Slide Show

Sunday 30 December 2012

Heading South for the Winter

GETTING NEW TRUCK READY TO HEAD SOUTH IN 2013



Ron has been very busy getting our new truck ready for the trip South. We hope to post some new places on our trip South this year. I would like to do some riding in South Nevada it looks beautiful in the Red Rock area.


About our new truck. As most of you know that followed our Arizona Trip 2012 we have a pretty big horse trailer. 40' long with a 16' living area and a 12' slide-out. Ron would limit what I could put into the trailer as we were at maximum weight. So we sold the Dodge that I loved and I could drive LOL and bought a Western Star Semi. Here is a picture of what it looked like when we got it.
Ron with his new big truck. 

The Truck went into a shop and was single axle and we had them add a deck (this is before shot).

The truck was in the shop for a few weeks getting everything done. For Ron for Christmas I had new decals put on the truck that matched our horse trailer. Ron also got ramps for the smart car and added metal rings on the deck to hold smarty in place on our drive South. Ron also got a backup camera for christmas from my son and I also got him a small touch screen Pioneer DVD RDS AV receiver. He can have up to 4 camera's so we can also watch the horses, see the trailer well backing up and hook up the trailer. It has bluetooth, HD radio, USB high current, ipod, iphone control direct, and navigation ready.  We are set :)

New touch screen DVD
Here is a picture the first time we hooked up the trailer. See the new deck and see only one axle now.
The smart car will fit right behind the truck.

I don't think I will have to worry about weight anymore. I can feel a new set of pots and pans in my future and yes some cast iron fry pans LOL.

New decals


Ron welding the new water tanks these will go right under the new air-ride hitch we had built shown below. It can hold 250 gallons of water.




We hope to leave on January 30th 2013. Ron is retiring from the Vancouver Fire Department after serving 28 years on the 29th of January. I am taking all my holidays then 2 months leave to go south. Once home I will only work 8 more weeks before I too can retire.

This is going to be a great year. Make sure you follow our trips we should have more then normal now that we are retiring.
Visit our web site to see great places all over North America to camp with your horses.
http://www.campingandhorses.com
ALSO VISIT OUR FACEBOOK PAGE 

Saturday 13 October 2012

Canadian Thanksgiving weekend at Rainbow trails



A True Thanksgiving in the mountains of Merritt BC

Every October for Canadian Thanksgiving dozens of horsemen from all over gather in a large meadow  in the coquihalla mountain range in the area of Lilly Lake. They have fabulous rides and super potluck dinners. This was our 8th Thanksgiving here and it is something we look forward to every year. The trails were made by the Endurance riders of BC  and the Backcountry horsemen of BC . It is called Rainbow trails because each trail has a different colour marker. There is the new red/blue trails that leaves camp and goes above and around the back of camp and is about a 3 to 4 hour ride. The white trail that takes you to Lilly Lake and through what some people call the Park and sometimes you see herds of feral horses that a local rancher has turned out until they are old enough to break. There is the yellow trail that can take you up into a huge meadow over looking the Coquihalla highway were you will find hundreds of cattle grazing and maybe even see a deer or two grazing.

We have seen wolves, coyotes, moose, and families of bears in the area as we ride by. You are totally in the wilds of BC when riding these beautiful mountain trails. The climate is dry with big pine trees and open range lands. There is not a lot of rain in this mountain area.  I love the riding here. Most people come up on the friday and stay until the monday of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. On the saturday we have a big pot luck and Bill Cox of Langley started a tradition many years ago to bring a whole prime rib up and cook it over an open flame campfire until medium rare in the middle and well done on the out side. There is always enough to feed an army. This year we had close to 40 people for dinner. I myself bring my legendary 3 layer Pumpkin Cheese cake. The food here is better then most 5 star hotels, prawns, cedar planks BBQ wild salmon, and new to the weekend is our cookie baking contest. This year we had 6 kinds of home made cookies to sample and vote on. We do not count calories well we are at camp LOL.

This Camp is open to everyone and we always welcome new comers. It was nice to see a lot of younger people here this year with their young children. The kids had so much fun. Everyone brings there pets as well and the dogs think they too are on holidays and they all run wild through the meadow playing with one another. We bring our cats and of course one of the is the size of most of the dogs. We have a Savannah and an African Serval cat. The cats enjoy going for walks out on the trails too and someone has to keep the dogs in line so Duma the Serval handles that job just fine.

Here are some pictures of our weekend
Some of the dogs, & even a couple wolves.

Our Savannah cat Kenya

Our Jack Russell Sammy

Looks like a "Bev Dolittle" Painting



Sharon and Hunter out on first ride



Darrel Brown and Bailey














Duma our Serval cat watching for the dogs 


Duma with our dogs

The campsite

Red/blue trail going out of camp 

Looking down at Camp


Travel buddies Buster and Sammy they first met when they were both 1 (seven years ago right here).

Bill Cox's famous "Roasted over flame Prime rib" Yummy!!




Anything can happen around this campfire.
Darrel Brown (Caveman) and he doesn't even drink amore LOL

Duma waiting for dinner









Bill Cox our "Master Chef"








Great view ride off the the white trail 







Ron and I