Expedition Impossible

The Mammoth Cave adventures outfit that provides zip-line tours also offers horseback riding. After our Zip-line tour we walked into the woods to start our horse back tour. All along I am imagining that we will probably mount some horses and ride them around the grassy field for 30 minutes or something. I couldn't have been more wrong.

With me on the expedition was Jack, Lei and my g/f Judy. Judy was the first to mount her horse, a small white munchkin horse named White Lightening. Next was my father who mounted a splotchy brown and white horse named Patches. My mom had some issues getting on to her brown horse, but was helped out by one of the aides. Finally it was my turn. Little did I know that this was the beginning of the end. My horse was a fairly big gelding, dark brown with an agitated demeanor. From this point on I shall refer to my horse by his true name, "Diablo."

This was my first time riding a horse, so I was a little nervous as I did not know what to expect. To make matters worse, we only had one guide and he gave almost no guidance as to what to do. He told us the horses follow the path and that we should use the reins to keep the horses from eating greenery on the course of the trail. Thats it. No instructions on how to start or stop, or what to do if your horse hates you and decides not to move. With the intro out of the way we started on our epic journey through the dangerous Kentucky terrain.

The guide went first and was followed closely by Judy, Lei then Jack. My horse either didn't get the message that our tour was starting, or simply did not care. I watched my companions ride into the forest while my horse refused to move forward. I started to panic, but resisted the urge to call out. I heard the others calling for me, but I could do little to encourage the beast forward. I decided to take charge and to dig my heels into his rib cage like I have seen so many times in the movies. Instantly Diablo urged forward and relief washed over me. However after only a couple of steps the he again stopped dead in his tracks. With my limited equestrian skills, I had no other tricks up my sleeves, so I decided to do this over and over with the hopes of catching my comrades. This proved futile and eventually our guide had to circle back to check on me.

I was expecting an explanation of what I had done wrong and perhaps some tips on how to better control this animal. Instead he handed me a small twig that he broke from a nearby tree and told be to slap him on the butt with it, then he rode away. The twig was tiny and it seemed a joke that it would do anything at all. I gently tapped the rear of Diablo with the twig and it unleashed a monster! The horse reared up and launched forward with enormous power. I nearly fell off as we took off into a gallop. It took everything I had to keep him under control as he raged forward. I caught the rest of the touring party quickly and overtook Lei and Jack as if they were standing still. After passing them I got him to calm down a bit and fall into the pace and order of the rest of the horses. The terrain itself got tricky at this point because there was a steep climb that lay ahead. Remarkably our horses were able to climb almost straight up the hill! Just after we climbed the hill, we wound around the path and came to an extremely rocky area. It almost seemed like a dead end, but I watched as our guide horse carefully picked its way down an extremely steep rock/boulder slope.

Diablo was visibly upset and began to back up and shudder as it was our turn to decend the treacherous trail. I had to dig my heels into his side and urge him downward. Halfway down he decided that it was not safe to proceed and stopped in his tracks. Meanwhile my dad had already started his horse down and they came right into us creating a traffic jam on this rocky slope. With both horses upset and crammed into this dangerous ledge, I had to tap Diablo with the twig to get him to finish the decent. The whole time Diablo seemed scared, unsure and unhappy to be going down the slope. He also had a bad habit of tripping over almost every rock or branch with his hind legs, so I was convinced I was going to be toppling off of him at any time. I don't know how, but we actually made it down the slope in one piece.

After this extremely dangerous part of the trail, my horse seemed intent on getting me back. I made sure to keep his head pointed to the center of the trail, but he did his best to swing his back end around to crash me into trees or bushes. In essence he was trying to scrape me off and get rid of me. At one point the devil managed to target a thorn bush and was able to not only drag me along the thorn bush, but actually break a part of the thorny twig into my arm. Stinging and bleeding, I wanted to brush the thorn twig off, but it was dangerously close to touching his rear end. Seeing as how he reacted to the miniature twig, I didn't want the thorn bush to hit his ass. I had to endure the thorns pressing into my arm, until I finally managed to remove it. Unfortunately with letting go of the reins to remove the thorns, he found another opportunity to run me into a tree. Meanwhile as I was battling my horse with each step, Judy's horse had taken the lead. Her white pony was surprisingly quick and spry. Our guide made a move and took a shortcut hoping to overtake Judy and White Lightening, but Judy gave no ground and remained in the lead. Meanwhile behind me, my dad's horse, Patches was happy as a clam. My Dad was allowing him to eat all the greens he could possibly take in. Instead of eating them, Patches liked to keep them in his mouth, like a cigar. I'm not sure if he just liked the taste of the leaves in his mouth, or if he wanted to show off to the other horses that his owner allowed him to eat as many greens as he wanted.

