Endurance Riding

Lake Sonoma: Our final endurance ride of the 2012 season. One month ago, Jake and I almost didn’t make it to the coveted Lake Sonoma ride. But, we conquered the odds, and made it to ride camp just before dark! Lake Sonoma turned out to be one of my favorite rides this year. The weather was perfect, […]

Jakob had a home school assignment to write a poem about an adult he knows with a special dream. He chose to write about me and my dream of completing the Tevis Cup. After he had finished writing, he handed me his composition book. I couldn’t help but smile after I read the poem. doesn’t […]

Asali and I hitched a ride with my endurance buddies, the Straub sisters, to the Trinity River Challenge near Ruth Lake in Trinity County. We arrived on Thursday afternoon after a 6 hour haul. On Friday morning, we got the horses ready for our pre-ride. We set out on the trail that was to be […]

Well, it’s been a month since the Tevis Cup. I don’t quite know what has taken me so long to write about my experience at the event that is known as the world’s most difficult endurance ride. What I do know is that as Gary and I were driving home after we saw Alyssa Stalley […]

Part 1: Does That Count as Falling Off? We arrived at ride camp in Georgetown, CA just before noon. After getting camp set up, eating some lunch, and having Dianna (our hoof trimmer, fellow endurance rider, and camp neighbor) trim our horses, we decided to set out for our pre-ride. Jakob and I both decided […]

There is always that one horse in ride camp that loves to put on a show. Well, this time, it was Asali. On Saturday morning, as I was leading her out to the start of our first 50-miler of the weekend, Asali began rearing, head tossing, and bucking circles around me. Suddenly, she had turned […]

On Friday, after visiting with family in the bay area, I took my 10-year-old son and his horse, Beauty, to the Cache Creek Ridge Ride, near Williams, CA. Asali and I had the pleasure of sponsoring them on the 25 mile ride on Saturday. Here is Jakob’s story of his first ride, copied word for […]

FINALLY! The 2012 ride season has started for us! On Friday morning, I loaded up Asali and drove to Folsom Lake in Granite Bay for the American River Classic (ARC). I had decided on the ARC for a few reasons – one, it was fairly close to me (less than a 3 hour haul), two, […]

I am sitting here in front of my computer crying, and as I am, feeling very foolish for the tears. Jakob and I loaded up the horses in the trailer this morning. It was pouring down rain, so we had to tarp all our camping gear in the bed of the truck. We headed out […]

On Thursday, March 8th, I loaded up my family in the car for a weekend away at the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino in Reno, the exact place where the American Endurance Ride Conference was holding their annual convention. We decided to leave one day early, on Jakob’s 10th birthday, so we could spend the […]