I mean, people can go for years neglectful of diary entries and writing altogether (save for the commonplace signature and initial). Besides, breaks are apparently “good” for creative-based work, as Charlotte has been known to remind me in times like these. I do agree, but still, powering through eight 500 – 1000+ word journal entries a day to sitting on my hands for four days straight has left me with a growing guilt. That, and the fact I now have to condense four-days worth of events for this return to regular writing exercises. I’m becoming more aware every day how one can take years off from their writing projects…

            I believe the last entry covered Mid-summer and since then we have had one more full day on the ranch so one last full day with our horses, and one last full day with Charlotte’s family. Because this would be our last chance to mount these gorgeous two-thousand pound behemoths we signed ourselves up for two rides; a lope for the morning, and a walk-n-trot with Chot’s parents.

            Our morning ride was pleasant and relaxing as we knocked out our first chunk of lopping alongside a sliver of the Snake River. We came across a couple of men on horseback who were spraying weeds with Kool-Aid blue poison. Charlotte joked that for most places on earth it’s easier just to travel by horse. At first I laughed her comment off, me being a naive city boy thinking of all the advancements mankind has had with planes, trains, and automobiles. Then a scene from the Cohen Brother’s No Country for Old Men, based on the Cormack McCarthy novel of the same name; the scene involved Tommy Lee Jones’ character, the old sheriff ridding saddleback with a younger deputy to the scene of a high-stakes criminal deal gone south in the remote outback of the American west. On a global scale the amount of untamed Mother Nature far surpasses all the motorways and transcontinental railroads of all time. I began feeling very small but was lifted back into spirits by sudden high-pitched squeaking. An adult marmot sunning itself along the rocks along the Snake had seen our horses and was barking adorable warning signals to his fellow marmot buddies.

            We continued our ride high in spirits from the wildlife, and it didn’t stop at this vocal rodent. After leaving the shores of the Snake, our wrangler took it upon herself to show off a trail-favorite of hers that, after being considering “private property” for the last decade has just become open for trail rides again. She took us over streams and hills so steep we would have to climb with all fours had it not been for our four hooved beasts. We saw a pretty large herd of elk-mothers with their elk-babies that couldn’t have been more than four weeks old. Then we loped through thick winding patches of forest cleared, yet somehow overgrown with vegetation and the occasional dead tree blocking the way. The rest of the ride was done entirely in stitches as my fiancé and I engaged in an exchange of riddles and jokes among our fellow riders and wrangler. By far the best one we heard was;

            Two penguins are paddling a canoe in the desert. One penguin looks to the other and says, “wears your paddle.” Other penguin looks up and says, “sure does.”

I’m realizing now that while in person the joke was hilarious and took us a while to get that it doesn’t translate that well through text. Ah well, take it anyway. Jokes are always more fun to give then to receive.

            Our second ride wasn’t (in my opinion) as fun as our first but only for the fact that we weren’t flying at medium-speed, which I’d become accustomed too on our short yet exhilarating week of equine-adventure. We were in a larger group with at least one or two guests who hadn’t been tested for loping (a safety requirement for the R lazy S ranch) and besides a solid five-twelve rides over the course of six days can result in some amazing musculature soreness in places you’d never know you had. I spent the majority of the ride in mild discomfort throughout my legs and hinny but we did encounter a large herd of bull-elk with their crowns of antlers so massive and twisty one has to wonder how they manage to frolic through the trees without getting caught or clobbered. A little fun fact about elk that I learned last year on the ranch is that their perception is vastly different from our own in that when they see a person on horseback they’re unable to separate the two creatures in their minds eye and instead just see one big, strange quadrupedal forest dweller like themselves. Because of this we were able to ride so close to them that we could see the soft velvet coating of their antlers from just a handful of feet away. I wonder if they see us as some two-headed docile monster or just as super-ugly hoofed beings with matching humps that sway and wobble on their own. I bet they see us as the Igors of the forest.

            We ended our final ride with bittersweet goodbyes to our horses who had been more than exceptional companions in addition to their roles as full-time piggy-backers. Charlotte gave Silver/Sparkles many hugs and nose-kisses; a common trait I’ve noticed of horse-lovers alike, plus she’s been riding that grumpy yet lovable lug for every visit she’s had on the ranch. I was not as attached to Romeo/Calaban as my fiancé but we still exchanged in a full snot-to-chest embrace. When the rest of the riders gave up their horses as well the wranglers freed them of their saddles and binds and ushered them out the stables to the weekend pasture for them to frolic and gallivant amongst themselves. They truly are remarkable creatures but to see them galloping together naked and free to their favorite realization spot is a sight reserved for artists and lovers to immortalize in their hearts.

