I don’t know why nearly every time I start to write something, an old song comes to mind. I’m really not that musical! The title song isn’t really about driving in a snow storm, but maybe it is. You can find the lyrics here, https://www.paulsimon.com/track/slip-slidin-away/ if you want to mull them over with me. There’s a lot of story in the ballad, but also metaphors. Perhaps slip sliding away as you approach your destination is a metaphor for the current situation in this country. Stop sliding!
Back to the snow. Two weeks ago, we finally got a taste of winter. Of course, I was in the Spokane Valley at an evening mending workshop when the squalls hit. All the phones in the room starting buzzing with the emergency notice of poor visibility due to snow. What could I do, I had to finish mending a pair of jeans with a worn split near the back pocket. After the mending, we had to clean up, and by the time we all got to our cars in the parking lot, it was squalling away.
I’ve done a lot of challenging drives from Spokane Valley to my home west of Spokane during my time here. This was a good one, in that the snow was beautiful, fluffy, and coming down thick. And it really was hard to see, especially as I drove further west and out of the city lights. I followed the tracks of the car ahead of me and hoped they didn’t slide into the ditch where I would follow. My neighborhood is often worse than the city, it’s a little higher, and a lot less traveled, and it takes a long while for the snowplows to get there. The last few roads before my house are narrow, dark, and rural. I drove slowly and only had a few wobbles. I was barely able to see the correct corners to turn on in the dark snowy night. Oddly, my last hill, the one that is often a skating rink that you have to hit the gas to make it up, only had light snow. I think the pines along the road caught the snow. The pine trees were looking out for me that night.
I made it home without slip sliding away into the ditch. It was still snowing big fluffy flakes. I was happy that winter was finally giving us an appearance. I was also happy I was retired, and could reschedule my outings for the next day, and go for a walk in the snow instead of a drive.
I’ve been quiet on my blog lately, mainly because I’ve spent a lot of time getting ready for, and then finally riding, a four day, 65-mile trip on the Palouse to Cascades Trail. The ride was organized and facilitated by the John Wayne Pioneer Wagons and Riders Association. There were so many topics to write about during this time, such as: preparation and fitness for horses and riders, gear to pack, revamping my camper to work from solar power with a lithium battery so we could dry-camp for five nights, surprises along the route, and more. However, my horse Vali nuzzled his way into the front of the line. He wanted to share his thoughts on the ride. So I have passed the lap-top to Vali to write this blog.
Uncle Vali’s* Thoughts on the Big Ride
I like travelling and seeing new places. It makes me happy, almost as happy as having a full hay bag and a bucket of water in front of me. My needs are simple. I like new trails, too. It’s fun to see what’s around the next corner. My human thinks my extreme attentiveness means I might spook (and I might, because sometimes you just have to keep your humans and herd mates safe from danger) but mostly I really like to see new things.
On this camping trip, we horses stayed on high-ties, these pole and bungie things attached to the side of the horse trailer. I have been on a high-tie before, but never for a whole night. It’s almost as good as a small electric fence, like my human usually puts me in during our camping trips. I can move around with the long bungie rope hanging from the pole above, and I even figured out how to lay down. But mostly, I could easily eat, so life was good.
My buddy Moyfried, though, thought the bungie rope was a delightful plaything. She pushed and turned and pulled and tested until it finally broke on our second night after some harmless deer walked by. She just came over to visit me on my side of the trailer to feel safe from what she thought were carnivorous beasts, but our humans were grouchy from being forced out of their snug camper. I’m not sure what is so special about that camper, they can’t see the stars, but they sure like to be inside all night. They must have really good hay in there. And I thought I smelled beer one night. I like beer, it’s made of grain. Moyfried escaped again on the third night. The humans were extra slow to catch her that night. I think they needed more hay to help them relax afterward.
This trip had some long rides. Luckily Moyfried and I are very fit. We rode lots of trails over the summer. Moyfried can be a little goofy, and gets worried about some things. She is a mare after all, and a young one at that. We geldings are much braver, although a few times on the ride even I got worried and my human got off to lead me. I like it when she leads me through scary spots. I can relax with the knowledge that she will be eaten by the trolls first. Seriously! One of the river bridges had a troll walking under it. The humans thought it might be an elk, but elk are not scary and they do not live under bridges. It was a troll. My human went first on that bridge and we all survived, luckily. I would be sad if my human was eaten, but I’m sure the other human would let me live at her farm.
