Windmill Cattle Ranch - St Ignatius, MT

 

Another horse motel as we work our way down into Utah.

Windmill Cattle Ranch is a very nice place for a layover. The owner even mucked out the stalls for our horses and the stalls are super clean.

Mercy and Lennox are in adjoining stalls with their own shelters. The stalls are good sized. Plenty of room and very nice.

We have water and electric hook-up for our trailer and the wifi is excellent. We were able to play bridge on-line with our friends for the first time in about a week. 

There is an issue with the water connection, but not sure how to fix it yet. Water comes into the trailer, but doesn't come out of the tap.

Of course, when provided with so much nice cushy sand the first task is to take a good roll in it.

The horses are getting used to  having cows near by. No more Scottish Highland cows, just good ol' American cattle. Windmill hosts a roping clinic on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Not sure if we will join in tomorrow. I tore my rotator cuff a few weeks into this trip and my right arm is still not 100%. Even when I am 100%, I am lousy with a lariat.

On Monday,we took a drive to the nearby Bison Reserve hoping to see some wild bison. We were not disappointed.

How's that for up close and personal? We also saw our first wild elk on this trip.

 

Bailey's Bed 'N Bale - Whitefish, MT

 

This morning when I took Mercy out of the pasture he had a new cut over his right flank. Unfortunately, it is where the saddle pad goes, so I am not riding him until the wound heals a little Ari is going to have to ride solo until it heals a little more. He probably scraped it on a rock in the pasture when he lied down.

The horses are sharing a large cattle pasture and seem to like it a great deal

Lennox feeling pretty cozy in the cattle hay under a shelter.

In the pasture next to the horses are several Scottish Highland cattle. They are adorable. They remind me of Star Wars creatures. Ari is feeding one of them a horse treat.

Here are the cattle.

Mercy in the pasture.

The horses have plenty of space and lots of shade.

There are a few places with grass, but mostly the pasture is rocks, dirt, and cow pies.

Ari took a picture during his solo ride to show what the trails are like. They are mostly logging trails, but pretty.

We are about 5 miles outside of Whitefish and about 40 minutes from Glacier National Forest. We went into Whitefish yesterday and walked around the downtown, ate a pizza at the Tap House, and went grocery shopping. Groceries are really cheap compared to California. 

Last Day at the Flying Moose and Battle Scars on Mercy

 In the dark, I hadn't been able to fully check Mercy, but the next morning as we saddled up I could see that when Mercy jumped the rail, he had scraped both rear legs going over. 

This is one reason you groom and check your horse before saddling up. It's an opportunity to look for any wounds your horse may have gotten overnight. The scrapes weren't deep enough to require stitches. Mostly I worry about infections and scarring. I cleaned the wounds and sprayed on a protective band-aid to keep the flies out. He isn't lame and he was able to ride.

We rode some old logging trails Tammy showed us the previous night.

Said a final farewell to Lake Rogers and stopped to eat some of the grass on the shore.

Midnight Escape at the Flying Moose

 We knew when we arrived that the corral our hosts were providing was risky. See how Mercutio is leaning over that top rail. We said - if our horses wanted to, they could just jump over and be out.

1 am this morning we heard running hoofbeats. We got dressed in a hurry and went out. Sure enough, Lennox was still in the corral, but Mercutio was AWOL. Lennox was fit to be tied. He was pacing and upset. I don't know if he was worried over Mercutio or upset that Mercutio was having a walkabout without him. I searched and searched and couldn't find him. Then, Ari heard noises on the hill above us. Sure enough, Mercutio was up there eating grass. He let me catch him easily. We thought about tying the horses to the trailer for the night, but that would be kind of hard on them, so we brought out the portable corral. We put our portable corral up to block the low rails and keep the horses in. We were back in bed by 2 am.

I am glad both horses are safe and that should be a lesson to us...if our gut tells us that a corral isn't secure - bring out the portable corral. We've done it before, so it's not like we don't know better.

The Flying Moose - Kila, Montana

 The Flying Moose is a listing on horsemotel.com. Horsemotel.com is one of the resources I use when trying to locate layovers or places to stay on my way to my final destination. This property is fairly new. Tammy and Alex are still in the process of building their home and racing against time, trying to get a roof on before the snow starts.

Our first challenge was getting our rig into their property. We ended up backing in so we would be faced the correct way when we leave. Tammy had said that we would have no problems with our LQ and I can only say I appreciate her optimism and faith in Ari's ability to back up a trailer. I would not recommend LQs over 30'. We have water and electricity for the trailer, so we are happy.

Our horses are in a large corral.