Our horses going to the weekend pasture

The next day was met with great sadness for Charlotte. She loves spending time with her parents and siblings (and Lisa) but it pains her deeply to leave them. We delayed the official parting of ways with a quick trip into the township of Jackson Hole and acquired a terrific blanket and hatchet for Chot to uncover insects with hiding under rotting logs. But sure enough, the time had come for us to say our goodbyes and after many hugs and a quick huckleberry shake-break we set off to resume our grand bug-hunt; our destination to the massive state of Montana.

            This would be me and my fiancé’s first time visiting the state so our road trip through rolling humps of brush and nothing was met with fresh eyes from us both. Our first stop was in Spencer Idaho the self-proclaimed “opal capitol of the world,” which was crudely painted on weathered wooden signs outside every roadside gem-shop we could see (and boy there were quite a few of them).

            We stepped inside two; the first little more than a tourist trap selling semi-rare precious stones found in every rock-shop/geo-hobbyists’ basement collection except there was also a set of folding tables in the store’s gravel parking log stacked with heaps of miscellaneous clods that were of no real value. The second business we stopped at in Spencer was primarily to buy water and use its bathroom but much to our surprise the selection of opals were impressive to the eyes but not our wallets and we left with the dazzling display of mineral-based psychedelic-glitter patterns burned into our retinas.

            Charlotte had planned for us to spend the night, our first night, camping in the thicket of a Montana forest some miles off the main highway. This would be our first real night camping with just the two of us (a real test of one’s relationship) as both our parents had joked. I am not a seasoned camper, in fact I would say my feelings towards the activity falls more towards the slightly-loathing side of the spectrum but thankfully my fiancé loves the act of roughing it in nature.

            Just to clarify I don’t dislike camping by choice. I’d never really had a “pleasurable” camping trip in my life up to that point; my allergies are always atrocious, accommodations are always to uncomfortable, sleep becomes a lunar day-dream, and every parasitic monster with wings seems hell-bent of draining me for my yummy, yummy blood. And it doesn’t help that I apparently have an allergy to their saliva, leaving welts on my skin so bulbous you’d think something was gestating inside. Of course the itching usually results in me destroying the risen ailments of my arms and legs but that only results in open wounds and infections, which I was all to familiar with in childhood.

            Thankfully Charlotte was prepared, as she often always is, and packed bug-spray and a tent big enough for six with an “air-lock” feature that guaranteed no insect invasions whilst we slept. The tent was impressively comfortable and though our dinner consisted of just a sole can of chicken and carrot soup it was the best damn camping experience of my life. In part, because my fiancé had the audacity and foresight to pack post-bite relief ointment and allergy medication that made me sleep without discomfort atop our air mattress for two inside our sleeping bag for two and under her new Jackson Hole blanket. All that paired with the cold mountain air made us slumber like two cuddly stones.

Our first campsite!

            The following morning was met with an unexpected bump as we drove out of the wilderness and back onto the highway, literally. An ill placed stone or shard of some kind punctured one of our tires, rendering it flat and useless in a matter of minutes. Fortunately we pulled off to the side of the road underneath the highway’s overpass and called AAA for a quick tire-change. Our delay was a pleasant one (for the most part) as I read Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs in a camper’s chair while Charlotte chased robber flies with her big butterfly net. I say, “for the most part,” because upon capturing her first specimen (of the day) she had to reach over a chest-high fence laced with razor-sharp barbwire and gouged out a triangular chunk of middle finger skin. Blood and gore doesn’t really affect me all that much (my personal library is evident of this fact) but it was a tad peculiar seeing my future wife leaking red and laughing as if it merely tickled. I bandaged her up as the initial shock-giggles of her wound wore off and was replaced with manageable pain as the AAA truck came rolling in to fix our flat.

Our first speed bump!

not too terrible...

Even got some collecting it!