There were so many bridges, and they can make some scary hollow sounds, and sometimes they have a metal strip in front that clangs like a bell when our shoes hit it. It is disturbing. I finally learned how to carefully step over that metal part. Also, sometimes the bridges have cracks in the surface! Those cracks and openings were scary at first, because trolls can get their fingers through the cracks and grab our hooves. We needed to lift our hooves very high over those cracks to avoid the trolls. But, late in the day, we would get tired and the trolls would take naps and all the bridges were fine for crossing.
There were these new things on the ride called tunnels. Tunnels are a dark hole in a mountain that we had to walk through. The darkness is a little concerning, but the true horror was the echoing sounds coming out from way up ahead– like a bunch of loud horses and trolls drumming and singing. Badly. At the first tunnel I made my human go in front on foot. At the second tunnel I felt better; I didn’t see, hear, or smell danger so I let my human stay on my back. On the last day, we started into a super-long tunnel. The humans were saying it was an hour long at Fjord Horse speed. An hour in Fjord time is the time it takes to eat a flake of hay in a haybag. Oddly, they didn’t make us go all the way through that breakfast-length tunnel. I could have done it! But I was secretly glad that we didn’t. I could tell my human didn’t like it. Sometimes you have to give your humans a win.
I don’t usually like the sound of big trucks, or rattling trailers, or far away loud noises. But we spent a long time walking along this thing called Interstate 90. I figured out that is where hay trucks and horse trailers go when they want to visit other far-away horses. Once I determined that noise wasn’t coming from troll parties under bridges, I was okay with it. It was kind of calming, like the sound of tractors mowing hay fields.
My human thought that I would be worried when horses came up behind us, or passed us, or got out of sight during the ride. But I wasn’t. I had my buddy Moyfried beside me, and she had me, and we were a herd of two. Our herd bond was strong. Also, some of those other horses were weird. A couple of the Arabs glared and called us “ponies” as they passed. We are Fjord HORSES! Some of those flighty horses jigged and jogged for miles. What a waste of energy. Don’t they know that these shoes were made for walking? Slow and steady wins the race. We did walk pretty fast, though; our humans were surprised we had it in us. Sometimes we walked slowly, too. On the third day of the big ride we Fjords were in front for two whole miles!! Of course we had started earlier than the others. Eventually the faster sillier horses caught up and passed us. We didn’t care, the views on that trail were stupendous!
There was a thing called a carriage pulled by two horses that our humans thought we would be scared of. We were not, because we got to meet those horses the first morning. They are steady and focused horses, and we respected them. They had a job to do, and that was to pull a noisy rattling wagon with flags on the back. We didn’t want to make their job harder by spooking when they came near.
Luckily the humans brought snacks in our saddle bags on the rides. It’s a lot of miles to go without a snack. You know the humans have food out when you hear that cellophane plasticky crinkling sound. Sometimes they tried to hide the food from us, but we have good ears. I always turn my head to get a tidbit. Or I try to get some cookies from Moyfried’s rider. I don’t know why they didn’t share the thing they called beef jerky. It smelled salty. I would have eaten it.
Our longest ride was 19 miles (that’s more than six Fjord-hours). I could have gone further. But the humans were tired, so we quit. Also, there was hay at the trailer.
At the end of our ride on day four, my owner took out this metal thing called a flask. The humans took a drink, and then my human poured some on her palm for me to taste it. I licked it up. And then I licked up a second taste. They call it brandy. I call it joyful juice, because the humans were joyful when they drank it. It’s good, but not as good as beer. Moyfried lifted her lip in disgust at the smell. She is too young to appreciate good joyful juice.But give me a couple more trips like this, and I’ll have her corrupted, I mean trained.
