Horsing Around

There are two other horses at the place where we are staying. Angel is a mare who is currently in foal. Her son, Maverick, lives in the paddock next to Angel. Angel is in the paddock next to our horses - who are sharing a large paddock. Both Angel and Maverick have gotten attached to our horses.

When we come back from a trail ride and bring in our stock trailer, Angel runs over and blows kisses at our horses while they are still inside the trailer. Both Angel and Maverick greet our horses and celebrate their return. Our horses are less interested.

 

Riding the Maricopa Trail in Usury Regional Park

We had planned to ride in Usury Regional Park, but found the Bulldog Canyon Trailhead where parking is free. Half of the area is set up for off road vehicles, but we rode the Maricopa Trail up to the Wind Cave trailhead. The Maricopa Trail is reserved for hikers and equestrians only. Lots of hikers during this Christmas Day ride. It was an easy ride and the horses did fine. 

We liked this section of the Maricopa Trail so much better than the section we rode in Cave Creek. The Cave Creek section was rocky and poorly maintained.

 

Jacob's Crosscut Trail - Superstition Wilderness

This trailer was parked next to us. I just liked the way the fellow had decorated his trailer. He was a local, lives in Apache Junction. Dressed in Western gear. He gave us pointers on which trails to ride.

Plenty of trailer parking, no toilets. It was a nice ride, but a bit rocky when we got toward the top of the mountain.

 

A visit with Ari's sister

Stan, Chantal's husband, was a bit shy around the horses but he enjoyed petting them and feeding them treats. 

He said he liked my horse better - maybe because he likes sticking up for the underdog. Lennox bosses Mercy around.

Lunch was lobster rolls and cole slaw. Chantal and Stan brought dessert. It was a lovely afternoon.

 

A Leak Under the Sink

I was annoyed to see the plumbing under our sink was leaking. Apparently, the vibration from driving around loosened the connectors. Ari tightened up the flanges and added some plumbing tape and it was fixed. But, so annoying! When I brought it to Ari's attention, he initially put off fixing it. I pulled everything out of the cabinet and told him I would not be putting any of the items back until it was fixed. A couple of hours later, he capitulated and made the necessary repairs.

 

Picketpost Trailhead - Apache Junction, Tonto National Forest

 

Our next trail ride was from the Picketpost Trailhead in the Tonto National Forest.

There were hitching posts available for the horses in the equestrian parking area.

There were vault toilets available.

We rode the Arizona Trail. It was a beautiful ride with some pretty views. There is dispersed camping areas coming into the trailhead.

No mishaps and an easy ride.

Queen Creek Wash Trail, Queen Creek, AZ

 

J, our host and landlord, recommended the Queen Creek Wash Trail for our next outing, so we took his suggestion. A wash for those of you who are unfamiliar with cowboy terms - is a dry creek or river bed. No water and the ground is usually sand or rocky. 

You park at the Desert Mountain Park. It is tricky because the equestrian lot is accessed from Ocotillo Road - not the main entrance. Once you get in there, there is plenty of parking for horse trailers. This looked to be a popular place with local equestrians as there were several trailers in the lot.

Ari got off his horse at one point in the ride to adjust his bridle. You ride under several overpasses, so if your horse is not ok with traffic noises or riding into dark places, it might be challenging. Our horses did OK.

The trail was deep sand, about 3" deep so the horses really had to work hard.

My horse was nervous and jumpy for much of the ride. When we stopped for Ari to take my picture, I saw why. A coyote had been tracking us and following us. I don't think the coyote was interested in us as much as what game we flushed out for him to eat. There were lots of cottontail rabbits and quail on the trail.

As we headed back to the trailer, my horse spooked and went into a gallop. I got him slowed down, but he twisted on the one rein stop. I lost my balance and fell out of the saddle. Luckily, I was wearing my Hit Air Equestrian Vest. This is the first time since I bought it over a year ago it actually deployed. It acts like an air bag and uses a CO2 cartridge to inflate the vest. I could feel the vest fill up with air and tighten around me as I left the saddle and when I hit the ground it felt like I landed on a life boat or air mattress. No broken bones, not even a sprain! I started laughing as soon as I hit the ground. I was so relieved that it actually worked. We had thought that when it deployed the cartridge might make a loud pop which would scare the horses, but it was more of a PHAH sound of inflation. Like exhaling a breath. It wasn't loud or spooky at all. 