            We then spent the next few hours running errands; getting a new tire which turned into an entire new set of all-terrain tires (god bless all-wheel drive he said sarcastically) and a grocery run for the week ahead at the NADs convention. NADS is an abbreviation for North American Dipterist (flies) Society which Charlotte is proud to be a member off despite there being around thirty members in total and with 70% of them being male and over the age of fifty. It may not be the most popular scientific cohort this side of the planet but it’s a community of fly-obsessed science dorks with huge passions for the littlest of god’s creatures and it’s where she belongs. I’m happy for her to have found her people so early in her life and career. Most people just end up getting too involved with party politics or join a cult to get this level of acceptance. 

            Now it was my understanding that the NADs convention would be held like any other professional conference, in that a bunch of enthusiasts who get paid to live out their dreams get together in a big hotel with other like minded individuals to schmooze and network in-between lectures and scheduled meetings. I was partially correct in that there are scheduled talks each day with featured dipterists, but as we arrived at our destination it became clear to me that everything else I thought this “conference” would be was merely a fabrication of my brain and that I really need to ask more questions with regards to our summer schedule. Or perhaps I have a listening problem like so many male partners in this crazy realm we call “relationships.”

            The NADS field conference is less of a convention and more of an outdoor retreat for professional bug-catchers where each day is packed with day trips to various national forests where the rules regarding what you can and cannot remove from the grounds are minimal to non-existent with talks in the afternoons and laboratory work held at night. The convention is being held at The Lubrecht Experimental Forest which is almost like every campground featured in every Friday the 13th film with exceptions to part Friday the 13th  pt. VIII: Jason takes Manhattan, Jason Goes to Hell, and Jason X (the one where the shoot the guy into outer space), except that the grounds are more compact and occupied primarily by researchers.

            My fiancé and I were initially set up to spend the week in a box-car cabin which is like a regular cabin but mortifyingly worse so we said the hell with it and pitched our camp off in a secluded part of the woods next to the bathrooms. Thankfully the surrounding area is downright magical and teaming with nature. Anyway this blog’s gotten way too long for my own good and though there’s still more for me to go over I’ll do it for tomorrow’s entry in the meantime I’ll be keeping my eye’s peeled for men in hockey masks welding machetes ready to tear us to shreds though Charlotte insists I should be more concerned for bear-attacks and falling into gofer-holes. Though I highly doubt we’ll encounter either threats.

Our campsite in Lubrecht Experimental Forest

Charlotte is with her people!!!! 

June 23rd, 2017 - Glad Midsommer

G&C Summer 2017

Blogpost 008

June 23rd

Glad Midsommer (Happy Midsummer)

If you’re a natural born American (like myself) who has difficulty with the basic principle of geography as well as knowing the names of more countries than the two boarding this one and some others that were involved in WWII then you’ve probably never heard of Swedish Midsommer; the Swedish holiday of celebration the summer solstice while simultaneously drinking like it’s the end of days. Now as a natural born American, how did I know that? Charlotte’s half Swedish, or a third Swedish, her dad’s Swedish (sorta), it’s confusing but what I do know is that some part of Charlotte’s genetic code comes from the Scandinavian land of Vikings, ABBA, and economically friendly furniture you can assemble at home. Because of this little/big heritage of my fiancé I’ve slowly been getting exposed to more and more Swedish culture and today just so happened to be their big celebration day.

            I’ll get into that momentarily but first, some notes on the day’s earlier events: After breakfast we spent the morning one horseback (again) which involved a wonderful loping ride through the scenic mountain countryside (again) and it was beautiful and magical (you get the idea).

            After lunch, Charlotte and I retired to our cabin to relax in the early afternoon. Chot worked on pinning insects she caught around the ranch while I finished the first book of my summer reading list: Silence by Shūsaku Endō, which is a marvelous work of fiction themes of self-reflection, doubt, suffering, and philosophy centered around a young Portuguese missionary sent to 17th century Japan in a time when Christianity was both illegal and brutally persecuted.