One section of the corral is using logs, which is quaint, but they need to add one more higher rail. If Mercutio was so inclined, he could just jump out to get to the grass he wants to eat.

I looked out the window this morning to see a doe casually walking by looking for something to eat.

We rode to Lake Rogers from the property. There are no trails to speak of. We basically rode on the road and bushwacked through some woods to get to the lake.

The horses did fine with the water. Lennox even splashed a bit.

We are back to clear (non-smoky) skies.

These are the woods we bushwacked through.

Tomorrow we head to another horse motel near Glacier Park outside of Whitefish, MT.

Sloway Campground - St Regis, MT

 We drove straight through Idaho (our FOURTH state) and into Montana (our FIFTH state). It is only around 70 miles across the section of Idaho we drove through, so not worth stopping.

This campground is just meant to be a short stop before we head up to the "real" riding. We needed a place to overnight with the horses before heading up to other stops. 

There is a horse campsite available here. Getting into the campsite is tricky as you have to drive through the non-equestrian site and there are trees throughout. Our 35' LQ barely managed it. Once you get into the campsite, it is no problem - although there are large rocks in the ground that you have to watch for so you don't take out any tanks under your trailer.

The horses have a large round pen with two nice feeders. The corral had a couple of wheelbarrows of manure in it left behind by previous campers. 

I spent a good hour cleaning the corral but it was worth it because it is a nice space for the horses.  No manure pile - you just throw the manure anywhere.

There is no electric, but there is water. The water is located in the main campground, so we put the buckets we use for the horses into the truck and drove to the campground to fill them up.

Here's Ari filling the buckets in the back of our truck.

Here's our trick for filling and carrying water buckets. We use large garbage bags and fill them with water, then close the bags with bale twine. That way the water doesn't slosh out when we are carrying it.

We hauled the buckets into the round pen. 

Lennox was super thirsty and he kept pushing his nose into the garbage bag trying to get to the water. It was like he was punching a giant water balloon with his nose and he was getting annoyed because - no water- where's the water?

Finally I got the bag open and pulled out the garbage bag so he could drink. 

There are trails here, but they aren't that great. Our campsite is right next to the Clark River. The afternoon temps here have been in the triple digits, so in the late afternoon Ari and I put on our swimsuits and just sat in the water. It was cold, but it felt wonderful.

The campsite is right next to the highway, so there is traffic noise. There are also train tracks on the other side of the river, so we were worried the trains would keep us awake, but the last train went by around 10 pm, so we were OK.

No cell service, but our Winegard has internet and our Dish satellite works.

I would recommend this campsite as a layover, but don't plan to spend a great deal of time here since the trails are pretty limited. We located the trails using Google Satellite images.

Second day in Riverside State Park

 On our second day at Riverside State Park, we did our morning ride on the other side of the park going through the day rider area and then along the river. The trails were a bit rockier and as we climbed up the ridge parallel to the river, the trails got very narrow. Narrow to the point Ari felt he had to dismount and walk, so we turned around at that point and called it done.

You can see a peek of the river in the upper left of this picture, but mostly you can see how narrow the trails got.

We rode past the sewage treatment plant. No smells and it was pretty cool to see.

You can see the Spokane River on the left.

Ari, Lennox and the Spokane River in the background

After lunch, we decided to play tourist a bit. We have never been to Spokane, so we wanted to see a bit of it. We opted to do the Numerica Skyride - a cable ride that takes you over the Spokane Falls.

This is a video of the falls.

After the ride over the waterfalls, we walked down to visit the Garbage Goat.

Basically, there is a button on the right side of the goat (you can see it in the picture) that turns on a vacuum. You can then put garbage in the goat's mouth and the vacuum sucks up the garbage. As I recall, the San Diego Zoo has a similar statue that ate garbage.

I am sure little kids find this goat highly amusing.

 

Riverside State Park - Spokane, WA

 We are currently staying at Riverside State Park's Equestrian Area campsite and we are the only campers here - other than the camp hosts. This is a shame and more equestrians need to come and enjoy this park.

The corrals are good sized. We are keeping each horse in their own corral as they get along better when they are near each other but not on top of each other. They can share a pasture, but not a corral.

Here's our campsite. Plenty of room for our trailer. We have electrical hook-up. There is water close by, but no water hook up.

The trails are very nice, well maintained and easy to follow.

Yesterday we rode along the Spokane River.

This is me on the airfield outside of the RV park where we were staying.

This picture is from yesterday next to the Spokane River

Getting closer to the Spokane River.

Finally getting our toes wet in the Spokane River. The bank is pretty rocky.

We are going to play tourist this afternoon after our morning ride and see some of the sights in Spokane.