I had sand in places that usually only get sandy when you lie on the beach, but I was OK. Mercy had run off but he came back on his own while I was dusting myself off. Ari had dismounted and was checking on me. 

We mounted up and finished the ride with no more mishaps. When we got back to our LQ, I re-assembled my vest with the replacement CO2 cartridge I bought (just in case I did deploy the vest), so I will be safe for the next ride. I am so happy I finally have a vest that actually works and protects me.

Upgrades to the LQ

 Shout out to Jeffrey Potter, Hummingbird Woodworking, of Phoenix who built our new cabinet for the kitchen area. I designed the cabinet using Solidworks, a CAD software I use for work. I emailed the plans to several woodworkers, but only heard back from two of them and I liked Jeff best. Jeff is a retired project manager from Silicon Valley, who moved to Arizona when he got laid off in the 2008 recession.

I wanted to replace the small table I bought from Wayfair because it rolled around, didn't actually do what I wanted, and was just generally annoying. The Wayfair table only cost around $50 and was ok, but I always considered it a temporary fix until we were some place long enough to get a real cabinet installed. Jeff did a great job of matching our color scheme. The table has four drawers and four small shelves. There is a folding leaf which I can use as a desk or as counter space when I am cooking.

It fits perfectly in the empty corner between the door and the fridge. I was worried about the drawers coming out while we were driving, so he installed earth magnets to the back of the drawers. A good tug will bring the drawers out and the magnets keep the drawers in place.

Jeff charged us $300, including installation, which I thought was a bargain. I doubt we paid for all of his time, just his materials and some labor. Cabinet is made of oak and stained.

Shelves are used as a pantry and for storing our shoes and flip-flops. Drawers are being used for various tools and stationary items.

The same day we got the cabinet installed, we took our LQ to Copper State RV in Phoenix for upgrades. One of the items on the list was installing a bidet. Toilet paper is not really great for RVs and we missed our bidet from home. I bought a bidet without an arm because an arm would block the door we use to access the mid-tack area. Instead, the bidet uses a remote control - which I mounted above the toilet paper holder. Some folks have commented that bidets are unsanitary, because we are using the water in our RV tank or well water, but we use a very expensive water filter for our water and this is the same water we use in the shower, so we are pretty confident that the water is fine. I also will freely acknowledge that a bidet in an RV may seem incongruous to the idea of "roughing it", but frankly once you have succumbed to the flat screen TV, the stereo system, the satellite internet, etc. you pretty much can't make any claims about roughing anything.

In addition to the bidet, we had Mike improve the dinette bench, make the hay pod area more water tight, replace the electrical box for our bale bucker (it had cracked), and install brackets for a sun screen that can be attached to the awning.

By the time we picked up the LQ and got the cabinet installed, we didn't make it back to our home base until 9 pm and it was well past dark.  We didn't want to risk backing into our spot and breaking something - like running over the septic connection - so we parked in the arena area, figuring we would back in and set up in the morning. 

Riding Rock Peak Wash - San Tan Regional Park

 Well, it felt like it took forever for Mercy's cinch sore to heal. Actually, it took about a month. While we were waiting, Ari took Lennox to ride almost every day on the local trails. To access, he would ride down the road, turn left and then ride into thousands of acres of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land.  The BLM area was criss crossed with trails, punctuated with cow dung.

My first ride back in the saddle, Ari led us on a ride of the BLM land. I felt very shaky since I hadn't been in the saddle for over a month and Mercy was nervous as well.

Our second ride felt better. Both of us were more relaxed and comfortable, but I found the BLM scenery a bit boring.

J, our landlord, recommended we try Rock Peak Wash Trail in San Tan Regional Park. So, we decided that would be our next ride.

There is a good sized parking lot at the trail head with plenty of places to park for horse trailers.

We rode the San Tan Trail to the Mailpais loop. The ride was around two hours and it was pretty much a perfect ride. The trail was sandy, well marked, and easy. The scenery was pretty. Both horses were relaxed and happy to be out on the trail.

Wintering in Arizona

 Well, two weeks in and things are settling down.

We are currently at a private barn in San Tan Valley. Fellow equestrians have been asking me to reveal my location, but the owner, J, has asked that we keep where are staying on the down-low. He isn't sure if he wants to be a horse motel, but so far he is extremely happy with us.

It is just us, a couple living in a small two bedroom house and the owners, who are staying in a super nice RV on the property. The owners live in Minnesota and bought the property as a foreclosure so they would have some place to spend the winter. They rent the house out to T & L full-time. T & L have two horses - a mare who is in foal and a gelding. So, our two horses have a couple of other horses to converse with.

