Sunrise ride

Today's ride was a treat.  I don't normally ride on Fridays...I watch my grandson, Zeke.  But today Zeke's mom didn't need me until later this morning so I got to do something I've always wanted to do...go for a sunrise ride.  I've wanted to do this kind of ride as close to the first day of summer as I could get.  So today we are a few days off, but it worked.  I expected it to be hotter but we are currently having an unusual cool spell...it was in the low 50's this am.  I needed someone to go out with me as I might meet mt. lions or bears so the company would be good, safety in numbers.  D and Sky went out with me.

           Sun coming up just as we went out

I thought the horses might try to "snatch and grab" something to eat out on the trail, but they were fine.
Zoe was fine...stopped to look at some deer as we crossed the dry creek bed.  She lead the first half of the ride.  When we dropped down into the second meadow I saw something big, round and dark colored run behind a tree that was off to the left in the meadow.  By the time we got to a better observation point there was nothing there.  I thought about it afterwards...probably a bear.  It was the wrong color for a deer or mt. lion.  Wrong shape for a large bird and it also moved more on the ground-a bird would have been up away from the ground more.  A turkey when it spreads its feathers has a large round shape but doesn't move THAT fast with its feather spread out.  A large dog would probably not be running away from us and besides it was too round for a dog.  It was too large for a bobcat-besides the wrong color.  Wrong color for a coyote.  I think the only choice left was a bear.  Zoe noticed but didn't care.  Sky noticed and cared...kept looking in that direction.  D didn't see anything.  I wasn't too worried because whatever it was was moving away from us, apparently more scared of us than we were scared of it.

  We enjoyed the colors-they seemed different in this light

                             Sun just coming over the trees
         

  It was windy this morning so the lake was not smooth

                         Evidence I was there

                        I usually don't see my shadow this long

                           D and Sky

Someday we are going to do this again and see if we can convince others to go with us.  I think we could have started out 1/2 hour earlier and it would have been fine.  Maybe we could go out to breakfast afterwards.