Lupine and "OMG the water's going to eat me"

 Today it was a slow canal trail ride.  I felt like I was riding Zoe when she was 5 years old and just getting used to the canal trail.  At that time she was scared of the rocks, today it was the water.  The water was lapping the edge of the trail.  For the first half of the canal - every time we went around a curve I could feel her shudder underneath me.  "Just look where you want to go" I kept telling her.  She probably thought I was nuts asking her to keep going.  At one point the water splashed her hind legs and she crow hopped forwards.  Jim asked if I wanted Skippy to go first but I said no.  I wanted her to get more experience with the trail like this.  So I kept her in front the whole time.  But we hardly did any trotting, mostly walking.  I wasn't sure how she would be at a trot if she was so nervous at a walk.  So we were slow, like I said this ride reminded me of Zoe at 5 years old.  So a walk meant she had to deal with the water even longer.  I got to thinking that the trail isn't like this very often.  Sure I could take her down here alot when the water is close to the trail but that would be for a few weeks.  Then the trail will be covered and unusable for 9+ months-then when it cleared up we would start the whole process over again.  Not sure it's worth it.  So maybe I don't need to take her down to Folsom Lake when it's like this.  Maybe to trailer to other places and get more exposure to water that "moves" would be helpful and a little more consistent.  I guess I'll have to work on that.  We are good at other things but "moving" water apparently isn't one of them.

Anyway it was nice down there because the lupine was beautiful.  So it wasn't so bad doing the canal at a walk because at every turn there was a carpet of purple.  These pictures don't do it justice but here they are...