* Vali spent the 2025 riding season at my friend Solveig’s farm, where he earned his nickname, Uncle Vali, because he was an older finished horse that could be a good example to the younger horses and humans on the farm. Turns out that he is more like the goofy uncle that is always trying to get the other horses in trouble. He starts the biting fests through the fences with the foals. He taunts the stallion from two paddocks away and starts the galloping fence racing. As Solveig says, he is like that uncle that loves the nieces and nephews but gets them thrown in jail during their jaunts and escapades.
In May, my local friend Cindy and I joined our Colorado friend Katy, and her friend Natalie, on our third “Katy Misadventure”. Katy plans these trips regularly, to fun and remote locations. If they involve horses, I try to say yes. If they involve river rafting, I say no. Rapids scare me.
Katy hauled her two horses to the remote N-Bar Ranch in New Mexico, while Cindy and I rented outfitter horses, otherwise known as “dude horses”. My horse was Poncho, a giant black part-draft horse. He stood about 17 hands high. That’s huge, especially given that my horse at home is short, technically a large pony. Suddenly I was having to get on a horse whose withers (top of shoulder) was about eye level on me, instead of chest level. And I had to lift a heavy old-style Western saddle up even higher than that to saddle him. Though I had worked on fitness and strength over the winter, the saddle weight-lifting still tested my limits. At first it took two of us to get the saddle set in the right spot on his back, but by the fifth day of riding, I could do it without help.
Mounting that giant horse was a challenge, but there was always a mounting block, tree stump, or a rock around to give me some extra inches. Still, I had to lift my leg much higher than normal to reach the stirrup, and a loud grunt was required to make that final stretch to swing up, over and into the saddle. But the view from that height was amazing!
Dismounting, on the other hand, was even more challenging than mounting, in part because I kept inadvertently putting Poncho in a slight downhill spot, so that I was making him even taller. If I stepped down with my left foot still in the stirrup, Western style, my leg got a bit torqued and my foot would get stuck sideways in the stirrup, a very vulnerable position. As I pushed the stirrup off my foot with my hand, I could hear every trainer I ever knew yelling, “Danger, Danger, get your foot out!!” So instead, I started dismounting English style, where you step your right leg over the horse, pause while hanging sideways on the saddle, kick your left foot out of the stirrup, then slide or hop down gracefully. But on that mountain of a horse, there was no grace. It was like shinnying backwards off a cliff, when you don’t know how far away the ground is, and you hope you can find enough tree branches and roots to hang onto as you go down to prevent an out-of-control slide to the bottom. I slid down slowly while holding the saddle, until my stretched toes finally, after what seemed like minutes, touched the ground. Poncho always stood nicely as I figured out how to climb down without getting tangled up, and without falling on my butt. I suspect he was laughing at my strange gymnastics. I figure it all counted as another kind of strength training.
A friend at home has been teaching me how to do body work on horses, where you move your fingers lightly along the horse’s body, then hold, waiting for a relaxation response by the horse. Each day in the paddock I would practice a little on Poncho, along his neck one day, shoulder one day, spine or hips another day. He reacted subtly, wiggling his lips or dropping his head. On the last day I worked more around his barrel and girth area and especially focused on some white scars caused by misfitting saddles over the years. He suddenly pawed dramatically with his giant front hooves—I jumped way back, not expecting that, and watched as he stretched down low, grunting, and bowing with his head down between his legs like a circus horse. In my limited experience I had never seen such a dramatic reaction, such a big release. I smiled at him and walked away. My job there was done.
We had no wifi or cell signal at the ranch, so I was in withdrawal from my cell phone addiction. Without that constant stimulus, my brain went down different paths. On one trail ride on a very windy day Poncho and I were happily riding along at the end of the line of horses. The wind was screaming—all you could hear was wind rushing past your ears. I started singing. I am not a singer, by any stretch of the word, yet I was dredging lyrics out of my memory. First singing softly, then belting the songs out: Joy to the World, Delta Dawn, Country Roads, Bohemian Rhapsody… the riders ahead of me couldn’t hear, or could barely hear, due to the wind. I swear Poncho loved it. Or maybe he loved that I relaxed up there, singing in a windstorm, in rhythm with his stride. He walked calmly along, even though we were a fair bit away from the other horses. I think that because I had no phone to distract me, my brain started searching the depths of memories, and landed on songs that I used to know. Another hint to step away from our phones and computers for a time.
