This is part 2 of my story. If you haven\u2019t seen part 1, go back a post and read about the start of an \u201ceventful\u201d CMO at Stoney Run park in Indiana earlier this year!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I\u2019m back on my horse, Jeanne and I are heading towards camp, now looking for clues 3, 2 and 1 that we missed on the way out. I\u2019m probably not 100% accurate in my memory, but you\u2019ll understand the type of clues we were looking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The clue for #3 was something like \u201ca widow-maker branch over the trail\u201d. Wait, we remember seeing that on our way out! I looked at the map, saw that the circle was after a 90 degree turn that would head towards camp. Confident, we\u2019re trotting along with me and Raz in the lead. But I heard a noise \u2013 a loud tractor noise up ahead. I warn Jeanne that something is on the trail, so let\u2019s get around this right turn so we can see it coming. I\u2019m at the turn when \u2013 HERE\u2019S THE TRACTOR! A giant tractor with fork-lift type thingys in front. A couple more feet and Raz would\u2019ve been between the pointy arms. Driver stops, Raz nicely stops, Jeanne and Mocha stop behind me, no drama. But now the hand signals begin. He doesn\u2019t shut the tractor off, there\u2019s nowhere for Jeanne and I to get off trail for the tractor to pass (which the driver seemed intent on doing). I signal for him to back up to a clearly open space and finally he gets it, backs up, our horses are wary but they scooch around the tractor, whew. Resume trot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wait a minute, more tractor noise in front of me. Here comes a 4-wheeler pulling a small trailer behind it. The girl immediately shuts the gator off, greets us, horses pass without a problem. Was beginning to wonder what would come down the trail next. Would a T-Rex be out of the question at this point?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So now we finally look for the over-hanging branch.\u00a0 Nope, no branch, and we have clearly passed out of the circle.\u00a0 How could we have missed that??\u00a0 We turn around and try again, no branch.\u00a0 Jeanne timidly asks \u201cKaren are you sure we\u2019re\u2026\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYES, I am sure we\u2019re in the right place!!!!\u201d\u00a0 Well, I thought I was sure, I\u2019m mostly sure.\u00a0 Jeanne would like to help me with the map, but she forgot her reading glasses at home.\u00a0 She was pretty much blind as a bat on the ride.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh well, we\u2019ll find plate #2.\u00a0 One clue was a large dead log alongside the trail.\u00a0 We should find that!\u00a0 We did not.\u00a0 Back and forth, no dead logs.\u00a0 Surely we\u2019ll find #1 and end on a positive note.\u00a0 Clues were a red ribbon around a tree and a branch on the trail.\u00a0 Jeanne remembers seeing a red ribbon at the start of the ride and had wondered if it was a clue (which of course it was, had I known where we were when we left camp).\u00a0 Woo hoo, trot on!\u00a0 Wait a minute, where’s the ribbon? And now we\u2019re out of the woods and staring at our horse trailers.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go back, we gotta find it.\u00a0 Nope, up and down, no ribbon, no branch on the trail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defeated we come back to the ride manager and turn in our disappointing results.\u00a0 After taking care of our wonderful horses (aside from Raz\u2019s terror over the rolled fence), we join the others at the tables.\u00a0 Just in time to hear the RM say \u201cit\u2019s weird that the forest preserve decides to go on the trails on a Sunday, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Did anyone run into their tractors on the trail?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Uh, yeah, Jeanne and I did.\u00a0 We were the only ones, everyone else was already in.\u00a0 Okay, now it becomes clear.\u00a0 Everyone else found the clues for 1, 2 and 3 on their way out of camp.\u00a0 The over-hanging branch, the dead log, the red ribbon, trail debris, everything was there.\u00a0 We were the only ones who misread the map (well I<\/strong> was the only one) and were looking for 4, 5 and 6.\u00a0 The forest preserve was doing trail maintenance and had cleared the trail of everything!!\u00a0 The giant tractor was lifting dead logs off the trail and pulling overhanging branches off trees.\u00a0 The girl in the gator had a huge pile of branches and logs in the trailer (didn\u2019t put 2 and 2 together on that one at the time).\u00a0 Gonna guess a red ribbon was somewhere in the pile too.\u00a0 So an explanation for our inability to find 1, 2 and 3.\u00a0 A little consolation, some consolation, not much consolation actually.\u00a0 It was a long frustrating day.\u00a0 But every CMO comes with stories to tell, don\u2019t they?\u00a0 It\u2019s just that our story is SOOO very long.\u00a0 Thanks for riding along with me and my most excellent friend!\u00a0 See you all next year!!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 From:\u00a0 Karen Tellef (co-starring Jeanne Kent)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is part 2 of my story. If you haven\u2019t seen part 1, go back a post and read about the start of an \u201ceventful\u201d CMO at Stoney Run park in Indiana earlier this year! So I\u2019m back on my horse, Jeanne and I are heading towards camp, now looking for clues 3, 2 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nacmo.org\/blogTop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nacmo.org\/blogTop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nacmo.org\/blogTop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nacmo.org\/blogTop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nacmo.org\/blogTop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nacmo.org\/blogTop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136,"href":"https:\/\/www.nacmo.org\/blogTop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions\/136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nacmo.org\/blogTop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nacmo.org\/blogTop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nacmo.org\/blogTop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}