            I’d like to take a moment here to talk about the book in part because I’d consider it to be one of the most well written pieces of fiction I’ve ever read, but mostly because I’m still riding that I-just-finished-a-book high and I want to geek out a little. Now before I geek, I should explain that I am not a member of the Christian faith and while my family’s mostly Jewish (both parents are half) religion was never an important part of my upbringing. I suppose my parents wanted me and my sister to decide for ourselves what we wanted to believe in. So we never went to church or temple, Christmas was a holiday of family (and consumerism), and we’d only celebrate three-four nights of Chanukah before we got bored of reciting the same prayer again and again (without even knowing what the Hebrew words meant). Despite this near-abstinence of any religious education it was impossible to not be exposed to it, for I was raised in the American south where giant crucifixes on the side of the highway are about as common as the golden arches for McDonalds. It was almost surreal growing up in a society where every other person seemed to be apart of a global club where everybody knew of the same guy and never understanding who the block was and if he was a musician of some kind. Eventually I’d end up receiving a degree in religious studies from my (and Charlotte’s) college of St. Lawrence University along with my degree in Psychology. As one can guess I’ve been very much intrigued by the subject of religion and the psycho-sociological effects it has on it’s believers.

            I hope I’m not coming off as insensitive or patronizing. I genuinely do find all religious fascinating and consider it to be an underutilized study of humanity. I mean, most of the global populace is religious which I, and other religious scholars consider it an unavoidable part of human evolution. I could honestly go on and on, about the subject but for now I’ll just stick to the book. Silence is a dark and depressing story (which is exactly how I like ‘em) which is fitting for it’s feudal Japanese setting; a time depicted in many books and film as being a downright miserable place for everyone except the ruling class. Regardless of the subject or narrative, if a story takes place in a pre-modern Japan then it’s a safe bet one of the key messages is, “everything sucks and brutality is everywhere.” Silence paints a rough picture of life for the Japanese, more specifically the secret Christians of the Japanese populace who if discovered were subjected to what Endō describes as, “inglorious martyrdom.” The book is rife with disturbing acts of cruelty but it’s with that cruelty that brings to light the novel’s true beauty centered on the subject matter of doubt. The novel’s protagonist is constantly bombarded with horror and brutality that forces him to ask those deep philosophical questions we often ask ourselves when the world is at it’s darkest and everything and everyone seem to be out to get you; questions that are often hard to ask and even harder to find answers too and for the most part these questions go completely unanswered; there’s really no true morel or message spelt out for the reader it’s completely open-ended. This can come across as difficult for many readers but I appreciate literature that challenges the reader with uncomfortable, complex ideas that leave you pondering your views on humanity, spirituality, and one’s place in the universe. It’s an existential masterpiece and I can totally see why Martin Scorsese spent the last two decades trying to adapt it into film. I can’t wait to watch it with Charlotte when we get the chance.

            The ranch also held its weekly talent show where guests and ranchers are given the open floor to dazzle the crowd with whatever act or performance of their choice. In traditional Herbert fashion, Charlotte joined her mother and aunt for a song and dance number that was goofy and light hearted. I was next in line to perform though had absolute no preparation (I thought the talent show was for the following day) but I still went up there and recited George Carlin’s poem, “Modern Man,” which is a mouthful of word-play about the needless complexities contemporary people absorb themselves with. I was shaking the entire time and felt as if I spoke too fast but Charlotte seemed to enjoy it and that’s all that really mattered to me. The other acts were as followed; a younger guest strummed a ukulele and sang a popular soft-rock song, a friend of Charlotte’s mother performed a magic coin trick, a rancher sang some country songs on guitar, Charlotte’s dad and some friends performed a parody song of Bon Jovi’s, and a couple of young teens read aloud a fan-fiction they wrote about their horses falling in love.

To wrap up the ordeal Charlotte wheeled out a makeshift micro-museum where she showcased the various insects she caught throughout our stay at the ranch. On her cart was a pinning box (a wooden box with foam in the base for which to present the dead yet perfectly preserved exoskeletons of all manner of microscopic life. Also a part of Chot’s display was a trio of plastic baggies containing the floating chitin bodies she’d be pinning later and her baby; a Wild stereomicroscope with a jewel wasp under the lens for curious guests to examine at their will. My fiancé pulled this last year and it was met with overwhelming positivity. This year was no exception, in fact guests from last year were expecting Charlotte’s traveling insect show and new guests were just as curious to see what microscopic life had been occupying the space around them for the last week.

            Now, on to midsummer; Charlotte has informed me that midsummer is never complete without flower crowns, dancing around a maypole, singing song, eating pickled herring, and downing LOTS of shots, mostly Aquavit. Charlotte’s parents and Lisa put on a lovely party full of happy and well-fed guests and wranglers!

