Wading in Poland Springs

Here we are, making it into Range Pond just under the RAC wire. What an incredibly GORGEOUS day we had in Maine today. We weren't the only ones with ideas of spending some time on the lake. AhD found motorboats fascinating.See the little blip out there?

The saddle pad and my leggings were a bit wet as we happily emerged from the pond.

It was quite an enjoyable ride through the trails to the pond. We rode through this beautiful stand of pines. Talk about heaven to the senses!

We hung out at Estes Bog for a while and rested our legs. We did NOT go in here. We would have sunk in. I saw a couple of fish jump. There was a nice fire pit, and we are going to go back and toast some marshmallows. I bet AhD will like marshmallows as much as I do. Here we are standing on a VERY narrow causeway, where the bank drops off very steeply on both sides. Kind of creeped me out the first time we passed over it, but now I can stop and admire the incredible beauty.
Here are a couple more pictures of the trails. It seems the trails in Poland Spring are never ending.

AhD was very well behaved with Ulla's Morgan Gabby. During one rest break, Gabby took a swift kick at AhD, but he just backed out of her way. He was a very well behaved boy! In the last two days, he's taken a liking to snatching leaves on the trail again, and I have been trying to nip this in the bud to no avail. He is very sneaky about it, too. We jumped three logs in a row on the way out to the pond, and that was FUN! I felt like we were running a cross country course. I also threw in an RAC challenge just before I dismounted to load AhD in the trailer (sorry, no self-loading yet, still working on that one). I backed AhD fluidly about 20-30 steps! I'm pretty happy about that. He goes very well with this funky bit-hackamore thingy that Lesly is loaning me. I think maybe I will try him in a curb bit tomorrow because he has really gotten the hang of neck reining. AhD was an absolute doll today. We trotted quite a bit and threw in a canter here and there...and it was ALL good!