As we approached the end of the tour, the guide had regained the lead and I tried to pass Judy. Actually I had no control of my horse, and he had decided to pick up the pace possibly with the promise of ending his time with me. White Lightening refused to be passed and nosed out Diablo. In the process Judy's leg touched my horse, and which point she cried out in disgust. She pointed out that my horse was drenched in sweat and everybody else quickly agreed. Diablo was an angry sweaty mess, and was probably very relieved when the ride finally finished.

Scraped, bruised and bleeding I managed to finish the journey. It may have not been easy, or pretty, but I enjoyed the adventure and look forward to my next ride with Diablo!

Hidden Cove Blog, July 22-25

Easy way to start this blog, considering it was pretty much mandatory that I was required to write this after my efforts on the most recent trip to Hidden Cove.

My previous trip (my second) to Hidden Cove was my first experience of the Memorial Day weekend, which was awesome. It is something I will never forget. Little did I know that Jack’s place was going to start being constructed that weekend. I decided to sleep through most of it, including falling asleep in a tailgating chair multiple times. I did awake on the second day to discover that I was the only male not down at Jack’s place working and I probably picked the best time to go down, when they were digging the post holes for the wraparound deck with a two-person auger during the hottest part of the day. I would LOVE to meet the two people who could man this two-person auger because it took four of us AND two teams of four to dig the 13 post holes needed. By the way, tree roots are awesome to get through.

I would like to note that every other man that was on the trip put in at least six times as much work as me, including all of those older than me. After my poor performance during the Memorial Day weekend, the least I could do was write a blog after my most recent visit with the Truitt Family, my future in-laws. (Granted it was demanded by the Moores when Charles was in town just prior to the trip). So welcome to my first blog for Hidden Cove, thank you for reading.

The July 22-25 trip included Brian and Karen, Dan and his girlfriend, Aimee, as well as Lynn and myself. After all of us got off work on Friday night, we made the four and a half hour trek to Kentucky and arrived around midnight (Brian made great time and I slept through the first hour and a half of the trip). We made good time, but the last part of the drive, the rollercoaster up and down, winding part – which is multiplied at night, was fun for some and as much as Brian tried, not so fun for others. That night was semi-uneventful as we sat in John and Cathy’s camper, drank, chatted and enjoyed each other’s company.

In Hidden Cove tradition I slept my ass in. Luckily I had a partner in crime. Dan slept as late as me, and since there wasn’t as much work to be done, I didn’t feel as bad (I did apologize to Jack Memorial Day weekend for my lack of work). Shortly after we all awoke, we decided to utilized the Truitt way of cooling off… the inflatable pool. As white trash as it sounds, it may have been the best idea. The water was ice cold and was very pleasant.

After we cooled off, we wanted to go out on the boat. The water was back to normal levels so it made it easy to get to the boat (Memorial Day weekend you would have had to swim to it – and been a good swimmer to get there).

Since I cannot take time off without some form of work to do – yes it is and was the hockey offseason, but we had just signed Vinny Prospal, which was a pretty big move for us. We were expecting the contract on Friday, but of course it didn’t come in until Saturday. I had everything ready to go, but I got the call from our General Manager, Scott Howson, within the first 15 minutes of us getting out on the lake.

I was prepared and had my laptop and wireless card on the boat with me, so we didn’t have to turn back. The only problem was that since the boat was moving and apparently Verizon doesn’t have great service for wireless cards in the Hidden Cove area, I could not get a signal long enough to access the internet. We were planning to stop the boat soon anyway, so Brian stopped the boat and we dropped anchor. After more time than I wanted, I got the press release sent to the media, Tweeted, Facebooked and posted on the website. I was the only one left on the boat, with the exception when Lynn took the photo below.

This is a normal pose for me – on my phone and laptop at the same time… but I usually have a shirt on (sorry for those of you who are blinded by this photo).

Finally, after a good half hour or more, it was finally a real vacation time for me, so I cracked a beer and joined the Truitts in the water. It was a hot weekend, so the water – even though hot – was refreshing. We were out by Jump Rock, as were a lot others. None of us tried the climb up the rock to jump off, but enjoyed our time floating around.

