Blue Point

Dad and I took the ponies to the Salt River today and rode around Bulldog Canyon at the Blue Point Recreation Area. It was hot out there, even with getting an early start, so the ponies greatly enjoyed the chance to play in the river. Both went in up to their knees, and would have gone further had we let them.

I got the chance to harass Mimi with a sponge; her snorts of indignation were hilarious when I dropped the sponge in the river and started pulling it along, and then had the nerve to touch her with it. Can you tell we don't get much of a chance for sponging practice in the desert?

We didn't do a super-long ride, maybe ten miles, and went pretty slow. A lot of the trails around there are either really hard-packed old jeep and 4-wheeler roads, or deep sand wash. There are better trails if you ride west from the trailhead, but we wanted to stick close to the river where it was a little bit cooler and let the ponies play in the water.

The most excitement was generated by the large trees that served as a nesting spot for several dozen blue herons. Mimi took great offense every time one took off and would fly within her range of vision, especially behind her. She just knew one of them was going to use her butt as a landing platform. :)

And we saw a rather large rattlesnake, less than half a mile out from the trailhead. He was laying across the road sunning himself and looking very comfortable. He didn't see the need to move, so we detoured around him.

Photo album of shots taken during the ride, including some amusing ones down at the river, can be found here: http://s20.photobucket.com/albums/b210/goldash/Blue%20Point-Bulldog%20Canyon%20May%202009/. I also put the same one on Facebook.