            For this year’s midsummer Charlotte spent a considerable amount of time laboriously crafting flower crowns for the women and girls (none of which proved to be as skilled or eager to help as she) while the ranch guests drank strong drink and ate pickled herring (as is tradition). The celebration was mellow and contained for there was still light in the sky and the real celebrating would unveil with the light of the moon. Charlotte and I, in our traditional anti-social/anti-hardcore partying fashion checked out before any of the night’s intense partying but that’s weirdly how we like it.

            

More pictures to come.... 

June 22nd, 2017 - Potholes and Bones

G&C Summer 2017

Blogpost 007

June 22nd

Potholes and Bones

Although I’ve admitted once before in writing (and to myself multiple times in the mirror) I’m not really writing these journal entries for any real readers save for my fiancé and our respected families I can’t help but feel as if I’m being too repetitive. I know that these entries are predominantly writing exercises (with which to hone in the skills and patience necessary to complete that damn book I’ve been working on since November) but I still feel like I’m being unfair in focusing the majority of my documentation on horseback riding for variety’s sake. Not that the activity itself is boring to experience (as I have grown rather fond of it) but I fear that it could come across as somewhat tiresome for a reader (whomever you weirdoes might be) to hear of nothing other than horsy-rides in detail. So I’ll do my best to talk of other actives we engaged in this Thursday apart of ridding details. With that said, we still had an amazing ride out on the range, atop our ponies, but we also got to play with dead things and emulated pagan cultists!

            Bet that got your attention! To clarify, we only played with bones, more specifically, elk bones, and even more specifically, the skeletons of many elk and maybe some other fauna like pronghorn. Though before Charlotte, Jim, and I had discovered out deceased lunchtime toys we started our journey for the day; an “all-day” ride through the Grand Teton National Forest, called the “pothole” ride.

            The R lazy S ranch offers “all-day” rides for guests twice a week. During which, you and your horse are dropped off somewhere far away from the ranch (which usually involves a car-ride hitched to a horse trailer where you can feel the horses kicking on the road which is only slightly terrifying), ride all morning, have a picnic lunch, and ride back with just enough time for a nap before dinner. We went on one of these last year to the abandoned Bar BC ranch in the middle of Wyoming wilderness. While the ride last year was beautiful and great fun, the ride we had today was, in my opinion, far superior.

            There were two wranglers accompanying us; my fiancé, Jim, Lisa, Charlotte’s parents, a friend of Charlotte’s mother (Jean-Marie), and I. Within the first thirty seconds I could tell that this multi-hour walking ride was going to be a winner. All it took was a few steps from the road and we were surrounded by a beautiful variety of trees strewn across the grounds that gave the park a sense of eternity. It felt as though this patch of earth had remained uncultivated by civilization forever and would forever go uncultivated (hopefully). The trees (both alive and dead) made for fun obstacles to maneuver our horses through and over. I guess that brief stint in the tag-field paid off as I remained saddled for the entirety of the journey, though the same could not be said for everyone in our party (but we’ll get to that later).

            Our destination was really non-existent as we had free-range of the entire park and could go wherever we pleased. Charlotte’s parent’s expressed interest in checking out the “pot-holes,” which I’d never heard about and truly couldn’t comprehend what to expect. Not even my fiancé knew what we were looking for despite her extensive knowledge of most natural parks (for she is a proud USA national park-pass holder which has gotten us and many friends into numerous parks for virtually nothing). We were told that, “we’d know them when we saw them,” and after trudging up and down hills and valleys with the snowcapped peaks of the Grand Teton mountains always in view we finally came across the first of many “potholes,” to be found.

            The potholes were another name for large-ponds, or extra-small lakes scattered about the rolling planes of the park, always at the bottom of enormous natural cereal-bowl embedded in the earth. The potholes were formed when glaciers dominated the area. The large divots in the earth would fill with ice and remain there for years as the glaciers past over them. Eventually, the ice would melt, leaving a pool of cool water for wildlife to flock to. This ride that we went on, use to be called the “wildlife” ride because of all the buffalo, elk, moose and sometimes even bears that would predictably come to the ponds for water. Eventually the ranch had to change the name, this was because with global climate change, water in these parts was becoming less common, and so was the wildlife. We were lucky. The national forest had record-breaking amounts of snow this year that led to the revival of these oases. Words cannot do them justice but they certainly stood out as something beautiful and strange. They reminded me of my favorite chapter in Clive Barker’s, The Great and Secret Show, where a group of teenage girls stumble upon a mysterious lake outside their hometown, go swimming, and meet a horrifying fate at the otherworldly creatures dwelling just below the surface. It was unlikely that anything other than bullfrogs lived in these natural pools of murky water but that kind of thinking isn’t nearly as fun as the macabre power of imagination.