My horse is still healing from his cinch sore, but it looks like it might finally be healing. I ordered some special rigging for my saddle so I could use a fire center rigging for the cinch to prevent future cinch sores. I am waiting for that to arrive this week so I can get back in the saddle.

A fire center rigging loops in the regular D clip used by the latigo and the read D-clip. It prevents the cinch from moving forward and rubbing the skin, causing a cinch sore. It required a longer strap than the standard latigo.

We paid rent for the last part of November - just two weeks - by mutual agreement with the owner. Neither of us wanted to make a longer commitment just to see how we all got along. We checked in with them yesterday and they said they were really happy with us and we can stay as long as we like and come back whenever we like. So, I guess we will be re-upping to stay here for another month.

The pregnant mare is constantly hungry. I guess she is eating for two. She bangs her feed bucket regularly anytime it is empty. T had asked us if they were waking us up when they left for work in the morning and I said, "No, but Angel banging her feed bucket all the time gets a bit annoying." He agreed and said he would think about taking it down, but so far it is still hanging on the corral, getting banged.

Ari has been riding Lennox almost every day and says the local trails are really nice. We also have our stock trailer ready to go, so hopefully this week or next we will start riding and exploring the trails.

In the meantime, I am doing some work in my office in the back of the trailer, so I am overall pretty darn happy.

When a Good Stay Turns Bad

 We really enjoyed our first week at the Full Circle Ranch....and then the owners, Jim and Lisa Steffen, arrived. It was downhill from there.

I had booked this place with a 50% deposit for a stay from November 1 to January 31. When I booked the place, I checked out the reviews and website. What I didn't know was that all the reviews were for the previous owners. Jim and Lisa purchased the property in 2019 for around $940,00, with a 20% down. It was a well regarded B&B and horse motel. Apparently, the previous owners, having run the business for more than two decades, were getting divorced and needed to sell. 

Jim is a financial planner in Anoka, Minnesota - a small town of about 20,000 people. I can't imagine there are a lot of people in Anoka requiring a financial planner, but whatever. Jim makes in the low six figures and Lisa is a stay at home mom and trophy wife. Their home in Anoka is worth about $400K and they still owe about $100K on it.

Neither of them have any experience or training in the hospitality business. I have no idea what possessed them to purchase a B&B that is worth twice as much as their home in Minnesota with zero experience running a bed and breakfast.

Regardless, the B&B part of the property is beautiful and I really liked the ambience.

About two months prior to our arrival, Jim called me up and told me that they had decided to stop operating as a B&B and switch over to renting over the entire house as a single unit. We could still stay there, but if there were any paying guests staying in the house, we couldn't use the common areas. I figured with COVID-19 there wouldn't be a lot of paying guests. He said he and his family planned to stay there some of the time we were there and during those times we could use the common areas.

When Jim arrived, he insisted we pay him the entire amount due for the rest of our stay. I asked if we would still be able to use the common areas as long as there were no paying guests in the house and he said, yes.

The next day (now that he had all our money), he said we were no longer allowed in the common areas whenever anyone was in the house - including his family and any friends they may allow to use the property for free. Well, you see where this is going. We complained loudly that this is not what we agreed to and this certainly was not what we were paying for. He said he was charging the same amount as the previous owners. We were paying $1000/month for the RV site and $600 for the spaces for the horses. 

The previous owners provided stall cleaning and free bedding for horses. The previous owners allowed people in the RV site access to the common areas - and they were even allowed inside the house to use those common areas, including the kitchen. So, basically they wanted the same amount of money as the previous owners without providing the same amenities.

There are no laundromats within 30 miles of this place, so there is a small stacked washer and dryer unit in the common area. We were told when we arrived that we could use the laundry area and this was an amenity included in what we were paying.

A few days later (as we continued to badger the owner to either provide a partial refund or let us use the common areas) we were told we could no longer use the washer and dryer.

I was also told that it bothered Lisa when I was talking outside on the phone (the reception is really poor inside the trailer due to interference from the trailer), so we needed to stay inside the trailer except when we were taking care of the horses.

Instead of sitting by the pool, we were told we could sit here. This is the area used by the property manager. The property manager smokes, so we were paying $1000/month to share a smoking area with an employee.

The owner put a padlock on the gate so we could no longer access the laundry room or any of the rest of the property.

The shrubs and cactus at the RV site was so overgrown we had to risk getting scraped to get to our vehicles.