On the last day of riding, we had a short group ride and then the guide and I rode off on our own, straight up a hill and along a ridge. On the top we rode through pinyon pine and alligator juniper and as we circled further along the U-shaped ridge we saw live oak. We eventually came to a giant, gorgeous, beautiful old-growth alligator juniper. Right next to it was an ancient large gnarled live oak. We were in the grove of the grandmother trees. We named the area Alligator Ridge.
We dismounted and took a break at the grandmother grove. I had a drink of water from my water bottle, a reused plastic iced-tea bottle, and Poncho was very interested, bumping the bottle with his nose. I poured some water in my hand, but he indicated I wasn’t doing it right. I poured some into his lips. Still not right. Then he grabbed the neck of the bottle in his teeth, but at that point the bottle was empty.
When we got back to the ranch, I filled the water bottle again. I tried to pour it in his mouth; instead, he again took hold of the bottle with his teeth, tossing his head and chewing on the neck. He looked disappointed. I am certain he expected beer. Note to self: always pack extra beer for the horses.
There are many things I am good at. Such as procrastination. I am also good at doing things at the last-minute. Having a rough day and needing a glass of wine with little notice? I’m your gal. But planning ahead, especially far ahead, is not a skill of mine. Planning dinner parties stresses me out (unless it’s last minute, and potluck, then I’m great).
So how then do I plan long trips or exotic vacations? I let other people do it! I just got back from a week-long trip to Wyoming. It was a long time in planning, and most of the planning was done by my travel-partners-in-crime. My friend Katy found a forest service cabin with horse corrals and rented the four-nights. It was a location half-way between my house in Spokane, and Katy’s house in Colorado. Katy made the cabin reservation months and months ago. She knows how to plan.
Cindy, my road-trip-travel-partner, found and made reservations for lodging at our half-way point in Deer Lodge. That’s why they call it Deer Lodge, because there is lodging. Actually, there is very little lodging there, but we still got a room.
I did have to find horse-boarding for my horse, since initially I had planned to bring him, but didn’t want to haul the whole trip in one day. I found the horse lodging by checking in with one of my Facebook groups that had a lot of good-hearted horse people on it. One of these friends recommended the overnight stable in Deer Lodge (maybe it’s really named for horse lodging?). Turns out, for various reasons I didn’t haul my horse… okay, it was just one reason, the stupid broken-arm-recovery-period. Anyhow, even with just a passenger car, we still stayed in Deer Lodge, because it was halfway into the 10-hour drive. And 10 hour drives through our western states somehow turn into 12-hour drives or more.
You might now be thinking that I contributed next to nothing toward the trip planning and relied entirely on the good graces of my friends. And you would be mostly right. Except for the food part. I planned the food, bought the food, and packed the food. Once I was there, I cooked dinners, and made sure folks had choices for their breakfasts and lunches. Why didn’t this stress me out like dinner parties do? Because camping food is simple, and easy. It’s more like pulling things out of the pantry, and people just showing up and eating. Plus, I got to practice my Dutch-oven cooking. Usually when horse camping, I am too tired to put the time and effort into Dutch-oven meals. But I wasn’t riding; Cindy and Katy were, so I made one Dutch-oven dish. A fudge cherry cake. It was yummy. It’s my specialty. And there’s fruit in it, so it’s good for you.
I admit that I have, now and then, planned whole trips ahead of time, and those trips turned out fine. But I really don’t enjoy the planning part. It’s way more fun when it’s a group effort and everyone does one part of it. And I bring the makings for dessert.
[Photo Credit Cindy Miller]
Note: “The name “Deer Lodge” comes from the Deer Lodge Mound, a 40-foot-high geothermal formation at the site of present-day Warm Springs State Hospital. The mound’s shape, with steam issuing from the top, resembled a large medicine lodge, and minerals in the water attracted large numbers of deer, so Indians in the area referred to the then-prominent landmark as the Deer Lodge.” Source: https://www.fs.usda.gov/main/bdnf/about-forest
Michelle Eames 