            We settled for lunch in a small bunch of trees (the valley was littered with them every half-mile or so), to give us, and the horses some shade while stuffing our faces. These trees provided us and surrounding wildlife a much needed refuge from the open plains if intense sun. Immediately we found the bleached-white remains of something that’d been dragged down here for supper, or maybe an elderly elk that went to it’s final resting place. We’d seen various bones, antlers, and a skull since we started our ride but in this hovel-arboretum was downright wealthy in skeletal remains! The rancher’s informed us that predatory animals often take their prey to secluded places such as this to feast and so after lunch Jim, Charlotte, Lisa, and I decided to gather up all the bones we could to create something artistic and creepy for the next poor suckers to come this way.

            Charlotte and Jim found vertebrae and femurs a-plenty with some spinal column still attached and some with meat still attached. Lisa found the near-perfect skull of an elk to go along with the two lower-jawbones we found (still packed with teeth). After a quick sorting of the bones I decided to take a page out of Tobe Hooper’s 1974 cult classic film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and arranged the remains to resemble something crafty and macabre.

            The skull was propped up against a miscellaneous knuckle with its two lower-jaws shoved into the holes where the antlers would’ve been. A scapula was buried behind the skull’s base with a single vertebra resting on top like a crown to give the head an inverted haloed-Jesus look often found in renaissance paintings. The vertebrae were arranged in a line leading down from the skull and the femurs were placed around the makeshift spin in a ritualistic circle, which made the calcified collage resemble a necromantic eye. The remaining bones were set in symmetrical patterns to give the display an even more cryptic appearance.

            The activity did not take long but we were nevertheless satisfied with our handiwork. As we saddled up and exited the wooded grotto we laughed amongst ourselves at the thought of some other group of riders or backpackers that’d stumble upon our weird arrangement and the ghoulish thoughts to creep into their minds as they wondered who made it and why. The actual likelihood of anybody actually coming across that freaky pile of elk-bones even in the next ten years is minimal but it was still fun to play demented oculist and who knows? If a storm comes over the valley and a lightening book strikes the circle, we may get lucky and accidentally summon a demon. Told Ya’ this one would be different, didn’t I?

            With our “art” project complete we set off on the semi-long journey back which involved more riding through more valleys and hills that took us to yet more potholes and micro-forests. We were surprised by just how elusive these watering holes could be as they’d just appear before our eyes seemingly out of nowhere and with such variety from one another: one pothole would be mud-brown and still as a corpse while another would be piercing blue and choppy and another would be dark amber with dragonflies buzzing about.

            As we continued our trek Charlotte’s mother’s friend’s horse (Jo) decided to steer himself away from the rest of the herd, aiming for a lone tree among an otherwise flat patch of Wyoming prairie. Both Charlotte and her mother called out, “WATCH OUT FOR THE TREE! WATCH OUT FOR THE TREE!” Which roused our attention just in time to watch Jean-Marie collide with a low-hanging branch that scooped her off her saddle and onto the earthen floor behind her proud, mischievous mount. Everyone watched the event unfold in slow motion as it all took place with a very slow walk. Fortunately Jean-Marie was fine and laughing. After she was mounted again, Sally insists that Jo (the horse) deliberately chose the tree from about a hundred yards away, and scraped her off. Supposedly, this is something horses do on occasion. And considering that this was the only tree within a half-mile radius plus the fact that the horse continued to proudly walk off free from his rider, I’d say Sally was most likely correct. And after a quick re-mounting we resumed our ride back to civilization (in the form of a small unmarked parking lot) after a brief moment of getting turned around and having to backtrack through unmarked forest and hill drops too steep for our horses to clamber down. Eventually we made it back in one piece with our horses utterly spent and grateful for their work to be over.

            We spent the remaining hours of the night maxin’ and relaxin’ with beer, shrimp chips, and obscure Internet videos, which was consumed with great enthusiasm. Tomorrow will be another equine-centric day and though I doubt we’ll find any more dead things amuse ourselves with, I’ve no doubt we’ll enjoy ourselves immensely.