Hay Creek Ranch - Oracle, AZ

 

You take a narrow winding dirt road to get into Hay Creek Ranch, but overall the road is not too bad. 

There are easily 20 LQs here and a lot of equestrians. This is probably the most equestrians we have seen in months. Everybody appears to be actively riding as well.

Some of the campers say they got here in October and plan to stay through March.

Most of the horses are in covered stalls. 

When we first arrived, there were no stalls available, so our two horses shared a large round pen. There was no cover, but it was fine. The next morning they were assigned to some stalls when some campers moved out.

I had a doctor's appointment on the day before we arrived. X-rays show that what had been a partial fracture is now a complete fracture and the bones are now farther apart and mis-aligned. So, instead of the break healing, it had gotten worse over the past three weeks. The doctor says it is looking more probable that we are looking at a nonunion fracture - where the fracture doesn't heal. He recommended a device that promotes bone growth to see if that would work. The device has a pretty good success rate - close to 90%. Otherwise, I would be looking at possible surgery in about four months. 

Now, Ari and I had to make a choice. We figured we had three options. Option 1: Bag the trip. Head back to California. Get proper treatment for my fracture and possibly try our trip again in six to nine months. Option 2: Stay in Arizona and wait out the four months to see if I would need surgery, and if I needed surgery, it would be a minimum of 12 weeks before I would be able to ride. Option 3: Stay the course, keep our travel itinerary, use the bone healing device on the road, continue to stay off my feet as much as possible. The doctor said I could ride as long as I didn't overdo it.

So, this morning we went on a ride out of the camp. We did the Ridgeline Trail, which is a relatively flat, easy ride. 

We only rode for about two hours 

We met some fellow campers coming back from their morning ride as we headed out.

I was in a considerable amount of pain by the time we got back from the ride, but I was glad to get out. I think this may be doable as long as we keep the rides relatively short and we don't ride every day.