This is where we discovered the multiple uses of a life jacket. By we, I mean Dan. Sick of pulling a life jacket down from hiking up his body, he reversed his life jacket to wear it like a diaper. It might be one of the most brilliant things he has done. Not only did he not have the annoyance of having to continually pull his life jacket down, he also floated more above water

(see photos below).

Granted you had to have the right life jacket if you were a man, but it worked and it worked well. Stick tap (hockey term) to Dan for that invention that all of us eventually used

(almost all of us on Sunday).

There were two great parts to being out on the boat on Saturday. The best part of our time in the water by Jump Rock was when this tiny dragon fly “attacked” Lynn. Brian has it on video if you want to see a hilarious freak out to something so harmless. (I love you honey!). The other part was when Guinness – my teacup puddle, which is now Lynn’s dog, too – was “driving” the boat (photo below).

I also got to drive the boat for a little bit for the first time (that photo is below, too).

I didn’t really do anything hard, so “drive” may be saying a little much.

After we spent a good portion of the day on the boat, we made our way back, docked the boat, showered and prepared for dinner. A great meal that consisted of hamburgers grilled by Brian was followed by some card playing. The games were fun – we played Tripoly – with the only problem being that the light kept going out on us. So every five minutes or so one of us had to get up and practically do a dance to get the damn thing to come back on (we’re still convinced that Jack was laughing his ass off playing a trick on us). Lynn freaked out for the second time in eight hours as a rather large, colorful moth decided to dive bomb us a few times. It brought back great memories of the Memorial Day weekend.

Once again, my lazy ass (along with Dan) slept in later than everyone else again. After another great breakfast served by Karen (she is stellar at breakfasts in Kentucky), Dan and Aimee went to read in the gazebo so Brian and I went on a drive in the Gator… Nothing Runs Like A Deere! (my uncle is an exec for John Deere). He took me on a drive to John’s property. It was so picturesque. We had a minor break to stop and move a tree that had fallen down right in the middle of the path. Brian did the work with the chain saw, I threw the branches off to the side. After a great ride around John’s property, we made the drive back to the campers. One part included the 60 degree downhill drive. Brian decided this was a good time to inform me that Jack and John lost the brakes when they went down this hill. After crapping my pants, I gripped the parking brake tightly as we went down. We made it safely and got back just fine. We came across two turtles along the way (one marked and one unmarked). Call me lame, but I thought that was pretty neat.

Upon our return and with it still being hot as hell, we all wanted to go out on the boat again. This time we didn’t drive around

as much (although Brian wore a sweet hat - see below),

so we docked near what we (Dan and Aimee get all of the credit) have termed Smiley Rock. Not far from Jack’s dock is an area where there is a rock that, if you look at it right, smiles at you. For the most part, all of us were in the water for a few hours. At one point, when I was on the boat, Dan asked for his sunglasses. I thought I was being nice when I tossed them to him in the water. The only problem… I tossed them short and he didn’t catch them. They sunk like a brick. Brian, who was the boat, thought he could dive in and get them… No such luck. He ended up with a headache out of the ordeal and ended up staying on the boat. Needless to say, I felt like an ass for Dan losing his sunglasses, despite him saying countless times that it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Guinness, being the super swimmer that she is, had an easy day Sunday as Lynn found a perfect way for the dog to be happy and her float in the water at the same time.

We got back after spending almost all of the sunlight in the water. Karen prepared kabobs that were grilled again by Brian, although this time under a threat of a large thunderstorm. We got lucky and the storm held off long enough for us to grill and eat. After dinner we weren’t as lucky. As the storm rolled in, we moved into John and Cathy’s camper, got Brian and Karen drunk ;) and us kids started playing Uno and kept drinking. Being the stud that I am with any card game, I won. Since Lynn, Dan and Aimee took forever to finish off who got second and third, I pretty much fell asleep and after a few more drinks, we called it a night.

Monday we slept in (yes, I was one of the last to awake again), cleaned up, packed up and got on the road. The trip was pretty smooth and I got in a lot of reading as did the rest of the group. We stopped for a bathroom break at a gas station and Dan got new sunglasses, which I still owe Karen for.

All and all, it was a phenomenal trip. I cannot say thank you enough to the Moores for making Hidden Cove what it is growing to be and for the Truitts for not only welcoming me into the family, but introducing me to the fun that is Kentucky. I cannot wait to get back down there and sleep less and help more with the construction of Jack and Brian’s places.