This was the view from the front of the trailer. I spent an hour clearing out cactus because I was tired of getting pricked.

We started looking for an exit. The owner refused to give us a refund and we had given him more than five thousand dollars, but we were not going to spend the next three months being miserable. Every day he was figuring out different ways to harass us. 

We figured that the only way to get our money back was to harass him and if necessary we would have to sue him in court. That's when I looked at Jim's finances and realized that it was highly unlikely he had the money on hand to refund our rent.

Meanwhile we also started searching for a new place to go. We wanted to stay in the outer Phoenix area, so Ari could still see his sister and nieces, so that limited our choices.

I posted on the Road Apple Gang Facebook group (a group for horse people who live in their trailers full-time) to let them know what was going on.

I got dozens of recommendations of places to stay. I narrowed it down to three places and we went to check them out. After our experience with Jim, we didn't want to get caught by surprise again.

Jim called the sheriff on us complaining we were trespassing because we were trying to access the common areas. We explained to the sheriff what had happened. The sheriff called Jim and told him to refund our money so we could leave.

We found a private barn about 90 minutes from Cave Creek in San Tan Valley for $650/month. There is no pool or hot tub here, but since we weren't being allowed to use the pool and hot tub at Full Circle Ranch, we weren't really downgrading.

The horses are sharing this large space - yes, all that space for the two horses and they have some shade.

Our RV site is now cactus and shrubbery free. 

Jim refunded us $4,000 of the money we paid him. He kept the remainder of our money for the eighteen days we stayed there. He probably thinks he is ahead of the game because he still ripped us off for that short stay. But, poor, poor Jim does not know how to use social media.

So far, I have written reviews of our stay on TripAdvisor and Yelp. More than one Facebook group for equestrian travelers now knows to avoid the Full Circle Ranch. I have filed a complaint with the local Better Business Bureau. I have contacted websites that advertise B&Bs and informed them that the Full Circle Ranch should be delisted.  He may have succeeded in ripping us off, but his shabby treatment of us is going to cost him a heck of a lot more.  According to one of my Facebook groups, he has already had three cancellations based on my review. Maybe he doesn't care. Maybe he bought the Full Circle Ranch to be a vacation home and a place where he can entertain the clients he overcharges for bad financial advice. Whatever, we no longer have to deal with him.

Overall, we feel lucky. We have stayed at more than 100 horse sites and this is our first truly awful experience. We have a better idea of how to protect ourselves from crooks and we will be a lot more careful when we spend an extended period of time anywhere.

Staying in Cave Creek

 

If we are going to spend three months some place, we are going to need food for the horses. We ordered a mix of alfalfa and grass as well as a couple of bags of supplements and grain. 

Lennox enjoyed the delivery and made sure to sample each bale as it made it's way past him.

The first week of our arrival temps were in the high 90s, so we didn't ride. As soon as the heat wave broke, we hit the trails. We are able to ride to the Maricopa Trail from the ranch. I am not a big fan of the trails so far as they are pretty rocky and not all that pretty.

Ari has been using an app called Gaia on his phone to make sure we are on the right trail.

Our next excursion took us to the Go John Trail, which was a bit prettier with some nice views, but the trail started to get narrow as we headed towards the Overton Trail, so we ended up heading back.

I have been really enjoying the wildlife in the area. Here is a roadrunner, but no coyotes in sight. We hear the local coyote pack howling and yipping most evenings.  We have seen a few coyotes as we are driving or riding, but they run into the shrubbery as soon as they spot us.

I ordered this decal on etsy.com and we really like it. 

So, I have decorated our trailer with a few decals. The two decals on the left are from a BLM group in Oakland. I have been supporting them with donations here and there and the decals are their thank you.

I read on a US Trail rider blog post that putting decals on your trail can act as a theft deterrent. Thieves don't want trailers that are easily identifiable.

I needed an office space to work, so we scrubbed down the back of the trailer where we keep the horses and converted it into a nice office space for me.

I am very happy and comfortable in my new office.

We want to be able to trailer to different trails in the area. We looked at trailer rentals as well as used trailers, but the prices were easily double what we would pay in the Bay Area and not really a good option. So, we ended up paying a guy to bring our stock trailer out from California and he will take it back when we leave here. We like this option a great deal - it's about the same price as renting a trailer for a month and we get a trailer that we are familiar with and like.

Our stock trailer arrives next weekend, so we are anxious to start exploring the area.